Out of the Basement

Wednesday we pulled the canoe out of the basement for the Paterson Habitat for Humanity Annual Dinner. I had been planning to take it out through the window only to find out that behind the jam I was going to cut out only to find out that the concrete came out another inch on each side behind the trim. So our Habitat construction foreman Don help me pull out the back steps and we took it out the back door. Now I can pull the back steps out in a few minutes and replace them with just a few screws. So the next canoe can be wider ! Great

Here I am in the backyard. It was great to see it in daylight except I saw every little mistake and flaw in the final varnish coats. I'm going to do one more final-final coat soon.
The folks at the Brownstone didn't know quite what to think when we carried in the canoe but we got it upstairs quick before anyone could protest to much. Folks enjoyed looking at it and there will be some kind of online bidding process.
The sign says..."Buy a Boat - Build a House" so make an offer we can't refuse!

Varnishing

Somewhere I read that varnishing is the "glory job" but personally I would describe it as the "gory job". So much work goes into the preparation to create a dust free environment. The only plus is that my wife Debra is very happy that the basement gets so thoroughly cleaned. This time in addition to a complete cleaning I created a virtual plastic tent over and around the canoe.

Once all the preparation is done however the results are beautiful. Here is the center yoke hanging to dry.

No, I am not turning into a sculptor. This is a neat little rack idea I stole from Nick Offerman's free Adobe account of the Bear Mountain Boat he built. I found it somewhere on the Bear Mountain Boat Shop site.

It basically keeps each extension tube for the seats labeled in the right place and they can actually be varnished on the rack simply by spinning them around the headless nail they are mounted on. Pretty cool.
Here is a picture of my "varnishing tent" with the seats hanging in the foreground and the one thwart in the background. I'm using the Epifances varnish that came with the kit and using a foam brush this time to eliminate streaks, runs and hopefully dust. So far so good.
My practice that I tried with the final varnish coats of the kayak is to keep the varnish chamber totally unventilated while I varnish and for an hour afterward. The fumes were not bad and it eliminates any dust particles moving around. After about an hour I have an exhaust fan pulling air through the basement but still not over the canoe. I also pull air from the upstairs and exhaust any of the fumes through the basement. Seems to be working well. First coat on the inside done - 3 or 4 more and then we flip it.