Two inch extruded polystyrene sheet is pretty easy to cut as long as you limit yourself to straight, square angles, but, as I stated in my earlier post, this ice box has very few of those. Carving and shaping the acute angles to fit the curves of the hull with a sheetrock saw and rasp releases tiny little crumbs of pink styrofoam that stick to literally every surface of the boat through a scientific phenomena know as static electricity.
The other morning as I’m pouring my first cup of coffee and storming my brain on the best way to finish the fridge insulation without painting the interior of the boat pink, Jeni walks into the kitchen and says “What about the electric meat-carving knife?”. Mouth agape, I believe a bit of coffee dribbled down my chin. After retrieving my lower jaw from the floor and finishing my coffee, I walk to the pantry and dig out the electric “turkey tool” that hasn’t been used in at least ten years (I think is was a wedding gift). “F**king brilliant!!” I exclaim as I plug it in to verify that it still works.
Back at the boat I give my new little friend a test drive on a scrap of foam and I must say, I’m impressed. Not as much with my newly re-purposed “power tool”, but more so with my incredible wife of nearly 16 years!! This thing cuts virtually dust free and works well for shaving off thin little slices when I’m trying to fine tune the fit on those tight angles. And with that, some thickened 2-part epoxy, and a couple of cans of expanding foam spray I made relatively quick work of the first 2-inch layer of XPS and got started on the second. I need to pick up another sheet of styrofoam, so stay tuned…