Images of the Harmonica

Painting

Today I began sanding and priming the bulkheads. Unfortunately I tried to save a few dollars and buy a quarter litre of primer. Pffft! I've struggled to paint just the bulkheads before I ran the pot dry. So tomorrow, having realised i need to paint the sides and hull in and out, I will get a 4 litre can of primer. Live and learn!

Frames Done

Ok now I've finished all four of the Frames, the Bow and Transom Bulkheads and two others between. What impresses me so far it's how simple the build is. The next phase calls for me to cut out and butt join the Sides, assemble the Frames in position and then six the Sides. So I expect that any errors or bows in the Frames will show up then. But that's another day, and besides I'm not too bothered if there are a few wrinkles. She's a Pocket. Shanty Boat after all. Costs to this point are about $A200, and side from the outboard, I reckon the biggest expense apart from ply will be epoxy to waterproof below the waterline. I'm reading a pretty fab ebook at the moment called "Houseboat on the Seine". It's about an American artist who is living with his family in France where he builds and renovating a canal boat as a future residence for his family. The author is a self-confessed landlubber and is doing the build on the cheap, so it speaks to me. Fa...

A Greenhorn into Riverboating Tradition

"...soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up—nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe." Huck Finn I have the extravagant (not) plans to build a Michalak "Harmonica", a tiny towable shantyboat. I've recently taken to paddling my local river and remain surprised at the glorious existance literally on our doorstep, that no one treasures. In fact, I'd argue that most men of the land actually hate rivers. They invariably turn their backs on it, and worse dump rubbish in it and allow ...

Creating a Harmonica Shantyboat

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