My what a large trailer you have.

Last week Lea and i bought a trailer. It needed to function as several things, utility trailer, boat trailer, and moving van. It was in fairly good shape but as usual the lights on  the trailer and on my car were in poor repair.

Getting to work on this little project involved a trip to Tractor Supply Co for some fittings and a spare tire. Has anyone else noticed that these places always seem to employ mainly women? Anyhow its what i was thinking as we checked out and headed into the ridiculous heat of TN.

A couple of more errands and back to the house for some wiring. Pull both tail lights off, inspect the grounds scratch my head...  After whipping out about half of my trouble shooting solutions i finished with the trailer lights and the new wiring harness in the car. Now for the break away break.

After a break and some water i cracked into the break wiring. These things are real simple, 12 volt battery and a switch that activates the breaks if the trailer comes off the tow vehicle. Simple but apparently to tough for someone as all the wiring in the breaks themselves had been cut. With a sigh i gave up realizing that i only have so much time to get all the rest of this stuff packed up for the big move so i give you my new used big ass trailer!

Decks A'Hoy

So despite the fact that some think decking a rogue river dory is foolhardy it has been the plan all along so here we go.

I decided to use local pine, easy to get and cheep. I didn't really sweat that call. Above is the first of many cross pieces not to be confused with Reese's Pieces although they are also good.

You can see here that the seats for the passengers and oar person are full width and the rest of the deck supports are ripped in half. That crappy table saw has really done it.

Kind of blurry but you can see the foot well shaping up here.

Best clamp yet.

All the stern framing is in and the bow is on the way.

And after all of that great carpentry time to cover it all up.

This is super fun but REAL time consuming in the next pic you can see the cardboard i used to make templates for the decks.

Here is the last little bow piece being fitted its the off color piece that is right in the bow of the boat in the pic above.

Allot to do but easing closer even with the impending move.

Gunwales and Joe

Hey, do you know Joe? Joe Hegge? I just had to ask since he seems to know people all over the place. Anyhow he stopped in to haul a load of stuff for us.

While he was about i finished up the gunwales.

The best thing about building things is that its never over. So i continued on. The second gunwale was way easier than the first. I felt all warm and fuzzy when it was over but my hands were shot all to hell. I don't know how my hands as calloused as they are get such horrible blisters. Ah well bite a hole in them and try not to bleed on everything.

Once everything is attached its back to my old friend the belt sander, that thing needs a name.

I feel like i have made a boats worth of dust in this project, glad to have the mask.

Now we need to get the interior fixed up and painted. But before i could get to that this happened.

And then i got the interior painted.

I hate this paint, stinks and is nasty. Next time i am going to find something better.

So Some Things Have Happened.

As it stands Lea and i are leaving the south east for the north west. I must say that i will miss the friends i made in KY and TN. I will not miss the terrible radio, evangelical christians and heat here in August. Besides i miss mountains (sorry y'all the Smokies just don't do it for me) skiing, and western rivers. So here we are, two dogs a bunch of stuff and several boats. Ah, the boats.
The whitewater boats are looking forward for some wet adventures in that oh so blue glacial water of the North West. The Race boat is looking forward to some fun on Lake Washington, and  Florence well she is getting gussied up for some overnight action.
I will catch you all up on that in the next post...