Options, Revenues and Providers

In the course of being part of several sailing and boat forums I've picked up a lot of learning these past couple of years.  A lot of insurance info has been on the boards lately.  Since eventually this is something I am gong to check out for my self I decided to put a page dedicated to just marine insurance. It occurred to me to open this up for others to post providers they know for all to have handy in one place by using comments.   As I was posting that page it occurred to me adding a page for other products those who have already been there and done that have used satisfactorily. I decided to open up the page of products I have used to others to post their favorite BOAT RELATED items, using the comments section.


Revenues. We all need to eat. I am opening this site up to advertising. If this offends please forgive. I figure it is not going to put a huge amount of money  into the sailing kitty, but every little bit helps.


PLEASE DO NOT just start clicking thu thinking your helping me if you have no interest in a product. It hurts the site marketability.  If however you are interested  in a particular product, please do so. The site only pays if you actually buy something  from a link. Also please be advised that google does collect information when you click thru.

Rude and Crude but it works danged it

Murphy's Law

 Some where in this house I am about 99.9999 % certain I have a 1/2 inch notched trowel for  ceramic tile work.  Murphy's law says if something can go wrong it will.  I'm betting some where there is a law that says after you go out and replace something you cannot find,  it will show up. Serendipity comes to mind.  You know, the one that says when you stop looking for something it will show up. I did some checking. One of the local hardware stores offered me a 5.00 discount off of a new  notched trowel. That's not a bad discount.  Money is tight and spending 11.95  on a tool for one small job like the wood stove surround, if I  don't have to, aint happening if I can figure this out. I can get the plumbing stuff for the sink or a new trowel.

  Time for the Dremel to earn  it's keep again.

It's rude and crude and did not cost me one red cent, unless your including the electricity to cut it out with the Dremel. It was fall off from all the plexiglass we used to replace windows  recently

 

Bath room lavatory pre cut

I put the sink on top of the counter upside down and  traced the sink outline. ( Outer marks)

Then I  measured the under side of the sink and marked inside the  tracing to know where I wanted to cut it.

 After cutting it out with  circular saw on  main lines and using a hand saw to get the corners it's ready to put the sink in.

Now all we have to do is go get the plumbing and we are done with it!

This week has been busy. We are finishing up the bathroom,. Have been installing trim, painting and all that good stuff. We are sanding the bath room floor to get it good and clean for vinyl tile to go down. I do not want any thing making the adhesive on the tile to not stick. I'm cheating.We are using the self adhesive tiles.  I had bought these to use in the kitchen. On a whim, becasue I really want to get this bathroom finished, I took them in there, They match the tan commode, sink and counter  my son picked out perfectly, so it's a done deal.

Wet Cutting Cinder Block with a Dry Saw

If you have done any DIY your self you KNOW how expensive tools are. ESPECIALLY if you get specialty tools. We had to cut at least some of the blocks. There was no way around it.  First order of business was get  the right  saw blade for the job. I bought a diamond masonry blade. It cost me about 35.00. Not cheap but it will last a long time, especially when you consider I don't need to use something like this a lot.  Yes, I am keeping it. Once I am  living aboard, it goes in the "touch it and die" tool box.


We looked at our in house options.
1: Use the table saw.
2. Use the circular saw.
3. Rent a specialty saw. ( Renting  a specialty saw meant we still had to buy a blade.)


Our main goals:
Keep the saw and blade COOL!
Keep the dust down as much as is humanly possible.
Get all blocks cut and not destroy the blade,  the saw or the blocks..
Accomplish this ASAP.

Keeping the blade cool and dust down meant using water or doing a wet cut.  How to do that with a saw not designed for wet cutting was the question,. Solution was water down the blocks away from the saws,  then after the water has soaked in a bit, cut them as usual.

Next decision:
In doors now or wait until morning to do maybe an hours worth of work? Doing it tonight means the cement will be cured that much faster and I gain a day . Considering all the delays we have ran into getting an extra 12 - 18 hour  jump on this project would be a real bonus.
Decided if the circular saw would do the job then go  ahead and do it inside tonight.


