Odds and ends...
Since it took several months from placing the order to 70407 arriving, this gave plenty of time for a few side projects. First was finding a free 30 year old trailer that was falling apart but it's fair to say that build quality was better back then. We took it apart, cleaned it up, resprayed it, lubed it, put on new wheels, new marine lights, numerous other bolts and fittings and ended up with a pretty decent boat trailer that will serve us well once the Mirror is done. Not bad for the price...
Before and after. You guess which is which.
Of course, nothing would be possible without helper dogs (OK, I made that up, it's nothing to do with Mirror construction, but what the heck, anyway, meet Mark's dogs, Chaz and Keta...)
Anyway, just when we thought there would be no more to report in this section than Shawn scores another free trailer, this time from the Cal Sailing Club
http://www.cal-sailing.org/
Basically someone 'donated' (ie. dumped) a rusty old trailer with a very aged, and much in need of work Blue Jay (we think) on it. At a guess, since it's wood, it probably dates from the 60's? Who knows? Anyway, CSC were fed up with the thing taking up a parking space and offered it to Shawn if he'd take it away. The hull is a bit of a mess but not rotted at all so it could be revived using the techniques we used on the old Mirror; however, there's no standing rigging so lots of new bits would be needed. Perhaps they'll be a Blue Jay restoration web site before too long. Anyway, since the trailer isn't strictly street legal when we towed it away, we thought it best to leave the boat over at CSC until it's up to the job of towing safely.
To the right you can see the Blue Jay on it's side. It would really need the planking filling with epoxy/filler, covering in fiberglass cloth, then the epoxy/microfiber finish like the Mirrors. It could be done if we ever get any spare time. We'd also have to hunt down the missing parts. Anyway, we'll be back for it later. Maybe we'll do something with it. Who knows.
The trailer has a lot of serious surface rust but looks to date back to the 60's, perhaps even 50's, and is built with 1/8" steel which is probably why it's survived . We'll get it back to bare metal, treat it for rust, prime it, paint it with our favorite 'hammer finish' rustoleum which doesn't show the imperfections so much, replace rusted out bolts, new lights (those on it are Mark's temporary magnetic ones he uses for things like this), new tires, and so on. Believe it or not, it's not that huge a project it'll be a change of pace.
To the right Don who helped move things as Mark can't. All he did was ask for a ride from the Berkeley Yacht Club and he was kidnapped by us to help with the trailer. Thanks Don!