Duckworks - Kathleen, The Third Chapter

I held another staff meeting this morning. Just, The Boss and me. We did our inspection tour at about zero-four, and spent a while getting the Superduckgoo pressed into shape that was still not cured from the night shift. The results of our experiment to get fiberglass to wrap around the five-foot edge of a sheet of 1/8” aluminum sheet were pretty encouraging. So, buoyed by that small advance in the art of Frankenbotery; we moved on to discussions of what kind of cabin door to create.

The biggest problem with this door problem has to do with my precious camber to the top. Any door that fits that curve, isn’t going to play well with the top at any point in its swing past the closed point. We discussed bi-folds and opposite swings and Dutch doors and duck boards and combos of all the above. Nothing was quite right.

But, the brain storming went on, and on. An hour passed, and still nothing really world shaking. Finally, The Boss took the floor.

I’m pretty sure he was talking about the commissioning ceremony band. Way off topic. I distinctly heard somebody mumble, “accordions and tambourines…” We weren’t getting anyplace with the door discussions, by then. So, might as well daydream about a commissioning ceremony. Band, or no.

Then, like a bolt outa’ the blue, the door thing was solved.

There’s a whole lot of stuff that I’ll have to turn over to the Design Dept. guys. They can usually turn my staff meeting notes into some sort of drawing. Lots of times they make cryptic notes on the Planning Dept. white board out in the shop. Stuff like, “…tam dr on axle in tube on tracks…fix drng prob…scup??...man/elec wind…SIMPLICATE…” Notes like that.

I think they’re finally on to something. I can hardly wait to see what it is. But, I’ve got a lid-extension to get figured out, right now. Hopefully, the shop furnace has been turning propane into cured ‘pox out there. I’m anxious to get that piece done so I can get to getting on whatever is the next thing.

Now that the door thing is probably solved. And, especially, now that the lid-extension thing is probably solved; progress from the day shift is looking probable. Probably…

And speaking of progress. Tomorrow morning is the return to Pacific Standard Time hereabouts. Granted, the exact placement of that construct is an artifact of our railroad-delivered history and somewhat recent demographic gerrymandering. But, I have a sort of silly personal tradition that might come to advantage, while “waiting for ‘pox to dry.” The real deal is that the hour that we “lost” is presented to us at 0200 on Sunday morning. Most people, with normal circadia, won’t be conscious at that time to reap that ephemeral chrono-largess. And, while I do in fact continue often to turn perfectly good trees into dust, noise, and random small chunks past zero-two; I tend to hoard my once-a-year “extra” hour. The idea being that I save it until sometime during that day when I can put it to good use. So, let’s see what an extra hour tacked on to one of the shifts can produce. I do suppose I could charge it off as overtime. And in the meantime, I’m wasting the hours of this, current, “regular-size” day.

First off, it would appear that our “bending it one-eighty“ experiment has been quite successful. The glass is quite tightly wrapped around the edge.

Time to start burying it under a stack of cedar trees.

This glued-up chunk is the basic building block for part of that cover-up exercise across the aft end of the top.

I needed to make a couple 2 inch blanks that run about 7 x 8 inches - out of basic 2x6 lumber. There’s now a big pile of shavings in front of the planer, and a couple of corner pieces glued and screwed into place. And, that whole business is just about put together in rough form, there at the aft end of the cabin.

Anyhow, it’s getting late and maybe I should take a short break before starting the next day shift.

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