Open my eyes!

If your thinking by the title that I finally realized that I was way over my head, and was going to give upon this project, and then you could take over this sweet old girl, sorry no such luck. Yup, I'm sticking with my wife, and the canoe project is going forward, too.
Today were talking about the success and failure of the tug eyes. Just as refresher, I glued small blocks of wood in the bow and stern so that the hole of the eye wouldn't be open and will keep water out of the flotation chambers. There was some concern voiced about adding weight to the ends, and it's effect on the boat handling, but it's only 2 or three ounces per end, if that much, so I don't think it's going to be an issue. Plus the boat wont handle too well if the float cambers are filled with water! But thanks for you concern and comment.
So lets open those eyes.
We'll start in the back. The holes are 1/2 inch in diameter. I just happen to have a fostner bit set, so I took the proper bit from the case and put it in the cordless drill. If there ever was an indispensable tool for any number of projects, the cordless drill is it. I drilled in from both sides to avoid any tear out exiting the wood. The hold went all the way through solid wood, just what like i wanted.














The bow eye is another story, however.
I held the block lower block so that it wouldn't interfere with the inwale. The danger,of course, was that it would be too low and the hole would tear out the top of the block. Which is exactly what happened.














To fix this, I'll wait until I have the gunwales on, so I know just how nuch space I have. The most likely fix will be some more epoxy/sawdust mix. At the very least,most of the hole is filled.

The gunwales also got a coat of the Watco Teak Oil. That was after sanding, by hand, 100 grit and 150 grit. Just so you know, that's 72 linear feet of hand sanding per grit. 72 feet of not very stiff ash. Yes,my hands cramped, and my arms where tired. But they turned out pretty smooth. But I hate sanding. I brushed on a good heavy coat of oil. As heavy as you could, with the thin stuff.
It soaked into the wood a little bit,much less than I thought it would. So I figured I'd let it sit. After a couple of hours, it was sticky. Really sticky. Like OMFG WHAT DID I DO!?!? Sticky.
I had nothing to lose, so I decided to just let it sit. The next day was sunny, and that helped, but still tacky. Then it rained. It was still tacky, but the water beaded up nice. As luck would have it the sun came back out, and it dried so it was just slightly tacky. Dry enough to work with.
Here they are drying, exciting stuff.



















So stay tuned, the exciting event, attaching the rails, is not far away.
Tight Lines.