Chapter 28: The New Physics — Part 7

By noon of the second day, Joe is recovered enough to examine the materials stored under a tent on a foundation built close to the arch, one that has been stripped of the remains of the home that had once stood on it. He brings ChoCho, George, and Joe with him to their workshop, where bamboo and wood, metal and other materials wait to be coupled into the body of a ship. ChoCho has brought some of his drawings, which are set near the master drafts for the ship. Joe shows what he has planned, but even with the metal shell, even with all the planning and arguing, taking ChoCho’s concept and making it viable is going to be a challenge. The pieces of metal have to be custom cut as they work, for instance, and even though the math is done to scale the ship down to a reasonable size, every step will require a personal touch.

With George working on the spine and ribs, construction is already underway. Paige and Heath bring out lunch, and then dinner. They also run errands, returning with wood glue and varnish when asked. Throughout the afternoon, they come back with anything Joe says he needs, in whatever amounts they are capable of carrying. This goes on for a week as the frame of the ship is built, wood bent into ribs, reinforced in layers, sealed and shaped by heat, cat’s file, varnish, and glue. The ribs are two feet apart, reinforced horizontally wherever the metal sheet ends.

Jynx and Daria spend the afternoon scavenging for materials, anything that can help put the ship together, coming back with tens of thousands of aluminum screws from a local hardware store that had a bulk shipment sitting in the back. They don’t stop coming back until the store is empty, and they have to look for another source. Jynx has opted to minimize farming for a year, to focus instead on getting mobile, knowing their food reserves will last several years without worry, and that they will need horses to help harvest the land in any major way. Also, she has visions of doing hydroponics in a green house. As spring approaches, she will plant various crops in the gardens, and as they find them, Daria and Jynx make note of food sources, like berry bushes and mushroom patches, but mostly she is focused on plotting out her terrain, on noting where things that might be useful someday are located, and on securing those things against the weather, when necessary. Despite her trips with Daria, Jynx doesn’t want to be too far from ChoCho more than is necessary.

About two weeks into building the ship, Daria and Jynx are back from hiking, finding themselves stepping into the middle of a rather heated conversation about materials. The metal shell is finally going into place, a job done with polyurethane, self-tapping screws, silicone glue, and pre-drilled holes. Paige and Heath are working with thinned epoxy, sealing metal to the wood frame, locking bamboo into insets drilled into the wood, while George and Jude work with calk guns and a screwdriver, sealing in the screw holes and locking the metal home. The girls are trying to be invisible, because the men are now trying to do something that sounds crazy, even impossible, and are arguing as they work out the idea. They are also doing a lot of things at once, reinforcing the frame with bamboo, putting on sheet metal skin, building up bulkheads, and drilling bracing points for bamboo poles that will act as vertical and horizontal control masts for sails.

“So why are we building this extra airtight room again?” Joe asks, reading the specifics. “It is going to eat up a lot of material we hadn’t counted on needing.”

ChoCho explains something that neither Blake nor Joe has considered. “See how these arches we’ve mapped overlap, or compress, around central points. I’m thinking that the ship, with enough momentum, should be able to jump arches across the gravity gaps, even on sail power, giving us the ability to maneuver and change direction based almost entirely on these clusters. George says we might need to pressurize the cabin though, because he thinks the sky will have low-pressure zones, where we can be knocked unconscious, even if there is enough wind to keep us to our course. So I drew up what I think will allow us the greatest chance at sealing a room against pressure loss.”

“Really?” Joe asks.

“Yes, but we could also be wrong, and this could be a waste of resources and time. We won’t know until we get up in there and find out.” ChoCho says.

“Pressure stabilization? With a frame made mostly of wood?” Joe asks suddenly.

“Yes, and we can’t be too particular, as the sheet is running low.” ChoCho confirms. “I get sick of saying this, but it’s all I got right now, unless you want to make another two day run out to the airport to collect more, so we can make a properly sealed double wall.”

