Ready To Flip

Well almost. The bottom needs another coat which it will get today. Other than that we're ready. Here's a pic.

As you can see, the boat house has also been enlarged by about 5 feet. I did this by extending the roofline on one side. You might be able to tell from the picture that the right side is slightly shorter than the left. Earl and I went though a bunch of different options on how to enlarge the space before settling on this. I have to say that it has worked out quite well so far, but we haven't had too much wind yet so that aspect is yet to be tested. It certainly is a lot airier which counts for a lot in the late afternoon when the sun gets in it. We marked several 100+ degree days inside this month prior to the expansion. Now we have plenty of space for putting the deck on.
You can see the fliping cradle to the left as well. It has eight pads covered with the prettiest pink carpet. It's built to support the widest part of the boat as it goes over, that way the boat never really touches anything. Once the last coat of paint goes on, the cradle will get strapped down to the boat. It will also serve to level the boat once it's flipped since the building jig is a little worse for wear. While it was fine for supporting the boat it didn't take to well to the extra weight of yours truly as well. I'm not that concerned about it breaking up, but I'm not that confident that it won't either. Either way, the cradle becomes the new jig and once it's turned over we'll use it to level the works before the deck goes on.
Here's a view from the back. We had some dissappointment with the paint we were using. My traditional boat paint was Siperstein's house paint, a truly awesome alkyd enamel. Well, they closed their factory last year and no longer make it and I didn't have enough around to cover the boat, so I had to switch brands. I went to MAB, which has a store near by, and got some primer and an alkyd enamel. The primer performed so poorly ( we sanded a lot of it off) that I'm no not going to use the enamel either. Instead, I went to Sipersteins and got some Zinnzer primer and a Pratt & Lambert enamel. The primer was great, as always, and the enamel works just fine, even though it's formulated for metal. I like to use alkyd paints for the boat because it has a lot more give to it than the urethane or epoxy paints. Sipersteins use to make a monopoxy paint that was better but...see above.

With some time on my hands watching the paint dry, other long neglected projects are now getting done. The "tree" house has been repaired at long last after having been damaged by a falling bit of timber last fall. I had accidentally dropped a 40' mulberry tree on it. Remarkably, even though it was a direct hit, the only thing that was really damaged was the upstairs railing. Well, we replaced that this week with some plywoood. This has provided an excelent opportunity for me to teach Eleanor the rudiments of painting and she's progressing quite well. She's gone from brush killer to rank amature in only a day. I know some adults that have never progressed past the former. Maybe she'll one day be up there with her old man as a true Paint Nazi. Oh, the towhead on the swing is Katherine, engaging in her new passion, making herself dizzy.

Well, the flipping is on Friday so I won't be posting again until then. Wish us luck.