Carbon Dust

2012-02-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

How I won 200 hundred dollars

So we had a betting pool at work. For five dollars you could buy one of the squares. The x is the predicted second digit in the Giants score, and the y axis is the second digit in the Patriots score. The squares are bought before the numbers are on the axes, so it is a complete game of luck. I bought two squares, patriots 5, giants 9 and patriots 7 and giants 1. Its obvious that the second square I bought was a winner. And two hundred dollars later I am buying pizza for lunch for the shop.

Last week was the hardest week I have worked in this shop. I worked with Andre the entire week. We were assigned to the lazarette. We started by fitting the three longitudinal beams, and then gluing them in. Then the beams had to be tabbed in, and because they were meeting the transom the tabbing took a lot more than usual. I took five seperate lamination get the beams in completely. All the time working in semi dark and very cramped work environment. Stretching out my legs after eight hours in a coal mine was a wonderful feeling. On Thursday, in order to get things done in time, we started our last lamination at 4:30, and I didn't get home until after seven. It was a great week though, and I feel accomplished.

Oh and our house smells like the toaster is on fire, but we don't have a toaster. Its under control.

2012-01-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

We are back on the productive grind at work. Lots of guys in the shop with lots to do. We got the sheer re taped on Friday, and almost all the bulkheads are taped in. I worked on the inside of head bulkhead, with Jay and Mike S. As I think I have said before, Saturdays are the best work days. A smaller group of guys comes in, so I usually get to do more skilled jobs. With the new shears I bought from supply I cut the material for the transom tabbing. They got that all tabbed today, and Jay and Mike and I got the forward face of bulkhead D done. We had to take lunch at 1:45, but then the afternoon went by really quickly.

I have definitely gained a few of the skills of a carbon boat builder in the first month. And I am having a great time!

2012-01-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

Today we started off a little differently. It was the composite department OSHA safety training day. This training occurs once a year. The company brings in a very nice lady who presents a powerpoint while we sit and listen. She also asked a few questions.

Nice Lady: "You are new here, where did you come from?"
Me: "College"
Nice Lady: "Why did you leave??"
Me: "We are actually going back"

Nice Lady: "What do gloves protect you from?"
Mike: "Strippers... I mean paint stripping chemicals"

And when Adam complained to this safety woman that he was constantly cutting off his fingertips:

Joe: "Maybe they should take away your knife and give you a spoon!"
Adam: "They must have already done that to you because you are so fat."

Five minutes later the laughter died down.

It was a good start to the morning, and I learned that MSDS is being abbreviated to SDS. SDS stands for Safety Data Sheet. Oh and we tabbed the inside of the deck joint.

2012-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Saturdays are entirely optional at NEB. We work a half day, and it is a much more relaxed atmosphere. However, choosing to work leaves me with only one day to sleep in as work still begins at 7:30. As I had worked a full week, I was being paid time and a half for all my hours on Saturday. I chose to brave the snow storm and go in to work. Matt and Stefan wanted the sleep.

The roads were slippery, but the volvo drove like a champ, and I made it safely. Only my supervisor, John, and three other guys chose to come in. We continued to work on fairing the deck-hull joint. First, sanding the exterior and filling the small overlap. We used a filler called red balloons to thicken the epoxy and then frosted the joint using cake bags. I then helped Bucky fix the fillets between the deck and the bulkheads. Tomorrow, we will grind the proper radius into the deck-hull joint. Hopefully there will be enough work to go around.

Staten Island 9/11 Memorial

We also spent some time on Saturday talking about 9/11. The connection is simple. This memorial was built by NEB. It is made of fiberglass, and was shipped by barge to the site. Workers from NEB went and worked there for weeks assembling it. It is expected to last for a long time.

