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Not for nuthin'…. But….. 36 new listings hit the North Shore market in the last 24 hours, and it was a three-way tie at the top.
Top towns: Lynn, Peabody and Gloucester with 5 each, then Ipswich, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead and Swampscott with 3 apiece. Danvers added 2, and Amesbury, Beverly, Middleton, Newbury, Salem, Saugus and West Newbury chipped in 1 each.
By property type: Residential 21 · Residential Lease (rentals) 11 · Residential Income (multi-family) 2 · Commercial Lease 2.
The MOAM's take: homes for sale outnumbered rentals nearly two to one today, and Cape Ann and the coast showed up strong, with Gloucester, Manchester and Ipswich putting up 11 between them.
Contact Nanepashemet to view these.
Nanepashemet Real Estate Services
Call or text 781-727-6516 jnestor@nanepashemet.com
MOAM Out.
Listing data courtesy of MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN); listings shown are held by various brokerages. Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, MA Broker Lic. 136995-RE-B.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Jayson Tatum, you beauty. The Celtics and Nets went back and forth all night at the Garden, Brooklyn's rookie tied it with two-tenths of a second left in regulation, and then Tatum stepped up at the free-throw line and buried a jumper at the overtime buzzer. 125-124, forty points for the man, and the building lost its mind. Down in Raleigh the B's weren't as lucky. Grab a coffee, here's where everybody stands.
Short version: the Celts won in OT and are off until Friday, the B's lost a tight one at Carolina and go to St. Louis Thursday, the Pats are off until Sunday in Miami, and the Sox are home watching a World Series that just got a little longer.
Boston Celtics
Yesterday: W 125-124 (OT) vs Brooklyn Nets (Tatum 40 points and 8 assists, including the game-winner at the OT buzzer; Paul George 20, Derrick White 16)
Today: No game
Next: Fri., Oct. 30, 7:30 PM ET, vs Chicago Bulls (home, NBA Cup group stage)
Standings: 3-1, tied for 1st in the Atlantic with Philadelphia (3-1), No. 4 in the East (four teams are 3-1 at the top)
Three straight wins since that opener in Detroit. Tatum went 18-for-22 from the line, and the C's won it on a night they shot 11-for-41 from three. That's a good team finding a way. Bulls again Friday, this time with NBA Cup stakes.
Boston Bruins
Yesterday: L 2-1 @ Carolina Hurricanes (Pavel Zacha power-play goal; Jeremy Swayman 28 saves)
Today: No game
Next: Thu., Oct. 29, 8:00 PM ET, @ St. Louis Blues (NESN)
Standings: 9-3-1, 19 points, 1st in the Atlantic (3 points up on Montreal, Ottawa, Florida and Toronto), No. 2 in the East, 3 points behind Carolina (10-2-2, 22 points)
Sebastian Aho broke the 1-1 tie midway through the third, and Kochetkov is now 8-0 in net for Carolina. That ends the B's eight-game point streak (7-0-1), but Swayman kept them in it and they're still on top of the division. Shake it off in St. Louis, then home with Chicago Saturday at 1.
New England Patriots
Yesterday / Today: No games (last game: L 30-24 @ Chicago on Thu., Oct. 22)
Standings: 4-3, 2nd in the AFC East, 1.5 games behind Buffalo (5-1), No. 8 in the AFC
Miami comes in 1-5, so this is one the Pats need to take. Reminder: clocks fall back Sunday morning, so you get an extra hour of sleep before the 4:25 kick.
Boston Red Sox
Yesterday / Today: No games, season over
World Series: Tampa Bay stayed alive, beating Milwaukee 4-3 in 12 innings in Game 4 last night. Milwaukee leads the series 3-1; Game 5 is tonight at 8 PM ET in St. Petersburg (FOX)
Next: 2027 Opening Day is Thu., March 25, @ Seattle Mariners (time TBA); home opener Thu., April 1, vs Cincinnati
Final standings: 87-75, 3rd in the AL East, swept by the Yankees in the AL Wild Card round
Twelve innings and the Rays dodge the sweep. Still need three in a row to take it, though. Hot stove's still on low around here.
