Salt & Tar: Ep.340- Fixation

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:04]Sometimes I forget to zoom out and look at the whole picture, fixated on the task at hand.

[00:00:15]I can't wait to get to fiberglassing stage so that we can stop covering the pilot house and pretty much the whole boat every single morning. This is our routine.

[00:00:29]spiderwebed in here. Webs are quite methodical despite looking tangled at times. We weave by instinct, an almost compulsive need to build. Today is going to be our hottest day to date. Every time I look at the forecast, it would just keep getting a little bit hotter, a little bit hotter. First time I saw it at 89 and I think the projected now is 93° today at the peak. So, the warnings are getting louder and louder that the the heat is coming.

[00:01:03]>> We need to get out of here, man.

[00:01:04]>> We need to get out of here, man.

[00:01:07]>> But the pilot house is looking super cool. It's really starting to take shape now, which is extremely exciting.

[00:01:16]And we're going to glue the two layers of the roof today. And then I don't know, we haven't really thought too far past that.

[00:01:26]>> It's hard to get like good clamping pressure over this whole surface without like putting a bunch of weight on it, but I don't want to put a bunch of weight on it cuz I don't want to deform the top. I want to >> disrupt the curve, >> keep it, >> let it have that natural uh flowing shape.

[00:01:42]>> Yeah. So if there are any areas where it's not perfectly tight, there's little gaps, the thickened epoxy is that'll fill that.

[00:01:51]>> A wave of heat signals the shift between starting projects and finishing them.

[00:01:56]Problem is, we've started so many. We pretty much don't uncover the rest of the boat unless we're actually working on either of these areas. Just try and keep the sun, the UV off as much as possible.

[00:02:08]>> Yeah. Especially because it's so much is raw fiberglass right now.

[00:02:13]>> Raw fiberglass or total fair. Somebody might have started like every possible project all at once.

[00:02:22]>> That was >> the pilot house roof is our fixation point. It needs to be glued together and cut to its final shape before we can think about anything else.

[00:02:35]We might have enough clamps.

[00:02:38]>> Uh, yeah. I mean, should be okay.

[00:02:41]>> Thanks to Reed and the bums over there.

[00:02:48]>> Our good friends.

[00:02:49]>> Aaron and Ally, who we lovingly call the bums, are hard at work a loft spy. We collected all the clamps available in our corner of the yard, hoping we'll have enough for a good lamination. We're using Total Boats epoxy resin for this.

[00:03:04]But first, we need to handle something.

[00:03:06]What did you do? That's what I'm talking about.

[00:03:12]>> I may have forgotten about the jug of epoxy when I was cutting these ports out. Sitting right here. Now, this jug of epoxy has a whole bunch of wood shavings and plastic shavings in it. So, I'm going to have to strain it.

[00:03:26]Super cool.

[00:03:29]The roof is two layers of quarter inch.

[00:03:31]The first is scarfed and we're gluing the two pieces that make up the second to it.

[00:03:55]You need a lot more glue.

[00:03:57]>> Yeah. I'm going to go start mixing if you start spraying.

[00:04:00]>> Okay.

[00:04:00]>> You want a fairly thick coating.

[00:04:08]>> How close do we want it to that seam?

[00:04:11]>> Right up to it.

[00:04:13]How are we looking as far as poss like double the amount? Triple?

[00:04:17]>> Probably double the start. Okay.

[00:04:19]>> But it'll probably be triple.

[00:04:37]Yummer. Mer, >> tell me when you want me to drop.

[00:05:08]I can't see.

[00:05:09]>> Down.

[00:05:09]>> Down.

[00:05:10]>> Yeah. Okay. Am I looking good?

[00:05:13]>> Oh man, my gloves are just dripping on me.

[00:05:16]>> Switch them, dork.

[00:05:18]>> No, it was just when they were overhead.

[00:05:21]Look.

[00:05:23]>> My fingers began to resemble prunes as the sweat built up in my gloves. These little soggy things still had half the job to complete.

[00:05:34]>> Seemed to go well. I'm going to have you start pulling clamps and screws >> on the next layer once I get these in.

[00:05:44]>> Okay.

[00:05:44]>> Garrett plucked from our limited pile of clamps, choosing the best spacing for an even bond. The first section went smoothly. Maybe we'll get lucky a second time. Without shade, our workable time with the epoxy would be extremely short.

[00:05:59]A sustained pace and tunnel vision is required.

[00:06:26]Garrett whips up our first batch for the next half. He had to supplement with some screws in the forward overhang to pull the sheets together. Making sure we don't have any voids. Here we >> go.

[00:06:40]>> This is uh definitely going to need your long arms >> for the seam.

[00:06:45]>> I couldn't reach until I discovered mounting the mizen like a horse got me closer.

[00:07:05]Yeah.

[00:07:05]>> Little to the right. Yeah. There.

[00:07:08]>> Mhm.

[00:07:16]Let the corner go down.

[00:07:22]I'm inside the shroud.

[00:07:26]>> You have to do >> Yeah.

[00:07:57]All right, the roof is glued on. We ran out of screws. We ran out of clamps, but I think we have just enough.

[00:08:06]I think Garrett's finding some oddball screws to fill in what we ran out on.

[00:08:14]Hey, bums. Let's go get some tacos.

[00:08:17]>> Tacos. Tacos. Tacos. Okay, fine.

[00:08:21]>> Perfect.

[00:08:22]>> Twist my arm.