Next decision: How to do it and NOT make a mess on a sanded floor that was not stained or poly-ed?
We took a large 30 gallon trash bag and spread it out on floor. The I found an old flannel sheet and folded it up until it was just a bit larger then the blocks to soak up any water that gets loose. That got put on top of the larger trash bag.  We added two short pieces of 2x4 on top of the folded sheet spaced appropriately to to support the blocks and wala we are good to go.

A large bowl of water and a cup to dribble a bit  of water on the area to be cut  and we are in business.

 I had marked the cuts with a pencil. The only problem was that as soon as you poured water on to the block the pencil marks disappeared. The cure was to make the first SHALLOW pass dry to mark the cut, then put water on and continue cutting.


Why the extra layer of 2" block?

If you remember the original post on this project there were big gaping holes at the back. The choice was cut full sized cinder blocks to fit those gaps OR make some sort of frame to hold in either cement or debris then top that debris off with cement to make it flat.  Neither idea appealed to me quite frankly. Making a straight cut across a single slab of cement such as we did tonight is one thing.  Custom cutting full blown cinder block to fit  is a horse of a completely different color. I just flat out did NOT want to go there!
When we moved the stove over I noticed that the pipe was not straight at the level the stove was at so we put  the 2" blocks under it and the pipe looked a lot better. How I did not notice it before I can't tell you. I just never noticed it was that slanted .

That solved the problem. Especially since I had enough blocks laying around.

A Little Bit of this, A Little BIt of That

Wow I can't believe it has been so long since the last post.
If you have been following this blog the last post was about getting my bedroom floor finished.
I'm in there on my knees sanding and realized we had not refinished the window.. What was supposed to be a fast refinish it and put it back, turned into a full fledged OY!!!!
As it turns out some where between it getting out of the window and into the work area, the window  fell apart in our hands, literally. The only thing that was holding it together was the frame around it.    Rebuilding a window was not what I had in mind for this week but......
The choices are:

1.buy a new window that fits exactly. Have you ever been able to match a window in a 90 year old house? Neither have I.

2. Get one as close as is possible and have to rework the siding. We just yesterday finished he exterior of all that tiny little details with only one small item left to do, once payday gets here. I AM NOT, I repeat NOT  redoing an entire side of this house just to match the siding in the window area. 

3. Rebuild the existing window.

Let us not go into that except to say it is getting done.

My bedroom turned into the work room while all this is getting done. Hence the floor awaits. HOPEFULLY this the week we get my bed room cleared of all side projects and I can actually  continue on refinishing the floor.

The good news is  the shelf is finally up in my closet, a LOT of stuff is packed and loaded into the boat ready to go. the tiles have been bought for the kitchen floor, the lower cabinets are almost finished, the door to the  corner cabinet in the living room are waiting to be installed and  a LOT of stuff has been disposed of. Craigslist is a great place to put a curb alert on things you don't want to waste time taking to the good will. My closet is almost empty and my bath room is darned near empty of all that stuff that has been taking up space.
All things  considered a lot has been getting done.
For those of you just joining us, the question might be occurring, what does all this have to do with sailing much less building a home made catamaran?  It is simple , it has to be done so I can sell the house to pay for  a blue water boat I can live on.

I have decided what I am going to do with The Toy. I will strap it on to the V 22 and take it with me.
Fair winds to all

Such is Life

Some days things just do not go as planned. The idea for this month was to get tires on van and trailers. It ain't happening. Choice was get two new tires and let very thing else go or get materials and wait  on tires. Who know it would be so hard to find 11 lousy tires in decent condition.
The good news is almost all materials have w been bought to complete the house. Still looking at counter top laminate for kitchen counters, a few bits of dry wall, tiling the surround for the wood stove etc. Little stuff like that.
One day at at time.