Me and My Boat: Two Words for You, “Glue Gun”

Two words for you, “Glue Gun;” now why didn’t I think of that?  Just another suggestion supplied to me by Tim.  And you know what, that thing worked great.  It just so happens that we already owned one, which Marcia had acquired for her scrapbooking.  Above and beyond scrapbooking, the glue gun works good for securing wire, mounting navigation lights, and overhead fixtures.  A truly versatile tool. 

Friday night I found myself working on the boat once again.  Using the glue gun, I mounted the wires to the bulkhead with only a few difficulties and some burns sustained to my fingers as I held the wires in place.  That glue’s hot!  In a few instances I had to apply more glue to a particular section to insure that the wires stayed in place.  There is no arguing that the glue gun was much more effective then putting the other adhesive on and having to clamp the wires.  That technique was effective but slow.   In a mire fraction of the time that it took me the previous evening I had all the wiring mounted. 

I then painted that rest of the cabin.  The white with blue trim looks good.  My son wasn’t too happy with me because I closed down his playground due to wet paint.  Sorry buddy.  No worries, he’ll be crawling around in the boat in no time.

On Saturday, I did more painting, fixing my experiment with the trim.  It is now all black, at least on the top.  I still have to get the bottom done.  At least it doesn’t look as spastically gay as it did with the yellow and semi orange color highlights. 

Painting has to be one of my least favorite activities involved with the boat; surpassed only by sanding.  I much prefer the more constructive aspects of the project like, mounting the hatches, building the interior, or burning my fingers with hot glue.  Painting is just too monotonous.  However, I have to admit that it is ‘the paint’ which makes the boat. 

I also applied silicon to the interior of the rivet line.  I hope that it prevents the boat from filling with water when I’m healed over at sixty degrees due to the ridiculously large Genoa that the modifications (bowsprit) have been made for.  I still have to crawl into the aft berths and finish up, but there’s no rush.  I am confident that by the time it is warm enough to actually use the boat; all of the needed tasks will have been completed.

While in the midst of doing the various tasks on the boat, Tim arrived.  He and I then cracked the first beer of the day.  Production was limited due to the wet paint, so there wasn’t much Tim could help with.  I don’t think he minded.  We talked boat and what needed to happen to make it work.   

Red & Green Lights

The next day was to be a milestone in the refurbishing effort.  I got all the lights mounted and working.  My jury rigging efforts were put to the test and the end result passed with flying colors (green & red). 

It all came down to getting the lights up and working.  I had the fixtures and reasonably good idea of how to make it all work.  It was now time to put it to the test.  First however, I was missing a key piece; back to Menards.

With my little side trip taken care of I could then get down to it and make my lights.  I had to buy another night light to cannibalize, but with that in hand I was ready to go.  I proceeded to remove the plastic cover from the nightlights and then see how much I would have to modify them. 

The plastic cover fit perfectly into the teardrop shaped fixture for the navigation lights.  It was designed to enhance the light via the grooves in the plastic, which was nice, but not necessary, as long as it worked.  The covers were too big to fit right off the bat, but with about a ¼ inch removed; they would work.  Looks like another job for my handy dandy Dremel tool. 

I carefully secured the plastic cover on the work bench and then began to cut.  I made sure that I left plenty of room for error.  I could always cut more off but didn’t want to have to glue any of it back together.  To that aim, I bought an extra night light just in case.  It’s always good to have spare parts.