Still Going

I'm like the enegizer bunny when I get out to the marina. I have a lot of other stuff to do including looking for a new job, but the work on my Owens continues. People tell me if I wanted to do this much work I should have bought a Chris Craft, and then the restoration would really be worth the money. But I have actually had a lot of fun and it relaxes me to have something to do with my hands. This project is coming together.

I stained the rest of the wood topside to match what I had already done to the upper brightwork along the side of the cabin. It looks a little better all matching, but I may eventually sand it all off and try to get back to the yellow orange color it started out. I do have a picture of that which I will post here.

The inside of the cabin looked like a wreck, I wish I had taken a picture. It looks a lot better now, and I built a new kicthen countertop for the galley out of plywood. I may laminate some white plastic laminate over that, I haven't decided yet. I'm planning on buying some white vinyl and upolstery tacks and rigging up a headliner of sorts, but consistent with the love for wood this project is all about I am going to install it between the cabin roof rafters leaving wood showing every 18 inches or so. I think the white vinyl withshiny brass tacks will give me a good look consistent with the overall existing design.

Then I'm going to build some storage behind the kitchen counter, and move the original shelf up high so that I canget into that space. I really should rip the original cabinets out since their doors don't close right, and they are not long on storage space, but I'm leaving them as is for now.

I'm going to look for some material for curtains, and maybe rig them with brass rivets or something so I don't have to sew. I always poke myself with the needle when I try to sew, and I'm never happy with the results, so I'm looking for options to get curtains made.

THE ENGINE- it still hasn't started. I've had a copuple of shade tree mechanics look at it, and at this point buying a new battery seems to be the most common advice. I've had battery chargers running for serveral nights without accomplishing anything. Nobody seems to think there is much obviously wrong with it, just that either the battery or the starter is very weak. I'm still holding onto the funds to buy the last of the wood because I feel like the motor has to start before I go there, or it is all pointless.

I'm actually being lazy and taking today to catch up on my writing and send off some internet applications. This was the worst possible time for me to end up out of a job. I'm still not sure what happened. I guess I just didn't make myself enough a part of the clique. I should have made them fire me so that I could at least get unemployment, but I have never really liked being unemployed. I'd rather have a bad job and something to do than be unemployed and sit home depressed watching TV. Despite having invested a lot of time and effort in Degrees, at this point I'd almost rather go back to working with my hands where your job performance is a noticeable tangible real sort of thing, because I did a great job for those people, and they didn't notice, or maybe they just didn't care.

You can't see it in the picture, but there are two coats of epoxy and three coats of white paint on the decks and the top of the cabin. It's not as perfect as I might have liked, and I'll have to do a little caulking where and there to be absolutely certain it is all water-tight, a few of my repairs settled or gave a little. The original decks were put in before the cabin, and if you cut the wood the right size it will not fit into place, so rather than decontructing the whole cabin I just trimmed it and rigged it, and like any rigged up operation I missed some problem spots until they became evident from walking on them.