A couple of weekends ago my old college roommate and his wife came for a visit. When I asked Mack what he wanted to do, he said “I want to go to the Boatworks!” When presented with such unbridled enthusiasm, I’m not one to hesitate. I had the perfect two-man job in mind–hossing a bunch of lumber around and re-sawing planks for the boat. 17 ft. boards of African Mahogany aren’t exactly light. A second set of hands really does speed things along.
So we started with planing one face of the boards and soon discovered that the knives in the planer were dull and needed changing. We managed to break two Craftsman torx drivers in the process (I have been of the opinion for a while now that Craftsman tools are not what they used to be). But our friend Derek at the local Sears tool department had us back in business in no time. We got the wood planed, but not resawed. That was a task for another day. As you can see in the photo, I did manage to get some of this lumber resawed and planed down later. The 1/2 inch planks will be used in the boat. The 6/4 (thicker) planks on bottom have yet to be re-sawn into a usable thickness. One more step to go on those.
Mack is still the great thinker that he always was, and we enjoyed talking over old ideas and new. It was good to see you Mack. And thanks for the help!