Took a weekend off from boatbuilding as promised. Spent one day partying it up at my 4 year old's birthday celebration and the other day chasing shad in the Delaware water gap (for a friend's birthday). Although the party was a hoot, I'll spare you the details of the former and concentrate on the later.

In eastern PA, the shad run is our version of the steelhead, chinook, or other seasonal run. Basically, it's all we got without driving 5 or 6 hours to…

The weather around here has been a bit unpredictable as of late.

For those of you who do not reside in the northeast, it has gone something like this: real warm weather (like high 80's) early in the spring (like late march/early april) and then cold...real cold. Around here, 32 degrees in early May is pretty rough - I'm glad I haven't had the time to plant my garden yet.

Needless to say, after warming up following the chill of winter, we have…

Once the chine logs had cured, I began the whole faring process which I found rather enjoyable. As far as sanding goes, it is quite pleasant and almost like hand planing a piece of lumber.It's pretty much the opposite side of the sanding spectrum from, say, sanding drywall. The longboard really helps too. While it would be a really easy thing to make a longboard, I bought one because I like the 3M hook-it idea - I've pretty much gone this route with all my implements of sanding…

With a lot of this boat-building stuff to-date, I seem to fearlessly blast ahead relying on the experience I've gained in the cabinet shop and on the job site back in the day. Oh yea, and the web site here helps a good bit too in terms of confidence...

Not to say I'm a master woodworker (or even close), just plain fearless and quite possibly stupid.

That is, I was fearless up…