Core Sound 17 #221

[Howard]

Ray,

After Howard's reply about being careful when measuring, I went to a car paint wholesale house yesterday and bought some measuring cups. They are idiot proof which is what I need, because I too might forget where I'm at when mixing. They were only 47 cents each, not too bad in my book. I will, however, be more careful not to mix so much next time. Over mixing is a lot more costly than a 47 cent cup.

I wouldn't buy anything very expensive as far as mixing cups are concerned. These are my "calibrated" cups. Use a clean one of the same style inside these. The little cups I use once and toss. They are marked on the side and I highlight those so I can see them. You can accurately mix up very small batches with those. Good for filling one screw hole, etc. I pump out of the gallon jugs into them, but I don't measure by the "pump". Also good when the jug is running low and won't pump, but mucho resin or hardener remains and you don't want to toss it, or mix it in with the new. You can buy the calibrated cups, but I always had trouble getting them cleaned up to use again. Easier to use the others and pitch em.

[Randy C.]

Charlie,

If I'd spent the night on a boat last night it'd better have had a heater. You lucky dog, for being able to sleep on your boat, and for it being warm enough. Although, I wouldn't want to trade summers with you, but then I know you wouldn't want to trade winters with me!! You just have to learn to see the beauty of snow and ice. It really CAN be beautiful, but mostly it's cold and the roads are slick.

Howard,

That's a pretty ingenious system for measuring.

[Charlie Jones]

Randy- I spent May 1962 through May 1963 in Keflavik, Iceland. Flew into Germany in the wintertime.. Also into Norway, above the arctic circle.

Sure, snow is lovely- in a postcard. I hope to NEVER see it again. And my wife hopes for twice that long before SHE does.

And you learn to tolerate the heat

;D

[Randy C.]

Charlie,

Oh, come on, have you never gone skiing in the Rockies? It's breathtaking. Truth is, I love the outdoors. Whether it's skiing, motorcycling, boating, or just mowing the lawn, I like being outside.

[Greg Luckett]

I could hear the whine in Charlie's voice all the way up here in Michigan when he had 8 inches of snow at his house a while back. ;D

[Charlie Jones]

It was a blasted FOOT of snow, on Christmas eve too. First recorded snowfall here in over 10 years.

Of course, on New Years day, Laura was back into shorts and sleeveless blouses.;D

She ( and I ) were MUCH happier with that. Durn cold ruined a stalk of bananas ripening on one of the trees.

[Greg Luckett]

Randy- I spent May 1962 through May 1963 in Keflavik, Iceland. Flew into Germany in the wintertime.. Also into Norway, above the arctic circle.

Sure, snow is lovely- in a postcard. I hope to NEVER see it again. And my wife hopes for twice that long before SHE does.

And you learn to tolerate the heat

;D

Charlie, did you know they shut Kef down?  About 2 years ago if memory serves me.  It was a God forsaken place in many ways but I enjoyed the heck out of it most of the time....contrasted to being on a ship for 3 years before that.  I spent two years there in the Icelandic Ground Defense Force and Public Works.  Lots of outside fun....yuck.

[Randy C.]

I finally finished doing the rest of my scarf joints and got them glued up tonight. Hopefully, I can layout and  cut the hull this weekend.

[Greg Luckett]

Randy C., It sounds like it should be a fun weekend for you. 

Have you lofted anything before?

[Randy C.]

Greg,

I've done curved sidewalks. Does that count? Highly unlikely!!

The only lofting I've done was cutting out the temporary bulkhead. I've also cut the transom, and the foreward and aft bulkheads. They all turned out real good. I used a piece of wood about 3/8 x 1/2. 

I've done arcs, but I made a jig to use for that.

I tried to post some pictures of the scarf joint and the measuring cup that I bought at the paint shop. The pictures were too big, they wouldn't load.

[Greg Luckett]

I always need to reduce my pics before posting too.  Currently I am using Adobe Photoshop, and there use to be some links here for a photo reducing software of some sort.  This is a common problem for folks when first posting so my guess is that if you hunt around these forums a bit you will locate it.  If I find it I will send you the link.

[Garry]

Microsoft Power Toys is a good image resizer that can do one or a group of pics at once. I've used and it's easy to use:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Picase looks like a good all around photo organizing and processing program. I just now downloaded it and it looks like it would be easy to use. It easily scanned my computer for all photos and organized them into albums (it doesn't move them, just views them as an album). It's also a free download.

http://picasa.google.com/index.html

[Charlie Jones]

We have the full Adobe Photoshop also- Laura uses it with her art work. But it's far more complex than I need for resizing and other stuff on pics for the web. So she got me a free download of a program called Paint. It's at Paint.net, it's free and it's simple to use. That's the only thing I use now.

[Randy C.]

Thanks for all the picture help. I'll try again this weekend.

[Randy C.]

My weekend was much busier than I had planned. I finally got the bottom cutout and planed to the lines. I made a 20' lofting stick to draw the lines by scarfing 2 - 10' pieces together. It seemed to work pretty good. The curves all look like they're supposed to, I guess. I'm taking pictures and will post(I promise) when I get some help. I really did try to load last night, but no luck. I did get Picasa loaded, but?? I just learned how to use the camera. I'll be OK after I actually watch somebody do it. I can't seem to keep up with technology.

[Randy C.]

OK. Here is a picture of the bottom. I had to load from a different computer. For some reason pictures won't load from mine. I used Picasa to downsize to 37kb, but still wouldn't load.

[Randy C.]

These are pictures of doing the scarf joints.

[Randy C.]

This is one of the measuring cups I picked up for 47 cents.

[Randy C.]

I got the seat stringers glued and screwed in place tonight. The plans said to cut the stringers 18'6". That would have put them past the hull sides on both ends. I ended up cutting them just under 15'. It seemed like it turned out like the plans show??? I hope to have it 3-D by next week. I've been pretty busy at work lately and haven't had much time or energy to work on it in the evenings.

Charlie,

I looked up the Texas 200 web site today. It looks like FUN!!! It always better to go somewhere than to go in circles on a lake. How wide are the water lanes, I can't really tell by the pictures? They look pretty narrow in places, are they?

[Charlie Jones]

Randy- in the bays and the Laguna Madre, there can be miles of water, some of it quite thin, but miles wide. In the land cuts it can get pretty narrow, like a couple hundred feet or less. Just depends on where you are. But even in the land cuts, the shores are low and grassy, with just a few scrubby trees, so the wind is still there.

Look at the Tex 200 website and check out the route. There's a google link there you can zoom in on and see the differences.