29 Dec 25:
I was describing how it is easy to get bogged down in the tasks involved with "the work before the work" to a friend at NASA, and he said they call that "yak shaving." Yak shaving is a metaphor for getting sidetracked by a chain of seemingly unrelated, often minor tasks that become necessary to complete a primary goal, leading you far from the original objective, like needing to fix a printer (yak) before you can print a document (actual task). In our latest yak shaving adventure, I needed to varnish a little bench. But first I needed to find a flat surface to put the bench on while I varnished it, and the work bench seems hopeless for the moment.
But before there can be varnish there must be sanding...and dust collection. Ah look, here is a flat surface, our utility trailer. I can sand here but not varnish, it is too cold for varnish outside.
While I was in the Boat Works I decided to clean off a small folding table to use as the varnish table, but it was covered in thwarts, a rudder and a tiller. So the thwarts found a home back in the Bahamas Dinghy, but the tiller and rudder distracted me for a bit as I contemplated whether or not to sand, stain and varnish them while I was varnishing the small bench. That led me over to look at samples of wood stain and wander into the house to find Skipper to see if she had a preference on a shade of stain. She sent me back out to focus on just varnishing the small stool and getting HENNING ready for the Float Test.
Next I made a decision to use bronze screws to fasten the thwarts, and noticed a small tin of screw lube that we had been sent as a sample. I decided to try it, and it works as advertised...How is the varnishing going?
No varnish has been applied yet, but the folding table is clear. The temp is not warming up anywhere near forecast, still in the low 40°F range, forecast 61°F, so I rounded up the varnish, brush, and bench and moved them inside the house to get them warmed up to good varnishing temp, and we'll varnish in the warmer garage or possibly in the house.
To put the bronze screws in I decided to use this Kobalt ratcheting screwdriver. As I was taking a photo I noticed that it said 13-in-1 on the side and I thought "Hmmm, 13-in1, what's that about?" I knew that there were bits stored in the handle but not 13 of them. So I dug in and found out that there were six more smaller bits hiding under the six long bits, held together by an extension bit, Eureka!
Still no varnish on the small bench, but we are advancing on our secondary goal of getting HENNING ready for an adventure. Some of the thwart screw holes had been filled with THIXOFLEX as they were too chowdered up, so today was the day to redrill and countersink the holes. A Fuller combination pilot/countersink bit did the trick. For hard wood I like to drill one size bigger for the thwart hole, that gives the screw extra clearance and reduces splitting, and there is still plenty of grip in the attaching surface underneath. I also use the calibrated MKI eyeball to gauge how deep to countersink, based on what size screws we a re using. Today we used #10 x 1 1/2" silicon bronze screws from Fair Wind Fasteners.
How's the varnish going? Not done yet, but HENNING is ready to move over to the boat dolly on the utility trailer, remember, the trailer I had to repair the trailer lights on a few days ago...
...so I guess in all fairness the varnish project is the "yak shaving" project going on while I slowly inch HENNING towards the trailer. There is a winch battery charging too, but that is another story.
The weather guessers promised us light wind, 61°F and sunshine, it never made it past the mid 40s and stayed cloudy all day. I don't think I've ever seen that big of a miss on a forecast, other than when the Cat III hurricane hit us in Navarre, a storm that was supposed to make landfall 150 miles west.
Here is a link to the weather forecast we used at tide-forecast. If you have a better source, please post in the comments.
Cheers,
Clark and Skipper
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