[00:08:25]All right, we're done with the roof.

[00:08:34]Okay, taco time.

[00:08:56]Just how fat >> Garrett?

[00:09:01]These are the Mediterranean guy.

[00:09:03]>> These are Mediterranean tacos.

[00:09:06]The doctor told me I have high cholesterol and that I need to engage in a Mediterranean diet.

[00:09:14]>> Looks pretty Mediterranean.

[00:09:16]>> Yeah, I'd say that's >> We got a roof.

[00:09:29]A big oversized ugly unttrimmed roof.

[00:09:34]But it's a roof.

[00:09:37]>> Time to take off all of our clamps.

[00:09:44]>> Now that we have our 1/2-in roof in one piece, we can decide how we want to shape it. We'll mark it and lower it one last time to the workbench to solidify our ideas.

[00:10:02]Next step is kind of decide on what we want aesthetically, also functionally.

[00:10:08]Then get it marked and then we can pull the whole top off and bring it down to the workbench.

[00:10:14]I probably want it to be out further on the Ford face. It's more likely to have better sun protection for glare. Yeah.

[00:10:24]Shout out to um SV Panipe on uh YouTube cuz I think he does amazing work and the hard dodger or the pilot house that he built on his Culvin is beautiful and it's I mean it's a lot more elegant than this. But I definitely took a lot of inspiration from that.

[00:10:46]>> We've looked at countless images and then holding them up to Reviva to see what we can do. We'd like to add a rain catchment function, and the roof will house more solar. We're keeping things simple, but leaving the possibility of more later on, perpetually finding the balance between building and sailing. We want to keep this refit in the 4 to 6 month range we stated in the beginning, which means certain choices have to be made. This is only the first change up.

[00:11:14]Maybe in another 5 years, we'll do it again. That's the beauty of her construction. To be able to transform is a luxury I'm sure we'll indulge in again. But we're fixed on the here and now, excited to experience our modifications, letting time unfold, relaxing our overanalytical minds, and just going with what feels right. Common sense is still alive. We're just not paralyzing ourselves with excessive rumination.

[00:11:46]I'm just making sure that everything's good before I pull all these screws that I'm not forgetting something.

[00:12:21]It's >> free.

[00:12:28]>> I think this is actually cut to the crown. So, we can use this like a cradle.

[00:12:32]>> Oh, hey We going >> towards me.

[00:12:47]>> Towards you.

[00:12:47]>> Yeah. Ready?

[00:12:49]>> Yeah.

[00:13:04]You okay?

[00:13:09]Okay, pick it up if you can.

[00:13:13]All right, we're just going to pivot it around.

[00:13:30]>> I'm going to lift it up. Make sure it doesn't slide.

[00:13:35]Okay.

[00:13:55]>> Oh, isn't too bad.

[00:13:56]>> No, not at all.

[00:13:58]>> That's pretty good, actually.

[00:13:59]>> Yeah, it's not that heavy. It's just big.

[00:14:14]Rev. This shadow looks pretty cool.

[00:15:03]I don't know if I like that much of a wide curve on the corners.

[00:15:10]>> We might need a break for lunch.

[00:15:12]>> I know.

[00:15:13]>> Now we're back to decision process.

[00:15:18]>> After refueling on food and coffee, we have a better plan of attack. getting a longer batten and by extending the port and starboard lines to initiate our visor, the ideal bend revealed itself.

[00:15:59]We finally found the right curve.

[00:16:11]Reed and Ellie came to approve today's efforts. Reed stumbled on some old photos of us aged by his boat and the decade and a half since they were taken.

[00:16:20]He also found his old whirly pop which had the perfect curve for the aft corners.

[00:16:31]The afternoon coffee helped the thinking, but it didn't help the shaky hands, did it?

[00:16:36]>> Really hit me.

[00:16:39]>> Little wobbly, but we got there.

[00:16:41]>> We got there.

[00:17:03]Heat. Heat.

[00:17:17]Power steps.

[00:17:56]All right, here's the pilot house roof about ready to go back up.

[00:18:04]Got it cleaned up a little bit. I routed the bottom edge just cuz that'll be too difficult to do once it's up. And just give it kind of gave it a just a real quick rough sand. I'm pretty happy with it. It came out really nice. The the glue up came out really nice. We got looks like really good adhesion.

[00:18:25]Everything seems to be nice and tight, holding its shape, holding the crown really nicely. So once Ruth is done, she's just cleaning up the like top edge around the pilot house and hitting it with some alcohol and then we'll be able to lift this thing back up in place and I'll be able to mix up some epoxy and fill it glue and fill it in place. Spy is making ready to be jealous over there. Crinkly brand new sail.

[00:18:57]Just cleaning the area that's going to be filleted with some alcohol before we throw this back up in place to make sure everything is able to adhere nicely when we glue it.

[00:19:22]>> It looks so cool. Starting to look like a pilot house.

[00:19:27]>> Heck yeah.

[00:19:34]>> It's good to be focused on something.

[00:19:36]For a while there, we felt a drift. Up next, we fill it in fiberglass.

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[00:20:14]Thank you.

[00:20:17]Namelessly.

[00:20:24]>> Yeah.

[00:20:30]>> Ooh, they're juicy.

[00:20:36]Oh, I can finally pick my wedgie.

[00:20:39]>> Yeah, I like that better.

[00:20:42]>> That's what I had before.

[00:20:45]>> Is it? Yeah, it's like the exact same thing that you said. You just you just said you didn't like