The Laminator

This week I did actual work on my boat. With a jigsaw, I cut out the station molds, which are plywood forms around which the boat is shaped and built, and cajoled Cary into planing them for me. Planing is right up there with sanding, which is right up there with watching paint dry. Unfortunately, planing is a big part of boatbuilding, so I’ll have to really hone my cajoling skills.

Today I worked on something called a laminating jig. There are two pieces - the forekeel and the midship frame - that are constructed from laminated strips of fir. The laminated pieces must be shaped a particular way, and to achieve that shape, I spent the entire day as follows:
1. Transferred the patterns for the forekeel and midship frame onto plywood.
2. Ripped a two-foot long piece of 2x4 in half, then cut about 20 triangular pieces of wood from those two lengths.
3. Made a run over to the creepy haunted house, namely Yardbirds, to buy screws with which to fasten the triangles to the plywood, only to find out I bought the wrong screws.
4. Made the screws work anyway. This involved creative use of a drill press.
5. Fastened the triangular wood pieces to the plywood along the patterns mentioned in #1. That's like saying, "Finished my master's degree in nuclear physics." Everything that could go wrong, did, and I had to try every drill bit in the house, never to find the right one and had to make another trip to the hardware store. For trip #2, I went to Rex Ace instead of Yardbirds because I can't deal with the Munsters at Yardbirds.

Now I am ready to laminate. Call me The Laminator. I'll be back, but first I must achieve a certain blood margarita level. It is Cinco de Mayo!