Another month that went quickly

 Here is the update on our October doings. Sorry folks it took so long, but blog postings were not on my mind this month. Progress on the trawler has been steady. There were still many electrical jobs completed as well as some woodwork. Benno’s goal was to have the pilot house completed before winter except for the ceiling, which is really the last thing after everything is mounted topside and all wiring is complete.

Planing the next step is really important in boat building. Having the items on hand to make the right connections as well as making sure the part fits the space. So with this thought in mind, I got a new kitchen appliance that was meant for the boat. For years I have been using a Breville toaster oven daily. I liked it so much that I started to substitute it for my big kitchen oven for most of our baking needs. It is really a neat compact appliance but I read about a new Breville that incorporates an air fryer as well as microwave in addition to the convection oven all in one unit with many preset cooking menus that use a combination of the above. 

Photo taken from the Internet of my Convection/Toaster Oven

When the Breville arrived I wanted to try it out in my kitchen before storing it away to be installed in the trawler. Well, after using it now for a month I don’t want to give it up, so decided to keep it right here in my kitchen and to take my previous Breville appliance into the boat as it will be sufficient enough for most of our food preparations while underway.

My new combination Convection Oven/Air Fryer/Microwave

Speaking of food, we had a wonderful, scrumptious  family Thanksgiving dinner that our son cooked and our oldest granddaughter, Heidi baked the apple crumble dessert. We almost licked our plates, it was that delicious. :-)

Benno celebrated a special birthday and for that occasion I used the new Breville to bake the foundation for the hazelnut/marzipan cake. See all the trouble I go through for my hubby, grinding the hazelnuts and making the marzipan from scratch!

We were fortunate to have mostly great weather this month with lots of sunshine and it being warm enough to wear shorts some days. I managed to clean up some of the garden in preparation for the winter. However the neighbouring trees are shedding their leaves now and there will be more cleanup to come. Yesterday I brought in three more zucchinis and with frost forecasted for tonight that plant will be history tomorrow. 

The roots are in that pot to the left, the plant wandered all the way down to the walkway

I have helped Benno by varnishing the wood trim that he made, painted with epoxy paint the cabinet that will house the new VHF radio, Solar Panel Controller and Furuno GP-33 GPS Unit and gave him a hand when needed, like grinding a difficult corner with his Dremel Multi-Max oscillation tool. 

Perhaps some of our readers have fabricated wood cabinets or other projects and used plugs, but I was wondering if any of you are familiar with making plugs from the same type of wood so that you don’t see the screws at all. Well, that is what is done in custom boatbuilding and our third time around to do it. 

As an example here are some photos to illustrate what I mean. 

First the screw holes were drilled into the trim with a countersink bit to create a cavity for the screw and plug. Next he drives the screw in.

Then Benno used his drill press with a wood plug cutter bit to cut plugs of the same wood and popped the the plug out of the wood strip with a small screw driver.

These plugs are glued with epoxy (West System Epoxy) into the holes and after the epoxy is cured the plugs are cut off with a Japanese flush-cut saw and then sanded before being painted. It is time consuming but worth the effort, we think.

This is the Japanese flush-cut saw Benno uses to cut off the plugs

The contract we had with our local Virgin Plus cellphone provider was up. By switching to Koodo we increased our data to 10GB per phone and are saving  $430.92 per year. However, when traveling to the US we still have to get a US SIM card and if we use our Canadian SIM in the US we are looking at a fixed rate per day for roaming but unlimited calling to back home. 

Benno winterized the travel trailer and greased the wheel bearings and suspension as he does every year before we head out to our winter travel. When that will be, we don’t know yet as Benno wants to complete as much work on the trawler as he can before the cold temperatures will put a stop to that activity. So stay tuned for what we are into next.

Thanks for not giving up reading my blog.

Great weather to start October

 

I’ll be sure to plant green beans again next year.

In May of this year I planted three different types of tomatoes, two zucchini, two yellow peppers and one small green bean plant, all in pots sitting on a sloped retaining wall facing south. What surprised me is that the tiny green bean plant produced so many beans all summer long although it is plagued by grasshoppers, snails and I assume earwigs at night. 

The tomatoes were great and I had more than we could consume on a daily base so I froze plenty after making tomato sauce from them. The zucchini are still growing too, but not as fast as they did during July and August. Perhaps I give up on the peppers because they were late and are so plentiful, huge, plump and inexpensive in the stores that it seems almost a waste of my effort for me to grow them. Besides I never had much luck with red ones. 

Many of my flowers are done blooming for the season but there is still some colour in my flower beds and with the hot weather we are having at the moment, maybe we get to enjoy them a bit longer.

