How much?!!!!!!!!!!!

I've spent today pricing the last of the hardware i need to purchase so i can drill the fastening holes into the deck and epoxy before spraying so i need to purchase in the next couple of weeks.

Monies more than a little tight for me at present but justified the expense as it means i can move on but to say there's been an increase in price is putting it mildly. An example being YS fittings, I originally priced everything i needed in December from a host of chandlers up and down the country and all I can say is its a feckin joke. Fairleads that were £38 are now over £50 and deck cleats that were £31 are now over £45, I mean how is a 30%+ price increase possible in a little over six months?

My wages at best have plateaued if not gone down in real terms, so how do prices keep magically rising when i'm pretty sure (based on what i do for a living) demand is more than sluggish given the financial climate?

Another example - plywood, what was £18 for a sheet of 12mm is now £24 and thats in the space of three months! I make no apologies for ranting for its not without good reason as i'm desperately trying to keep focussed on getting this boat finished but with prices for components and materials moving in an upward-only direction & at an alarming rate I am amazed Westerly's and the like kept going as long as they did.

Rant over.

Any comments on this (and anything boat related) always welcome.

Roger

I can almost smell the paint

Yes i'm almost there with the deck, i have a few more bits in the cockpit to fill and fair namely all then and we'll be ready to prime. I've also been busy prototyping the coamings with an eye to getting them made this coming week. That said i have a set of wardrobes to make and fit this week too but i seem to have found my mojo or a bit of it despite the heat wave.

It is because of the weather i've been keeping odd hours on the boat - either starting early or working on into the night as this is when the temperatures are at their lowest. I'm hoping over a few evenings next week i'll have the cockpit ready for barrier coating and then i can mask up and get priming.

I'd like to say that the filling and fairing on this project has been fun but that would be one bloody great lie for it is a truly arduous task that i will never repeat; i promise you that. If i ever buy another boat (which i don't think is likely) and it has osmosis - tough shit, its not getting a peel knowing what it takes to remediate

I still feel a little anxious as we move into the latter half of the year with no topcoat on the hull but judging how inconsistent the UK weather is its got to be done in the next couple of months as i can't face the hassle i had at the beginning of the year with all the delays the weather bought.

One thing i have never quite reconciled is how long everything takes when you work alone, it drives me to despair at times, going about my tasks ticking them off one by one and you stand back and see what its contributed to the overall project and i think is it ever going to get finished? It will of course, but i would happily sit down with anyone contemplating what i am doing and try to talk you out of it.

I thought the other day how it would of been easier to have started with a brand new hull & deck (if such a thing existed) but then i thought no it wouldn't as i have structurally modified so much it would of been easier to have built a new boat from plans. I'm being slightly gloomy and i have no one to blame for where i'm at but myself but i just can't reconcile the sheer amount of effort required on a constant basis to make the smallest of steps.

So i look to August as a pivotal point in this project as when the boat's primed and the engine on its bearers it should will be downhill all the way.

Right, where was i?

Spending all of June and the first week of July working on the bungalow wasn't really what I envisaged. I only intended to shoot-in new internal doors and give them a lick of paint. However when looking at brand new painted doors against cracked walls as well as discoloured gloss and the now shitty looking original joinery I inadvertently set about tidying the place up unintentionally re-decorating, re-plastering and re-making all the joinery in the process.

Now some six weeks later I can get on with the business of boat(re)building. Right: now where did we get to last time? I'd just finished the cockpit speakers and that weekend I started cutting bales of cloth for the windows.

Thats right I'd just started work for the second time on making the windows having not been particularly excited about the wooden frames I'd made some two years previous. Still the idea was sound just the execution poor so decided to copy the frame i'd made in marine ply using epoxy and cloth so no chance of rot.

I would make each frame as a three part affair; outer frame (the bit you see externally) then the mid section and then a trim piece to sit over everything inside. Now to speed this up I would batch each lot of frames so i would make four outers then four middles and four inners, sounds good no?

Infact I'm still abit pissed off with the amount of time and money i wasted (2 days and £100). I thought it'd be a great idea to laminate all four panels up in one hit separated by peel ply. Long story short i ended up with a panel of solid bi-ax 1000mm x 600mm and about 20mm thick that I only managed to separate with wedges and a large mallet and not without alot of damage to the panels but as with everything on this project another lesson hard learned.

If i'm being honest the work on the bungalow was a convenient distraction, as by the beginning of June I had worked some four months straight give or take the odd day for paid work and was finding it hard to keep the pace.

It hasn't helped though going straight back into fine filling & detailing the deck and companionway, tedious at best but with extra-ordinarily high temperatures it makes the day a little more tetchy when epoxy kicks super fast. Still; taking a positive the stanchion bases that were all previously knackered look brand new and should look great once painted.

To help ease myself back into it some more I tackled a job this weekend to make a few more roller bearing bars to hang the various rolls of cloth and peel ply on as the rope was slowly cutting through the cardboard rolls the cloth's mounted on making it impossible to un-roll. At the time of writing this i'm still optimstic about getting the deck primed in the next couple of weeks but i have moments still of feeling totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work thats left not to mention money to find.

Roger