A Shipwright in Training

Wow, what a week. I’m exhausted, but in a good way.

And this just in: this little blog is featured at the bottom of the opening page of Wooden Boat’s website! I have no clue as to how they found it as my publicist eloped with a Masai warrior a week ago and they’re opening up an espresso and charred lizard shop down under last I heard. It’ll probably only be there for a week or two, so if it’s not there when you visit, you’ll just have to trust me. If you’re here from there, hi.

A week ago Friday I flew across the country to visit with Emilie and contra dance for 3 solid days. It was a great way to spend the weekend, and we even made time to hike in the research forest near her house.

You just gotta love the way moss and lichens cover everything out there. It was an exhilarating, exhausting, ecstatic weekend. If you go contra dancing in the Corvallis / Eugene area, you’re bound to have a good time.

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Boy, joining up with the Y put a crimp in this little blog.

Typical day: up, head to the Y, go to school, grab some dinner at home, head into work at Jim’s, bed. Sometimes I mix it up and do yoga after school, and those days I get to sleep in until 8. Woo hoo! Since the last post, we had actual snow!! It lasted a few hours, barely, but for a little while our street was a little wonderland.

Home sweet home.

I could also go on about the 4 days we were without heat when the temps were in the teens, but really, enough jibber jabber. Let’s talk boats.

I made myself a new spiling block / thingy out of a chunk of scrap bronze the other day. As you get closer to the shutter plank, the spaces you’re spiling in get smaller and tighter. My wooden spiling block was too big, and it had other problems too that you may or may not get in a minute. So here’s the little feller.

You see that little nubbin that comes out on the lower corner? That hangs over the edge of your spiling stock and sits right flush up against the bottom edge of your installed plank. Thusly:

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