“Glue and varnish.” Blake says, his face not expressing whether it is a question or a statement.

“Glue and varnish.” ChoCho confirms. “And scrap sheet, of course. The cargo hold will already be air tight, if only because of the way we’re building it up. But the control center needs the same consideration.”

“Then let’s get to it.” Joe says, thinking only of the ship, and the freedom it represents.

The shell, Jynx can see, is air tight already, the polyurethane, brushed onto the ribs, pushing out between the sheets of metal as George and Jude seal it tight. The screws are stuttered down the wood, and the sheet is offset so as to allow the rivet holes to align with the holes drilled into the wood ribs. In the end, four inches of wood is split between two edges of metal, sealed tight by the sealant, the drill holes further sealed by silicone calking. Jynx doubts the flush screws will even be needed when the glue dries. Blake has begun stripping away the excess glue with a painting knife along the finished side, readying the ship for a coat of cool gray primer. The color makes her think of sharks.

Jynx takes up a paintbrush, following behind Blake, once he gives her the go ahead to paint. The ship is starting to look like something high tech and refined, wrapped bamboo masts oddly out of place with the metal shell and butterfly design of the sails. The ship has six sets of rigging for sails, four along the sides and two main masts, it is currently resting on a set of rollers, and is made just big enough for a small cargo hold and nine people to travel in. It is beautiful enough to have a name, but if a name has been discussed, neither Jynx nor Daria have heard about it.

Fans are blowing through the room, diverting power from the main house, blowing hard enough that Jynx can hardly smell the paint or sealants they are working with. People are talking, discussing how the ship will stay level in the arches, how small test ships have righted so long as the weight and vector of the sails is maintained level and centered, betraying how meticulous George has been in his tests over the winter. Those models, all made of cedar, paper, and basswood, hang like children’s toys over the plans table. When she is toward the end of painting the finished section of the ship, to where Heath, Paige, George and Jude are still working their way back, Jynx and Daria seal up the paint and Jynx takes a moment to breathe.

“How much longer before she sails?” Daria asks.

Blake looks at a checklist, assessing how long it has taken to get where they are. “Three weeks, maybe a month. The ship, being smaller, saves time.” He looks at the two main masts and four sets of rigging masts, all unfinished, and motions toward them. “Want to help me finish lashing these?”

“Of course.” Jynx says. “If you’re willing to show us how.”

Blake smiles, starts pulling the bamboo outside, where it can be worked to its final size and shape. Taking up a thin piece of chorded rope and a caulk gun loaded with wood glue, he works at turning eighteen mature pieces of bamboo into one main mast, showing Daria and Jynx how to wrap and lash the bamboo joints, where the knuckle of one piece of bamboo settles just over or under another. The main masts is thirty feet tall and a foot and a half thick, and the pieces have been cut between eleven and thirteen feet so that the edges join at different points, all within a foot of each other. The butt of one bamboo edge is smoothed to the knuckle joint so it will fit snug to the butt end of the other, and wood glue used to seal the butt ends, as well as the rope lashing, tightening everything into place.

They repeat the second process only once, the major lashings being broken into four sections, and finish by lashing every four feet up the mast. They then perform the exact process with thinner pieces of bamboo and slightly thinner chord, creating eight six-inch thick poles that are only twenty feet long. Layers of varnish finish the job, sealing the bamboo poles tightly to each other. Blake looks at the masts and rigging bars protected under their tarp, drying in the sun, which he and the girls have finished over the course of two days. Three days will ensure that they are good and dry, and he will then coat them with two more layers of varnish, turning them as he goes, working the paint into the spaces so it can act as adhesive and weather sealant anywhere the bamboo touches.

“After the final coat, we let these lay for ten days. Then we set the rigging and drop the masts into the frame.” Blake says. “One week after that, we’ll be ready to fly.”

Advertise Here