View from the workshop on Saturday

Snowy Roads and a jackknifed truck

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

Friday, Friday

Today was one of those days. The end of the week, very little work to do, and almost no progress evident. And so tensions were running high and there was much arguing. Stefan and Matt helped re-level the boat and finally lunch time arrived. It was decided by John (the boss) that the deck was fit well enough, and it was time to glue to the boat. We mixed goop in five gallon buckets and added filler to it. Blending this mixture with a 36 volt drill, we produced what looked like cake frosting. By packing this goop into cake bags, we proceeded to frost the sheer of the boat. I know have a backup career and its not boat building. We go in tomorrow to fillet the inside of the sheer and to tape the outside.

The kids at EB are coming over for dinner, and Stefan is making a five lb roast. He marinated it over night and is now baking it surrounded by potatoes and bacon. It smells wonderful in here.

2012-01-19T18:44:00.000-08:00

Ever since we flipped the boat, work has been slow. There hasn't been a lot of work to go around, and so everyone has been working slowly. Today, Stefan, Matt and I masked the entire exterior and interior of the boat in preparation for the matting of the deck and hull. First, the deck will be glued to the hull and allowed to cure. Then it will be tapped into place with layers of bi axial, 90, and then twill. A day latter, the bulkheads will be filleted. Once that cures, we can tab the bulkheads. Because the deck joint has been hard to align, we were not able glue the joint today. This has set the entire process back multiple days.

In other news, my lunch box is quite the item around work. Many people remember the style from their youth. It appears that I am missing the matching thermos, but that I might be able to find it at staples. One of the painters, a member of the safety committee got me stickers to put on it.

Unfortunately, according to the safety man, the stickers are in violation of OSHA.... Supposedly the company would be fined for me storing food in a container that is labeled FLAMMABLE LIQUID. So I will take off the stickers for tomorrow, but first:

2012-01-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

Notes on Carbon Dust

1. Its harmful to your lungs.
Result: Black lung. (Not limited to coal miners)
Prevention: Respirator. If you can taste the dust, its already in your lungs
Care: None

2. Its harmful to your skin
Result: Severe irritation and tiny splinters.
Prevention: None
Care: Extremely warm showers followed by a towel fresh from the dryer
because you are not paying for utilities

Note: Building a boat involves dust

Time to go to sleep. For the record 10pm is an extremely late bedtime when work is at 0730.

2012-01-18T18:17:00.000-08:00

Its time to start blogging.

As some of you know, I have been living in a small cottage in Rhode Island with Matt and Stefan. We moved in January 1st and started work on the 3rd. You could describe the cottage as small, but that would be a bit of an understatement. It has only two bedrooms, guess who is sharing... But we have an oven, fridge, dishwasher and a microwave, and its all ours. Oh and it was available furnished, and the landlord was willing to lease it on short notice to three college students. Perfect.

We work for New England Boatworks, a wonderful full service marina and boatyard just north of Newport. They have a history of building fast sailing boats. Bella Mente, Il Mostro, Mar Mostro, etc. They also have a sucessful aluminium RHIB shop and produce many of the chase boats for the sailboats they build. We are working on the new boat for the Bella Mente Racing team. She is going to be a pretty beautiful boat.

It was my goal to go to a small composite yard in the hope that I would get to do more hands on work than I would in a large steel yard. So far, entirely true. An hour into my first day, I was cutting and grinding a carbon stringer and fitting it to the hull. They trusted me to machine millimeters of four feet of gleaming carbon/kevlar L beam. Stefan helped make the mast step structure for the first few days, and then worked on tapping in the rudder bearing. Tapping is the use of carbon strips and epoxy to attach one part of the boat to another. It acts like a weld would in a steel ship.

Matt and I spent most of our first week helping make the cradles that would be the permanent support for the boat whenever it is not in the water. The concept is to build the cradle on the hull, so that it takes the exact hull shape. We planned it all out, and laid the fiberglass cloth dry. We planning to bond the cloth together with epoxy, but instead of putting the epoxy (or goop) on the cloth, we infused it into the cloth. This was done by vacuum bagging the part to the hull surface, and then running a tube from a bucket of resin into the vacuum bag. The vacuum sucked the goop into the cloth and bonded all the layers together. (Pics to follow)

This week, we flipped the boat.

Satchel and Stefan flipping the boat. Oh and please don't try to steal the boat design from these pictures.