Team

Another full day of work was done in the marathon build-a-yak in 10 days. We marked out every panel the day before so the day was meticulous cutting using jig saws and fine fininshing blades, going slow and following the lines. During the cutting Wild Bill came over bringing Tom Marshall who is getting things ready for building a stripper Night Heron. Originally I tried to get him to build a SG Night Heron just to test the building waters, but looking at my yak and the others I made, and the pounding it has gotten he's got to have a stripper, too. We spent a little time talking about the in's and outs, and I whipped out on scrap paper a series of plans to make a supporting leg cradles for the strongback and what to look for in a strong back. Of course, I offered my services to help when he needs it (that's 5 kayaks being built now). They left and we're back to cutting when, like a tornado's noise and swirl comes a red car packed with kayak gear, a snad covered surf ski strapped down on top. Yes...it's the Wild Man, here comes Sage. It's always good to see the guy, and soon we're yakking about yaks, and the timeline went to hell. But Sage had a ton of ideas and was running from side to side as we cut the pieces out. Sage the runaway nuclear reactor that he is, had been surfing the waves in Carlsbad, then rocketed down to help out, then had to rocket home to install fin boxes. That's Sage...just thinking about it makes me tired.
Our cutting had came down to the last peices when disaster struck. Dave piece started slipping off the table and when it got to the scarf joint, broke across just beyong the joint, the glue joint itself tight and sound. That's the way it goes with scarf joints, they break next to the glue joint when stressed. So we finished all the reemaining cuts and I wanted to do a butt joint and glue a 4 mm patch on the inside, then after curing, sand the patch smooth to a low profile bump. Dave looked at the remaining plywood, looked at the peices and demanded that we scarf the remaining plywood panel to the longest peice that broke. The lucky guy...it just barely had the room. I set the pieces up to scarf, then just couldn't sit their and watch the World Series. Dave was watching me and saw me fidgeting, and when I got up he knew I couldn't go to sleep without working on the joint. I jumped in the car and drove home to get everything I needed and worked at the joint, making a perfect joint of razor edges and slopes. The glue-up fisnished the night followed by planning the next day's work.
As an aside we kept smelling a fire somewhere in the darkness. It's been very hot in So Cal, and this morning as I write this our area of San Diego is surrounded by three growing fires: Chula Vista, Ramona and Lakeside. The ash is thick on the ground and falling out of the sky and there's the blackness of approaching storm northeast all the way around to south southeast. The stellite phone's been blinking and there's 13 E-mails from Rikki. How can we possibly stay and work on the yak with all the ash in the air. How? We have a mission, to build a yak in 10 days!

Today is sanding the pieces, staining, setting up the cradles and accesories, and starting to stitch when the glue cures on the repair. More later..