The 4 dorades are now varnished, 7 coats, and have their hinges installed. I found some latches on sale and they should be here this week. Will now have to see about sending them up to Halifax.

Beveled the stringers for our tender. Block plane, draw knife, chisel and belt sander. Sure worked the arms, but I actually enjoyed this work. I also painted all the frames and sole with epoxy. Ready to plank.

Finally finished sanding up the dorade vents and went to West Marine to find out that Interlux no longer is making the Schooner Varnish. Crap. All my deck wood work is covered with Interlux varnish. Guess I’ll have to try the Brightside stuff and see how the color matches. I did find half a quart of varnish in the shop and was able to get the first coat on. May have enough for 7.

I coated the inside with epoxy which raised the grain real high, looks like toad skin. I had roughly sanded before and after I assembled the box, now I wish I had hit it with the orbital w/120 and sealed before I assembled. Think I would learn.

On the dingy, I spent a few hours with the block plane shaping the stringers. For the most part, shaping is real easy with the block plane, just hard on the arms. Hop let me borrow his belt sander which I’ll use in places I can’t get a good stroke. I’m really happy the way this dingy is coming together. Fun to build.

Didn’t do much on Tesha this week, but did get the 72″ stainless piano hinge in the mail. I cut it into 8 8″ smaller hinges and mounted the doors to the dorade vents. I started to sand them up, but didn’t get far because I found installing the stringers on our dingy much more fun. Amy and I got the top stringer and the seat riser stringer installed. We did break one top stringer and had to cut another one, but the strap techique we came up with last week worked well.