Setback, part II

Well, both rub rail joints failed.
Perhaps predictable, but nonetheless slightly disheartening. Of course, some words of encouragement from Fred:

Don't worry. It need not be fatal. And if you are too ill-at-ease, you can always repeat that step with new material.

"It need not be fatal." Implication: it probably will be.

That's exactly what I'm going to do: start again with new cuts. 6" on either side of the joint. Then I'm going to set them and leave them for several days.

Just when I'm getting discouraged, Fred comes through with a beautifully-written paragraph on the mitre cut:

Once, long ago, when I was working for Pierre Cayard, the longtime head of the SF Opera Scene Shop (originally called the Cayard-Kotcher studios), the father of Paul Cayard, the renowned blue water sailor, and a fine sailor and craftsman himself, he gently criticized me for repeatedly walking over to the chop saw to cut 45deg mitres. "Why," he said in his thick French accent, "do you not use the reflection cut?" He demonstrated: with the hand saw poised to cut, align the blade so that the board and its reflection on the steel form a 90deg angle. Voila. I began to suggest that the time it took to walk the few steps to the chop saw were mitigated by the infinitely repeatable accuracy and cleanliness of the machine cuts; I stopped. I embraced, at least for that day, the reflection cut.

It will all be okay. I've lost about 6" in total linear length so far. So my 16' rails are down to 15'6". I will lose another 6" in this new scarf joint, but that will be okay - that will leave me with 15' rails for a 14'6" pirogue.

All good.

On the plus side: all of the fiberglassing materials arrived today. I have a long roll of glass, and the various epoxies and other ancillary supplies. (I haven't yet opened the box. A glass of Connemara Irish single malt got in the way.)

The plans look so easy. But I have no real clue how I'm going to complete the next step: cutting 10" sideboards from the 4x8 sheets. I have some sawhorses . . . I clamp down the plywood and measure out my sides . . . But I'm cutting with a handsaw. I predict more frustration in my future. (So much so that I have added a sub-section to this Log: "Setbacks".)

But I am going to have a boat. This summer. Before September, I will be on the DuPage river in a boat of my own making.

Mark. My. Words.