Oops; she heard me!

jamie N

jamie N

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The boat's being craned out on Wednesday, which is good news. My wife's going up to the Shetland Islands on Thursday for a week, visiting her sister; she'll enjoy that, which is good news also.
I was mulling over the length of the wooden mast on Stakkr with a pal, and innocently asked the wife how long the living room is. I must've been in a parallel world because I told her the truth, that if the mast fitted into the living room, then (whilst she was away), and after having prepped it outside, I'd bring the mast in and varnish it in the controlled environment of the (our) house; "Wouldn't that be a good idea?"
Apparently not.
Years ago, just after my parents divorced, my Father moved his home life upstairs in his new house, converting the living room into a paint shop/boat shed for his Hornet. For this, we had to carry the boat across 3 gardens, then through French doors, with fractions of an inch to spare to put it onto trestles, on parquet flooring. The boat stayed in there for 4-5 months whilst he enjoyed the aroma of two-pack paint, thinners and varnish, indeed once the boat was removed and the room reinstated to 'normal', it looked a bit 'odd'.
I've a feeling that he did it not because it was the best solution, but because he could!
Anything familiar to others of this parish?
 
Many years ago when I was living with my parents they went away for 3 months in January, my brother and I promptly covered the (brand new) living room carpet with dust sheets and built a 'stitch and glue' plywood dinghy in there. 11 weeks later and a hectic couple of days hoovering no-one was any the wiser, apart from a beautiful, painted dinghy in the garden.
 
Returning from Uni one summer to my sister's (very smart) apartment with my Enterprise on a very skanky borrowed road trailer, I decided to build myself a lovely new trailer. In her sitting room. This was markedly unpopular... the welding and angle grinder especially so.
 
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I can't see what the fuss is all about. 40 years ago, Dad had a mast hung in the hall and projecting into the living room for painting. All it did was send Mum and his brother to sleep when he painted it in PU one evening. Previously he covered the floor in plastic sheeting and soaked a dinghy in linseed oil.

I regularly varnish various items in the house. I think it was the spreaders in May of this year. No one uses the garden room in the winter anyway!
 
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A couple of years ago while Mrs Sniper was away for a few days, laminating new mast partners on the kitchen table seemed like a good idea. When she came home, it seemed like a less good idea.
 
After patching the dinghy I inflated it in the living room to ensure it was sorted. Quite comfortable to recline in the bow facing aft while catching the news. Stayed two weeks before the wife asserted herself.
 
Friend of my brother had power of attorney for an old chap who had to go in a home. The living room of his house contained several large woodworking machines including a Wadkin planer vintage 1963. I put Cuchilo who used to hang around here in touch, he bought it all. Near here is an ex council house, about 20ft square, the whole ground floor has been gutted and is a violin repair shop.
 
Some years ago when I needed to overhaul the 8hp Stuart Turner P55 engine from my launch my mate and I lugged it through my house and down the steps into the cellar where I took it to bits. When the block and crankshaft arrived back from being machined and repaired I rebuilt the whole motor on a little bench in the living room, in the warm (it was January) and it remained there until the spring and it was needed once again in the boat.
I had one big advantage though... at that time of life I was still single and lived alone so probably does not count. I regularly brought bits of the boat back to the house to re-varnish them too.
 
Old chap here died recently. He was a Bren Carrier driver during national service, and according to his captain a very good one, he was encouraged to stay on but joined the MN instead. On a trip to Murmansk he became an admirer of the communist system, but he took on all the paranoia as well. He went about with all his food and essentials in a wheelbarrow, in case 'the Tories poisoned him'. Tall, very strong, he would carry a sack of stone home from a disused quarry. he stopped for a chat with some one, who asked why he didn't put the sack down. "Won't be able to pick it up again". In re the above, he had a small motorbike and some one called on him to find the bike dissembled down to the last nut and bolt and piled on the kitchen table.
"Bleddy thing wouldn't start, so I showed it a lesson"
 
Back in my naval days, I had a posting to Culdrose. I was due to be on duty one weekend, so I brought my boat's boom back with me, strapped to the roof-rack, with the aim of getting something productive done. Spent Friday afternoon sanding it back to bare wood in the car park. My cabin was three floors up in the accommodation block: the boom is 13 foot long, so couldn't get it up the stairwell, in the end I swayed it up the outside and in through the window. Cranked the heating up and managed to get two coats of coats of varnish on both Saturday and Sunday, while sleeping in the duty officer's cabin overnight, so I didn't stifle myself with the fumes. Monday morning, swayed it back through the window, lowered it down into the car park, and strapped it to the top of the car.

Did that three weekends in a row, for the requisite 12 coats.

Nobody batted an eyelid.

Must have done something right, because that was 15 years ago, and haven't needed to touch the varnish on that boom since.

By now, i had the bitt in my teeth, so I brought the sea toilet back for a bit of tittivating. Flaky paint scrubbed off, got a nice burnish on all the bronze castings, which I then lacquered. It was gleaming - far too good to use. Monday morning, my oppo looks in and says "F*** me, shippers. The crapper down the hall not good enough for you?"

The clinker dinghy didn't get the same treatment. But it did tend to live on the roof rack all week. If nothing else, the painter tied bar-tight to the forward towing point on the chassis disguised the fact that the bonnet catch had long ago failed, and would lift up if i went over 40. Turn up at Culdrose Main Gate one evening, to be greeted by the cheery hail of "You expectin' a flood, or sumfin'?". He really shouldn't have said that - it rained every single day for the next 3 months.
 
Parents always moved into a smaller rear room each winter leaving the lounge to me to strip down the engine of my motorbike. After a week the engine was back in the frame and turned over with the new piston and rings. Stepping back to admire my work i kicked over the glass jar containing the old engine oil all over the lounge carpet. An unsuccessful clean up followed. However, replacing the sofa back in the correct position did hide the offending patch, until some months later my parents had friends around and the furniture was re-arranged.
 
On Friday I helped a fellow club member AND HIS WIFE carry his mast into his lounge /dining room, where he designs to work on it! Some guys have some tolerant wives.
 
One winter, whilst my parents were abroad, my brother decided to bring our GP14 into the living room to work it. It was all going so well until hot molten paint (he was using a gas torch and scraper) burnt its way through the dust sheet into the carpet. The black marks that remained at least provided a talking point for a few years!
 
My father built a small dinghy for me in the lounge of our house exiting through the french door to the garden.
3 years later we made a cadet in the same room but had to remove the wooden lifting handles to get it out.
The final cadet was also made there some 2 years later, without the handles!!
 
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