That's the Wednesday board. Quiet night for Boston teams, so the World Series is all yours. Enjoy the day, everybody.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Wednesday came up gold. The sun rolled up over the harbor like it had somewhere to be, the Rockpile actually showed its face for once, and up north the hardwoods are down to bare branches and a little leftover copper. Partly sunny and a few degrees milder at the coast, but it's still blowing hard on top of the mountain. Here's how three corners of New England looked around 7:40 this morning.
Marblehead Harbor (BYC Oceanfront) — The sun sitting right on the treeline and laying a gold streak across the water, the harbor nearly glassy, mooring balls dotted all the way out toward the lighthouse end, and a skiff still tied up at the float. Partly sunny with a high near 56 and barely a breeze. Coffee-on-the-porch weather.
Mount Washington, NH (Observatory North View) — The ice is gone and the view is back: the Northern Presidentials in shadow, the Auto Road curling off to the right, and a pastel peach sky stretched across the whole horizon. Up top it's mostly cloudy with a high in the mid 30s and a west wind 25 to 35 mph, gusting to 45. Hold onto your hat.
Bartlett Experimental Forest, NH — From the top of the NEON tower, the hardwoods are bare and silver, the pines and hemlocks carrying all the green, and the last rust and copper hanging on along the mountainsides. Partly sunny with a high near 51 and dead calm, then a clear night right around freezing.
The Mad River Valley covered bridge cam sat this one out again.
Webcam views courtesy of the Boston Yacht Club, the Mount Washington Observatory and NEON/PhenoCam.
Salt air's good for the soul and murder on a plane iron….. Work a few hundred yards from Marblehead Harbor and you learn it fast. Leave a block plane on the bench Friday, open the garage door on a mild, damp Saturday morning, and there's an orange freckle on the sole and a fingerprint etched into the iron. I'm building a Chamberlain Marblehead gunning dory, and the bronze fastenings don't care about the weather. The plane irons, chisels, saws and cast-iron tops do. So today: why tools rust, what the humidity numbers really are when there's salt in the air, and which coatings actually held up when Fine Woodworking tortured twenty of them.
Why it matters: Rust is iron, oxygen and water getting together. Fine Woodworking's Thomas McKenna lays out the two things that speed it up in a shop like mine: salt, whether it's from sea air or the moisture off your fingertips, and temperature swings that cause condensation. In an unheated garage, when a cold night turns into a warm day, condensation settles on the saw table, the jointer and any hand tool left on the bench. Once it starts, it spreads like a rash. A little surface rust on a chisel back or plane sole is an hour of flattening you didn't need to do. Pitting is worse, and if it reaches the edge, you're grinding the pits out.
The numbers that matter
Clean steel: CoatingsPro (an AMPP corrosion-industry magazine) puts the critical relative humidity for steel at around 60%. That's the level below which water won't form on a clean metal surface. At 75 to 80% the corrosion rate jumps sharply.
Salty steel is a different animal. Sea salt pulls water out of the air. Plain salt (sodium chloride) turns to liquid brine at about 76% humidity, but a 2014 study in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society found steel dusted with salt crystals could start rusting at as low as 33%, and from 53% up it rusted nearly as fast as steel sitting under wet brine. Translation for the coast: a shop that feels dry can still rust a tool that has salt on it. Wiping the salt off matters as much as the humidity.
Dew point: The National Weather Service defines it as the temperature the air has to cool to before it hits 100% humidity. Anything colder than that collects water. Work it out (my arithmetic, using the standard Magnus formula): 60°F shop air at 70% humidity has a dew point of about 50°F. A plane iron that sat at 45°F overnight will sweat the minute that air hits it. Woodworker's Journal's Tim Inman calls it the sweaty iced-tea glass, and points out it's the changing temperature that does the damage, not the cold itself.
A dry shop: Woodworker's Journal's Chris Marshall runs a dehumidifier year-round in a closed shop, and his humidity hovers around 40 to 50% in the mild months. That's the range I aim for.
