Building a Chesapeake Light Craft Northeaster Dory -- Wet Sanding and a Second Coat of Varnish

Wet sanding. A strange and unfamiliar concept to me. My entire cabin is built of wood, mostly tongue-in-groove pine, and since nearly all of that wood has been left unpainted and exposed, I grew to be intimately familiar with a belt sander and the huge quantities of dust it kicks out. Thus, I was both surprised and delighted by wet sanding. When using 220, 320, and 400-grit sandpaper, it is a surprisingly peaceful activity. There is no roar of the motor -- no dust to breathe or try to avoid by wearing an uncomfortable mask. Instead, one is constantly bathing one's hands in a soothing basin of warm water and gently caressing the maidenly curves of the "Susan Lee."

After sufficient fondling of the hull, I got down to the sticky business of applying the second coat of varnish. And it did not go well. Earlier, in applying epoxy, I found I could reuse my "paint" dishes, so I tried the same thing with the varnish. In fact, I even tried to reuse the foam brush which I had stored with a bit of paint thinner in a sealed plastic bag. Everything went well at first, but after a short time, the fresh varnish in the dish seemed to loosen up some of the dried varnish lining the dish. As soon as I started seeing little specks in my freshly applied varnish, I called a halt, threw away the brush, and switched to an unused, clean paint dish. Even so, I continued to have some minor problems with mini-drips and "holidays." I was able to lay on a good coat of varnish and I can fix most of the little drips by sanding before the next coat. But I'm not thrilled. Oh, I'd certainly be satisfied to have a finished boat looking just as it does at the moment, but I can imagine it looking better.

So, I'll try to make the third coat even better. And I'm fairly confident that the fourth coat of satin varnish will effectively conceal a host of minor flaws. But only time will tell.

Some imperfections visible in reflected light

Generally smooth finish

Minor imperfection in reflected light upper left

Building a Chesapeake Light Craft Northeaster Dory -- Sanding and Varnishing

"Sanding can be seen as drudgery, or it can be a sculpture exercise, depending upon your outlook." John Harris

I tried -- I really did try -- to be motivated by the advice that opens this blog entry. I was thoroughly pleased with the way my dory turned out after being coated with fiberglass. And I moved on to sanding the interior with a good heart. The goal was to sand every inch of the interior until it was entirely smooth and the gloss of the epoxy was turned cloudy by the sandpaper.

The best I could do was to get most of the interior quite smooth, but some parts of the fiberglass cloth had been coated with a bit too much epoxy by this first-time builder. Then the fiberglass cloth tends to float in the pool of liquid epoxy. If one subsequently tries to sand these lumpy areas down to the level of the rest, one can end up cutting into the cloth itself (a no-no). In addition there were lots of other areas that I could get almost entirely smooth, but once everything was wiped down with mineral spirits, there would still be small, shiny dimples -- like evidence of a mocking smile. 

In building a boat, as in medicine, my first rule is, "Do no harm!" Trying to sand every bit of the boat to a cloudy gray risked sanding right through the epoxy -- especially along the edges of the strakes. In the end I decided it was worse to sand through to bare wood than it was to leave a scattering of shiny dots. I'm hoping that those places have been roughed up enough by multiple sandings and by washing with mineral spirits that they will give provide a good surface for my layers of varnish to grip.

Thus, when we got a 60-degree afternoon last week, I seized the day and applied my first finish coat of varnish. It went on smoothly with only one small streak of drips to sand out later. To my eye the boat looks even smoother and prettier than before. . . . And all of this will be smoothed even more by three more coats of varnish.

So all I ask is another week or two of Indian Summer before winter settles in fully so that I can finish varnishing the entire boat.

A Year on the Road -- Looking Back and Motivating to go Forward

Selfie just after completing 5,000 miles

At the end of a year it can be useful and satisfying to take a look back. Road biking is my fitness activity and my principal recreation. In the past year I . . .

• rode 5,116 miles (my most ever) 
• rode 343 hours ( an average of almost an hour a day)
• climbed 341,341 feet (about 1,000 feet of climbing an hour)

The only other time I have completed 5,000 miles in a year was way back in 2005, when I was newly retired and eager for the good life.

Distance is one measure I use to judge myself in cycling, but time trials are more meaningful. My time trial route in Hand Cove covers 31.2 hilly miles, including the slog up Woods Point and the savage little Cemetery Hill. I consider anything over 16 mph a decent time trial and anything over 17 mph to merit a two-beer lunch. I managed to grind out ten rides in the 16-17 mph range and 7 rides worthy of a two-beer celebration. I averaged 17.8 mph during my fastest time trial of the year. These are good numbers, but not great. In 2009, for example, I had twenty-three time trials averaging over 17 mph and during three of those I averaged over 18 mph. It may be that I'm getting old, but I prefer to believe that I was concentrating on distance this past year. In 2009 my year-end total was just 4,400 miles (about 15% fewer than this year).

Strava allows one to keep track of times on various segments of a route (usually climbs), and 2014 -- not 2015 -- was my big year for setting personal records on the climbs in my area. Still, this past year was not without accomplishments. I logged my third-fastest time up Cemetery Hill (3/20), my third-fastest time up Hand Cove Landing (3/20), and my second-fastest time up Woods Point (12/19). Given how often I climb those hills, anything close to a personal record is a source of smug satisfaction. My longest climb of the year was the 3.1 mile heart-stopper to the top of Bearwallow Mountain south of Asheville, NC. That was definitely a challenge, but nothing like the the 16.7 miles (3,527 vertical feet) of the climb from Mineral Store to Lassen Peak in 2013.

My greatest personal achievement of the year, however, was in finally working up the courage to ride all the way around Norfork Lake. This was a solo ride of 102 miles with 7,900 feet of climbing.

Map and profile of RAN (Ride Around Norfork)

That ride took me 8 hours (7 hours, 10 minutes of moving time) and traversed some of the loveliest blacktop in the area.

In the Jeep at sunrise on the way to start RAN

Matney Mountain

Quarry Landing on Norfork Lake

Nobody ever knows what the new year will bring, but I'd certainly be satisfied if in my cycling it is a rerun of 2015. But I may need a little motivation, so I'll conclude with a few quotes to keep me going:

• "Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable will." -Gandhi
• "Fitness is not about being better than someone else, it's about being better than you used to be."
• "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway." -Earl Nightingale
• "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, 'I'm possible!' " -Audrey Hepburn
• "Things work out the best for those who make the best of how things work out." -John Wooden
• "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." -Albert Einstein