Progress!!

This weekend, I decided to finally take some pictures of what I've been totally obsessed with at the Museum. As a few people might know (since I never stop talking about it), I've been working on stripping down the old varnish on the wheel of the Surprise, so we can re-varnish it and make it look pretty. So, here's an example of what part of the wheel still looks like, since we haven't gotten to it yet:

This is what 4 years of neglect and a crappy varnish job to start off with will do to a wheel. The props guys of Fox studios either didn't bother to do what we are doing to the old varnish (scraping it off and replacing it) when they were dressing up the "set" or they picked out the nastiest yellow varnish and mixed it in with some brown paint to make it look aged. I'm constantly ranting about this because you see the wheel close up in the movie for all of about 30 seconds, and in dark stormy weather. You can't even see the detail of the crappy paint job. Besides, what self-respecting ship's captain, looking for things to keep his often idle crew busy, would allow the wheel to fall into such disrepair?!

So, here is what the wood of the wheel (which is solid mahogany) looks like after it has been scraped clean, sanded well and has two coats of epoxy varnish on it:

There's no stain on that sucker. That's all wood baby. Ain't it beautiful? The day that I did this section, I was by myself, and as I finished cleaning up the mess from sanding, I say the higher-ups of the Museum going below for a meeting, including the skipper. When he came back up on deck, I'd just finished the last of the epoxy on the post. I called him over, and he did a complete double-take. After three years of seeing the wheel every day, looking like crap, finally some progress. I left that day with a huge smile on my face.

Since starting this project at the begining of last November, we've had every kind of delay to deal with. We've had to stop for months at a time because of the weather (can't epoxy when the wood is wet). We've been thwarted by people who either don't think the project is a priority, or don't agree on what materials we should use. But regardless of the obstacles we've still managed to get this far, and I hope to be done by the end of June. I keep saying by the end of the month, but what month we finish in is always changing. So, June. The large sections were easy, but the spokes are driving me crazy with sanding all of the detail and stuff. When I get tired and frustrated, I look at the parts we've finished, and I have hope. Some day soon we will be done, and then it will be on to the next project, whatever it may be.

Cheers