What actually works: the Fine Woodworking test
In 2012 Fine Woodworking put 20 rust preventers through ten days of abuse. They coated a cast-iron table saw top, spritzed it with water and left it outside under an overhang. Then they coated A2 tool steel samples and froze and thawed them every day so condensation built up. The saw top showed rust after one night, and the tool steel within 48 hours.
Top seven: CRC Industrial 3-36, LPS 3, Moovit, Rust Block, WD-40, WD-40 Long-Term Corrosion Inhibitor and 3M Rust Fighter 1.
Their picks: CRC 3-36 was best overall. It has a petroleum odor, so if you'd rather keep petroleum off your hand tools, they recommended Moovit. LPS 3 and 3M Rust Fighter 1 performed perfectly but left a sticky feel, and LPS 3 was the only product that kept yellow glue from sticking.
Finishes: None of the products interfered with an oil-based or water-based topcoat, even when they put them right on the wood.
The surprise: Paste wax is a fine lubricant on plane soles and machine tables, but it didn't offer much rust protection. Camellia and jojoba oil were marginal, and Boeshield T-9 didn't make the top seven.
Now, to be fair to the oils: Lie-Nielsen tells its customers to keep iron tools lightly oiled or waxed and recommends jojoba, and they say it won't interfere with finishes or gluing. And a ship's carpenter writing in Fine Woodworking took camellia oil and several other rust preventers along for nine months on a tall ship, with salt spray and sweaty hands working on his tools, and camellia oil beat them all. Here's how I square it: a thin wipe of natural oil is fine on a tool you pick up every day. A tool that's going to sit in a damp garage for a month gets something that passed the test.
Materials
A rust preventer that passed the test: CRC Industrial 3-36 for machine tops and idle tools, Moovit for hand tools
Jojoba or camellia oil for the daily wipe-down, if you like a natural oil
Paste wax for plane soles and saw tables (to make the wood slide, not to stop rust)
Clean cotton or microfiber rags
Rechargeable silica-gel desiccant canisters, or VCI emitters, for the tool chest and drawers
Evapo-Rust (or a similar water-based soak) for tools that already have rust on them
A fine abrasive handblock (rubberized abrasive) for light surface rust
Tools
A digital hygrometer (one in the shop, a cheap one in the tool chest)
An infrared thermometer to check the iron itself
A dehumidifier sized for the shop
A tool chest, till or cabinet with a lid that closes tight
Steps: keep the water off the iron
Hang a hygrometer and read it. Know the humidity before you leave for the night. If the shop sits above 50% for days at a time, that's your first job, before any spray can.
Close the shop up and dry the air. Shut the doors and windows on muggy days and run the dehumidifier. Empty it regularly, or plumb it to a drain. Fine Woodworking also suggests masonry waterproofing paint on basement walls and sealing garage floors, so moisture can't come up through the concrete.
Watch the morning swing. The worst time is a cold night followed by a mild, damp day. Don't throw the garage door open to let the warm air in while the iron's still cold. Shoot the plane sole with the infrared thermometer. If it reads at or below the dew point, keep the tools covered or in the chest until they warm up. Same goes for cranking a heater in a cold shop: the air warms up long before the cast iron does.
Wipe every tool before it goes away. Your fingers leave salt and moisture on the steel. A quick wipe with a clean rag takes the prints and the sawdust off. Vic Tesolin points out in Fine Woodworking that dust soaks up moisture and holds it against the steel, which is why old tool chests had a dust seal.
Dry it all the way after the waterstones. Sharpening on waterstones (the 10/17 tip) leaves water on the blade, the chipbreaker and the screw. Dry it completely, then oil it. Oil over a wet blade just traps the water.
Coat it thin. Hand tools you use every day: a few drops of jojoba or camellia oil, or Moovit, on a rag, wiped on and wiped back off. Cast-iron tops and tools that will sit: a spray that passed the test, like CRC 3-36. Wax on top of that only if you want the wood to slide.
