Pikaku

Garage Modifications

2008-04-14T11:41:00.001-07:00

Somehow my "ship-yard-to-be", my garage, had turned into a general purpose storage place where sometimes we could squeeze a car.

In between work and our new born I have had little time to work on the boat. Yet this weekend I started making progress towards having a decent work space.

Up are going shelves to store lumber, which is still in its shipping crates.

Hopefilly in a week or so I can start cutting wood.

First skill to learn: Drive a Bobcat

2008-02-15T19:40:00.001-08:00

Today the plywood and lumber for the boat arrived.

According to the delivery contract, I was to provide the man-power and equipment required to unload the shipment. This involved borrowing a Bobcat from a friend in the construction business. The Bobcat was delivered to my house several hours before the truck arrived and an operator was to arrive within 20 minutes of delivery time.

Unfortunately about 15 minutes before the truck arrived I was informed that the operator was not going to be able to make it.

15 minutes to learn to operate a Bobcat? No problem!

A fast-read of the manual, a short teach-my-self to drive a Bobcat session, I am ready.
My wife, convinced she was videotaping a submission for "America's Funniest Videos", nervously photo/video documented the experience.

http://robertandamandapacheco.com/pikaku/Album1.htm

The unloading went uneventful except for the track marks in my driveway... Now on to another new skill: Operate a high pressure washer.

Lumber Ordered

2008-02-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Finally we got all of our lumber ordered. It was way more difficult than I thought! Beginning with the Nominal vs. Net dimentions to trying to make lumber dealers to understand that Exterior plywood was not really "the same thing" as marine plywood.

In a few weeks I'll get this crate with several hundren pounds of lumber and plywood delivered to my house...

...Ahhh the smell of saw dust... I can almost smell it already

Lumber blues

2008-02-04T06:32:00.000-08:00

I live in Florida; within walking distance of the beach. There is a local fishing feet. You would think it would be easy to buy marine grade lumber and plywood huh? Wrong!

It is very disconcerting when people do not even know what are you talking about.

I guess I'll have to special order what I need from the Internet as none of the local lumber yards seems to be interested in selling anything but construction materials....

GRRRR...

Tools Tools Tools

2008-01-25T06:07:00.000-08:00

The best thing about "Do it yourself" projects is that you get to buy, get, procure, borrow tools!

1.- Brand-new-to-me band saw. 14" Ridgit band saw. Got it cheap from a local fellow that was getting rid of some of his stuff.
2.- 9.5V Electric Drill screw driver. Had it for several years now. Not the best but I'll have to do for the time being.
3.- Portable Circular saw. Got this a while back to board up my house when Hurricane Ivan was getting near.

Pegboard completed!
Father in law and I escaped from my wife's baby shower to put together a pegboard to start organizing my assorted tools in preparation for the boat project.

Plans received

2008-01-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

I was worse than a kid waiting for Santa. You can ask my wife how I checked on the UPS web site several times a day complaining why they didn't update it more frequently.

Now finally the plans have arrived. First impression? A lot of information. Not overwhelming but a great deal of information.

What is next? Studying the plans and making a plan.

Location Date Local Time Description FT. WALTON, FL, US 01/15/2008 12:20 P.M. DELIVERY 01/15/2008 6:37 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY 01/15/2008 6:09 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN MONTGOMERY, AL, US 01/15/2008 2:02 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 01/15/2008 12:13 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN MEMPHIS, TN, US 01/14/2008 2:29 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 01/14/2008 4:23 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN LOS ANGELES, CA, US 01/10/2008 12:38 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN LOS ANGELES, CA, US 01/09/2008 11:06 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN CERRITOS, CA, US 01/09/2008 10:29 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 01/09/2008 8:29 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN US 01/09/2008 1:52 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED Tracking results provided by UPS: 01/15/2008 1:39 P.M. ET

Waiting for the Plans

2008-01-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

Building a boat is a long project. No doubt about that. I know that. Yet why do I keep on checking the UPS tracking page to find out where my plans are?

LOS ANGELES,
CA, US 01/10/2008 12:38 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
LOS ANGELES,
CA, US 01/09/2008 11:06 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
CERRITOS,
CA, US 01/09/2008 10:29 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/09/2008 8:29 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 01/09/2008 1:52 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

PIKAKU

2008-01-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, growin up in Lima-Peru, when I was 14 or so, an article in a very old issue of Popular Mechanics caught my attention: "Build Your Own High Permormance Boat". It described building the Glen-L 10, a 10' sail boat with a catamaran rig. For months I wondered if it would be possible for me to build such a thing. I spent countless days wondering about it. I remember attempting to draw my own plans for a similar boat and even asking an English-as-a-second-language teacher help to write a letter to Glen-L requesting information. I was dissapointed when I did not get an answer. In all fairness to Glen-L, it is likely that the letter didn't have the correct address, or even more likely, that my mother did not mail it at all. After all, she had once once commented,"You think your father would let you go out there to the ocean?".

To her relief, the "sailboat-phase", went away. As many other teenage wonderings do.

Fast forward 25 years. I am married. I own a motor boat. Yet, one day I start wondering about sailboats again. I try to convince myself and my wife that we needed to spend a significant portion of our family income buying a factory built cruiser. I even shop around, on the net, the local marinas and a local boat dealer. Reality sinks. The "sailboat-phase" goes away again.

Fast forward to about 6 months ago, I am aimlesly surfing the Internet and I found the old Popular Mechanics article:
http://www.mimecanicapopular.com/verbotes.php?n=38

It didn't take long for those old memories and wonderings to come back.

This time, despite having a baby on the way, my sweet wife finally understands it. While we cannot afford to buy a sailboat I can certainly build one.

After a long debate amongst me and myself, I settled down on a pocket cruiser. To be specific, on a 15' foot sloop with a small cabin.

Enter "Minuet"

Yesterday, we ordered the plans to build the "Minuet", a 15' overnight sloop. The plans are available at: http://glen-l.com/

While we haven't even gotten the plans for the boat yet, we already have a name for it:
PIKAKU

Where the name comes from? Well maybe one day I'll tell this "inside story".