Commander 147

[carl291]

Looks nice Jerry, but it makes me dizzy looking at it. I like the idea of matching wood. Matching wood would seem more period correct. You have made wonderful progress on this Commander,

[Lucky Dawg]

As always, your workmanship is admirable!

I love my teak and holly sole. I say keep it. After an Epifanes treatment... or 10, I think it looks richer and matches better. (with little ones, the steps are a necessity on Lucky Dawg.)

[Commander 147]

So far the responses have been three forths in favor of keeping the teak and holly floor. And of those responses My oldest daughter (the one in the family with the design eye) said keep the teak and holly. My good friend Tom who's opinion I always listen closely to said keep the teak and holly. My other good friend John also said keep the teak and holly. Tim one of my closest friends said he also likes the teak and holly. As shown below Kyle is also in agreement that the teak and holly should stay. And probably the most important my wife the admiral said "it looks fine keep it".

Dissenting views were Carl who believes the mahogany would be more historically correct and my youngest daughter Jennifer who just agreed with her dad.

So since I still have massive amounts of work to do before I finish this project and my goal is to get her in the water this November (knowing full well a lot of things will not be done yet but she will be sailable) I am keeping the teak and holly.

My next major goal is to get the exterior faired, sanded, primed, sanded, faired, sanded, primed, sanded and down to the painter the end of the month. Hope I can pull it off because he wants 2 weeks to paint her and that only leaves me 6 weeks to put her back together and make all of the parts that have not been made yet and paint the mast and boom and assemble all of that along with replacing the standing rigging which has to be cut to length and the bottom mechanical fittings installed and of course install all of the hardware, have the sails made and and, and, and what the heck am I doing sitting here typing when I should be out there working?????????? After all it is only 10:10 PM I have hours left before I go to bed.................

Oh yea, while I have been doing all of this work the admiral has also been busy. She has made me new v-birth cushions, quarter birth cushions and cockpit cushions. There are some photos below. She also has a lot of work to complete before launch time but she is a trooper and will make it happen. My lifetime partner is at least as hard a worker as I am. :-)

[carl291]

Jerry, I know you haven't asked YET but yeah, keep your lifetime partner and the cushions........ OK, and the T&H sole

[Commander 147]

Jerry, I know you haven't asked YET but yeah, keep your lifetime partner and the cushions........ OK, and the T&H sole

Carl

I have been married to Lorraine for almost 41 years so I would find it very difficult to live without her anymore. Probably the reason I did not even think to ask that question. :-)

[Commander 147]

Last night I coated both sides and all of the edges in epoxy for all 4 parts of the new teak and holly floor.

Tonight I sanded the top smooth and put the first coat of Epifanes on it and what a difference. Take a look...........

The picture with the narrow strips is of the parts that hold the quarter berth cushions in place.

You may notice my "bed of nails" that the pieces are laying on. They allow me to put a coat of finish on both sides of a part at the same time. The back gets coated first then laid on the nails and the front gets coated. Cuts finishing time in half.

[Commander 147]

And I'm finally getting some time I can work on Destiny again and I thought I would post an update.

I have been working on 3 fronts for what ever little time I have had here is what has been going on.

First I got all 9 coats of finish on the new teak and holly floor and got it installed. And because the floor finally went in I was also finally able to install the bentwood edges for the two new bulkheads I installed to support the mast beam. There are 2 pictures of this work below.

Next I have been making progress on the new rudder. Since my new rudder is two parts like the original was I needed a way to keep them straight when I epoxied them into the first half of the new rudder. So I clamped a 2 x straight edge to the edge of my workbench and marked where the 3/8" rods would be imbedded in the plywood. Then I routed a round bottom cove 3/16" deep into the plywood where each rod would go. I drilled small holes in 2 places on both sides of each rod and fed wire up from the other side so after I put thickened epoxy in the cove cuts and laid the rods in them I could pull them down snugly into the coves until the epoxy set up. Then I cut the wires and pulled them out before I glued the second half of the rudder to the first one. I hope the pictures below help to make this clearer than my attempt to describe it is doing.

And finally I have been working on the last of the recore projects. I thought I was done with that before but found that I had a spongy deck around the rudder post and found more rotted balsa core. So I am finishing that up now. Since it will only let me add 5 pictures per post I will follow up with those pictures in the next post.