Benno had been happy that we had some cooler temps that made working in the boat so much easier. He did a lot of electrical work with hookups and rewiring. We took off the fabric ceiling material as many of the wires are now running there. They will be hidden under a false ceiling and Benno finished the strapping already. Maybe you noticed, but the two vertical supports between the front windows are a bit bigger now. Inside are six wire cables in the right one and 4 (so far) in the left running down to the breakers underneath the steering console. Just like I mentioned, cables will be hidden.

Our last trip to the Toronto area netted Benno some round 3 inch long 1-3/4 stainless steel round bar pieces from the Metal Supermarket. Last week he manufactured on his lathe five covers from this 316 grade stainless steel, which are installed over now obsolete thru hull holes on the starboard site of the hull. The idea was to close those holes without major wood/paint work and this way thru hulls can be reinstalled if the need arises.

I did some more painting with the brown/beige Epoxy paint on the shelves behind the helm man’s  seat. Benno is building a cabinet on top of it that required him to remove a small support using a chisel and flex grinder. Not an easy job!

Btw, in my last post I mentioned my technique of varnishing. It was taught to me by a Danish Shipwright when our sailboat “Najade” was being built and the wood used was white Oak. The way he showed me was that when using Oak (not all wood types need this) The first coat of varnish is being thinned down 50% with Mineral Spirit. It brings out the grain that can be scraped off with the metal scraper when the paint is dry. Then the next coat can be sanded lightly and if needed scraped again to take off any dust particles. After the final coat is dry the varnish is rubbed down with extra fine (0000 steel wool and 3-in-one oil) to give it a satin finish. To note, never insert your painting brush/foam/roller into the paint can as it will jell up over time. I use a coffee scoop and a plastic container from which I paint. The same goes for any other paint if you want it to last longer.

Aside from the ongoings in the boat, Benno decided he will relocate the VHF antenna from the deck to the little stub mast and therefore the present cable will be too short for that. However it is long enough to hook up the antenna if mounted to the roof of his shop to the VHF radio mounted inside his shop. He has a 12V power supply there anyway. Now if working in there he can listen to the VHF traffic on Lake Erie ;-)

I think I stop for now for this post or it will be overload. See you next time on this blog. Thanks for stopping by.

Time is slipping by

 

With a month long gap in-between blog posts there were lots of projects that got completed on the boat. The weather had been hot throughout August, which made work inside the boat in the afternoons feel like working in a sauna. However, it did rain occasionally and when it did, torrential! Boat building or refitting takes a lot longer than house projects but we knew that from the beginning, because we built a sailboat (Najade) and a power boat (Diesel Duck) before. Besides, it is supposed to be a hobby for Benno that has become an all consuming job but fun nonetheless. 

As for me, I help, support and come along to get “stuff” for the boat and then do the usual garden-house-shopping-cooking-etc. Our son and grandson came for a weekend visit to round out the month. It was nice to have them over, meanwhile the girls and mom were out shopping for back to school outfits.

We had been contemplating what to do with the dashboard (the area in the so called wheelhouse where navigation instruments are being mounted and the steering wheel is located) It is slightly curved and covering it with material for those contours looked complicated. In the end I painted it with an epoxy based paint that turned out to be difficult as well (what a headache that was) as the paint rollers either left lint or disintegrated with this specially mixed paint. I went through 5 different types of roller materials and ended up applying 7 coats using up the whole can of paint. It took a week to thoroughly dry.

Twice we made a trip to the Toronto area to purchase wood from Noah, a marine wood supplier and to pick up the electric toilet, hoses and other supplies we had ordered from Holland Marine in Mississauga, who is in our opinion the best marine supplier in Ontario. The toilet is an Italian brand product from Tecma with a powerful macerator pump and is distributed through Thetford Marine. This model will flush with fresh water from the onboard tanks. According to the salesmen at the Miami Boat Show, this toilet pump can shoot 60 ft. I noticed on the sticker at the pump that the pump is actually made in Canada. We had this type of a toilet on our Diesel Duck and really liked it.

Cutting and designing fiddles and corner straps with rounded corners that frame the new fibreglass panels we bought in the states took some time and then I varnished them before they were installed. Benno also plugged them (covered the screws) then sanded those plugs after cutting them off and I had to re-varnish those areas on the strips and rub them with extra fine steel wool saturated in 3-in one oil to give them a smooth and satin finish.

Lots of electrical connections are being done. It also involves to re-run all new cables and use marine wire. The previously installed wire were non marine grade and ran above on the walls in the forward cabin, wheelhouse and salon. We pulled and gutted them all. Benno wants to have them invisible by running them underneath in some cases and in new channels and in-between a false ceiling but of course accessible if needed. 

Since our days revolved around boatbuilding there were not too many other interesting activities to report. Our pickup truck got a little paint job done on the front fender area where someone didn’t judge their turn correctly and left us with scratches but didn’t think it necessary to report it to us :-( also at the same time the hood got a new coat of paint because it had an area with bubbles. All good now.

Hopefully you find the boat activities interesting even though you are not a boater!

Thanks for dropping by again.