A Hard Day's Work

Here are some pictures of my Owens I took today, one shows the staining I did the other day and am not tremendously happy with. The other shows before on the decks, but I haven't done the after shot yet. The decks down the starboard side were soft to walk on down most of the length of the boat, but towards the cabin there was a lot of good wood where it had only rotted a few inches in from the outside edge. It was almost 100 degrees today, and hotter than that inside the cabin. Getting the old wood out took about twice as long as I had expected it to, and was hot, hard, dirty work mostly with a chisel after I used both the circular saw and a hand saw to cut away as much as I could get to. Laying on your back and working several feet overhead with a chsel in 120 degrees or so with bits of rotten wood falling in your face is not my idea of fun, which is why this job got put off so long. I left it with the new wood cut but only partially installed, and in a lot of ways I don't think I did a great job today. I took a lot of breaks, my heart really wasn't in it, and my concemtration was lagging. Most of what I cut is not a perfect fit, and some of it is downright bad. However, if I buy some epoxy and fill the gaps, she should be watertight. I was planning to avoid buying more epoxy if I could because it is expensive, but it will fill even these gaps, and will be the best way to waterproof the topside, so it looks like the expense is justified. Of course that will take several days to get all together, and, of course, it is supposed to rain tomorrow. I promised the old girl this should be the last time she tastes the rain below decks. Anyway, I'm tired, and I need to get these pictures posted and go to bed. I have to work in the morning. Oh well the deck pictures didn't come out too good, that will have to wait.