Hey John, John and Greg

Hey John Monfoe, How's the hi-fi going?

I quick took some additional pics of the figures as they are laid in. Ran em out to the one hour shop. Good excuse to get off the Mt and grab a monster omlet with the kids.

Hey scanned the pictures into picture stage and built a slide show on them.
To access them:

1) go to www.picture stage
2) login as Rkeat94697
3) I have created a guest password: KAYAK

This will allow you read only access to any of my boat pic albums
4) click on the third album down lableled Bidarkia inlay 2
After it loads you can click the run slideshow button on the lower left hand
part of the screen. It will run you through seven pictures of the Inuit transition figures. Ive included tools etc.

Greg, Yeah its turning into a fun project now. The stich and glue thing nearly had me burning the boat. Nice to get back to stripping. It was kind of neat. I had a bard owl stop by, and spend seven days hanging by my shop window. Sort of made all that sanding go down easier. Sort of like having your own private project animist spirit guide. It was fun having lunch every day with the owl. He did the rodents... I stuck to PB&J.....

John Gray, Not sure this boat is going to raise any bars. ITs hard to build a bar raiser on a hybrid. I'll admit this one nearly drove me to the pub a few times. LOL. This boat is just to try out some building methods, I've been palying around with in my head. Tried stich and glue, try using rocks. Play with some spalted wood etc. Its another in a series of experiementations on the way to something I wanted to try....Stay tuned.....

John to answer your questions

: IS THE THICKNESS OF YOUR INUIT FIGURES THE SAME THICKNESS AS YOUR STRIPS AND : YOU INLAY THEM BY CUTTING ALL THE WAY THROUGH YOUR STRIPS OR ARE THEY: THINNER AND YOU CUT THE SHAPE PART WAY INTO YOUR STRIPS TO INSERT THE : INUIT FIGURES?

Roughly speaking they are the same thickness. However because they were put in over a curving deck the thickness changed. Using a caliper and a flat piece of wood gives you the change over distance and the piece can be cut to match. This works best because it gives you all one grain, once the figure is sanded in.

Alternatly, it can be all one depth and where it misses a piece can be made to match that part and then epoxied as backing. This build up gives the depth to reach into the cut out. Both ways work.

My personal prefference is to make the blank the right depth so its monolithic.

To glue in place I put a fresh coat of epoxy around the edge of the piece and the hole in the deck. I do the same with the walnut animal. It lets it soak in better. after the epoxy has thicked a pit I put asecond coat in. Then I fit the animal in place. I then back it with tape. I use the rest of the thickened epoxy on other boats so its not wasted while this is setting up.

Finally I make a fresh batch of epoxy and I use the wood I carved out of the hole from the deck to make saw dust. I sprinkle saw dust into the border of the deck and figure and use an acid brush to soak in fresh epoxy. Thus any any little space is filled even tighter.with the right color.

At his point I have a figure that is above and below the boat deck, I use a sander to knock it down.

THen I sand the figure down the figure to conform to the deck. The same has to be done on the inside.

One of the fun aspects of this has been trying to use the grain to accent the figures. Using round overs for the face. Pin knots for eyes. arches for shoulders. etc. Its a bit of a lottery. Ya guess where the grain is going to go before you sand. I had some real nice surprises. Where the grain did the right thing or did things I didn't plan on. added to the experience.

I put a fresh coat of epoxy in tape it in.

: ROUGHLY WHAT IS THE KENT-MIGHTY-GOOD-METHOD OF LAYING THEM IN?

Well there are boat builders and then there is Kent LeBoutillier. I learn more from him in a 15 minute conversation then he probobly forgets in a year. Two years running now after walking the beach with him I had to run back to my bunk ans start frantically dumping it all to notes. So Kent could probobly tell ya better.

However, roughly what I have done is take his method on patriot missle and apply it to this project. He builds his deck, then cuts the holes out for the over wood he is going to lay in. What he walked me through was the concept of stripping the deck. Then drawing the form to be stripped on paper. Use the paper templet to cut the shape. Then apply the shape to to the boat. Use that to make the shape out line on the boat.

I used a drill to make a starter hole. PS drilling a hole in ones boat is really counter intuitive. Then I made a hand tool using a jig saw blade and a scrape of wood to make a small fine toothed hand saw. Think of a steak knife with a coping saw and you have the right visual. I put it in the drill hole and cut the figure out to within a 16/th of an inch of my border line as it was drawn on the boat. Then I used every rasp and grade of sand paper I had to sand the hole into being perfectly ready to accept the walnut figure. It takes time to sand and test, sand and test. Each figure took me a day. The otter actually took me 3 days.

But it came up nice. Guess that owl was good luck.

!RUSS