This Post From My Accidental Man Cave!

So mostly this blog is about the rescue and restoration of a wonderful 50 year old boat.  Sometimes though, side projects creep in and because I think they are interesting, fun, or compelling, they end up on the blog too.  Earlier this week I was working at the dining room table with a Dremel tool, slipped and gouged the table.  That got me to thinking.  "If I continue to use the dining room table as a work table, I am going to destroy it.  How can I not do that?"  The solution was to build a work table for the apartment.  I also wanted to do it on the cheap (under $61, which I did).  I have been watching youtube.com videos on people doing interesting things with what is generally regarded as junk.  That was when I stumbled upon people making things out of pallets.  Bingo, cheap hardwood!  Plus, because it is already distressed from being used as a shipping pallet, I do not have to worry about not wanting to beat it up now that I have a finished project.  Here is where the accidental Man Cave comes in.  I wanted a bar height work table, as I generally prefer to stand when working on projects.  Since I made a wrong measurement on the leg length, the table edned up a bit taller than I wanted.  When I slid it into place, it fit over a chair we were going to get rid of.  When I was working on putting hooks on the inside of the table, I sat in the chair, and realized that I had a space under the table that was usable as sitting space.

 I got the opportunity to cut into the head liner on the boat to see if the mast support beam is ok or not.  Unfortunately the beam is encased in fiberglass, so I cannot tell what condition it is in.  The upside is that now that it is open, I can see once the rig is up whether the beam flexes or not.  I also found out that one of the the mast step bolts misses the support beam.  Sometimes I really wonder what they are thinking when building production boats....

 I also got the opportunity to clean up the wiring on the back of the fuse panel.  I will be adding a 12v auxiliary port to the panel soon.  There may be a battery gauge going in soon as well.

I have also had the opportunity spruce up the front of the panel as well.  It is a nice teak framing that will be epoxied and through bolted to the frame.