We have a plan!

Oooh, so Friday (ok, I didn't post this Friday - child no.2 was ill), the plans arrived. 

The plans consist of 2 things, the A2 paper plans and the building manual.  For now, its the building manual that interests me, because I want to have as much of it in my head as possible.  I bought a book written by Chris Kulczycki (who used to own CLC) and it includes basic plans for the Chesapeak 16LT, 17 and 17LT already, so I have already seen a lot of the info in the plans, but I'm glad I have both - they naturally overlap, but the book covers more general parts of the subject as well, so the combination of the two is quite handy.  For example, the book assumes you know less about epoxy than the plans (I know nothing beyond what I've read so far).  Anyway, the book is good, practical, and I devoured it within 2 nights of receiving it. 

I haven't mentioned this yet, but there's gonna be a slight delay before actual construction begins, as one of the things we want to do is to rebuild the garage.  Our garage has been annoying us since we first moved in, as it leaks like a sieve (rusty tools, grr) and as it has a transparent corrugated roof and is small, its an oven in summer.  Anyway, for a few reasons, we're rebuilding it, but that gives me a little time (the architect comes tomorrow, we're not gonna be faffing for months!) to digest these 'ere plans.

I'm kind of glad I have this time whilst the garage work starts, because one thing I've seen in several places now, and one thing I'm also not good at, is fully planning before I start.  By actually being forced to sit with plans and unable to start, I'm really getting my head into them.

When I first got my head into the idea of building a boat, I found a blog (linked on the side bar) called the Unlikely Boat builder - currently he's sailing his boat back home, but I caught the blog as it was starting, and followed his journey through building his dinghy, Cabin Boy.  One thing that stood out to me was to make mistakes slowly - this is something I intend to do.  In part, this is not reaching for the quick power tool, not because it won't do the job, but because you might need that time to decide if you should actually be doing a particular task in the first place before you make that stupid cut in the wood!  It is making sure you've double-checked everything and that you pause to question, if something isn't lining up or fitting properly, why that might be before you reach for the hammer!  Anyway, lets hope that I can maintain this ideal in my head or you'll know doubt see me eating my words a few articles from now!

I've also ebayed for some spring clamps (it looks like I'll need one or two...) so I now have 10 spring clamps for a tenner - not bad!  I think I'm mostly there on the other tools I need, the one exception being an orbital sander.  Of course, if I'm going to be buying a sander (and the pocketship, if not the chesapeak needs LOTS of sanding) then I'm toying with the idea of a wet+dry vacuum to keep the dust down.  This might pay back in time as well as health benefits, but a decent sander + vacuum wouldn't be cheap.  One thought was that, as mentioned, no.2 child was ill last week (Grandma got decorated) and we had to borrow a vacuum to clean the carpet (this isn't the first time) - I reckon thats an interesting double-life for any wet+dry vac, boatbuilding and..., well, lets stop there :).