Store it closed, with a dry pack. Put a desiccant canister or a VCI emitter in the chest or drawer and keep the lid shut. Fine Woodworking explains that both are made for enclosed spaces: a desiccant fills up and has to be dried out with heat (only some kinds can be), and a VCI gives off a vapor that coats the metal, lasts anywhere from six months to five years depending on the product, and leaks away if the drawer stays open. None of the sprays protect the inside of a power tool, either, so the cases need a dry pack too.
Catch it early. A little orange bloom comes off with a fine abrasive handblock; Lie-Nielsen says it uses one in its own shop. Anything heavier goes in an Evapo-Rust bath: the maker says 30 minutes for light rust, up to overnight for heavy. Then rinse with water; the maker calls that step especially important. Let it dry, then coat it.
On the dory: The boat sits where the fog rolls in off the harbor, and the shop sees every swing between a raw November night and a soft, damp morning. So the chisels and the block plane I use every day get a wipe and a few drops of oil when I put them down. The jointer, the bandsaw table and the planes that only come out for the next boat get a coat of something that passed the test. The bronze screws in the planking don't need any of it. And everything that matters lives in a lidded till with a desiccant canister, not out on the bench where the next fog bank can find it.
MOAM's shop note: The most common mistake I see is the guy who waxes his plane soles faithfully and thinks that's rust protection. Wax makes the plane glide; in Fine Woodworking's test it didn't do much to stop rust. The second is the guy who cranks a heater in a freezing garage for a Saturday project. The warm, moist air hits forty-degree cast iron before the iron can catch up, and by Monday the table saw has a rash. Keep the temperature steady if you can, keep the humidity under 50%, and wipe the salt off your tools before you coat them. And if you're near the water, remember: a dry-feeling shop isn't dry enough if there's salt on the steel.
The numbers here come from Fine Woodworking's rust-preventer test, CoatingsPro, the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the National Weather Service, Woodworker's Journal, and Lie-Nielsen's and Evapo-Rust's own instructions. The dew-point example is my own arithmetic. Read the label on whatever you buy, and test it on a scrap of steel before you trust your good tools to it.
Well, would ya look at this…. 26 new listings hit the North Shore market in the last 24 hours, and Lynn ran away with it.
Top towns: Lynn 10, Salem 4, then Danvers, Saugus and Swampscott with 2 each. Beverly, Gloucester, Lynnfield, Marblehead, Newburyport and Peabody added 1 apiece.
By property type: Residential Lease (rentals) 12 · Residential 10 · Residential Income (multi-family) 3 · Commercial Sale 1.
The MOAM's take: rentals led the day, with 7 of Lynn's 10 newcomers up for lease, many near King's Beach. Buyers got a healthy batch too, with single-family homes from Saugus to Newburyport and a few two- and three-families for the investors out there.
Contact Nanepashemet to view these.
Nanepashemet Real Estate Services
Call or text 781-727-6516 jnestor@nanepashemet.com
MOAM Out.
Listing data courtesy of MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN); listings shown are held by various brokerages. Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, MA Broker Lic. 136995-RE-B.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Now THAT'S how you treat company at the Garden. The Celtics ran the Bulls right out of the building last night, 134-99, and Payton Pritchard caught fire in the third quarter like it was his own personal driveway. Tonight is a big one, too: Celts at home again and the B's in Raleigh for first place in the East. Grab a coffee, here's where everybody stands.
Short version: the Celts beat Chicago and host Brooklyn tonight at 7:30, the B's are at Carolina tonight at 8, the Pats are off until Sunday in Miami, and the Sox are home watching the World Series like the rest of us.
Boston Celtics
Yesterday: W 134-99 vs Chicago Bulls (Pritchard 28 off the bench, Tatum 23-7-6)
Today: Tue., Oct. 27, 7:30 PM ET, vs Brooklyn Nets (home)
Next: Fri., Oct. 30, 7:30 PM ET, vs Chicago Bulls (home)
Standings: 2-1, tied for 2nd in the Atlantic with Toronto, half a game behind Philadelphia (3-1), No. 5 in the East
Pritchard went 5-for-5 from three in the third and scored 19 in the quarter, and the bench outscored Chicago's 79-33. Brooklyn comes in 0-3. Take care of business and make it 3-1.
Boston Bruins
Yesterday: No game (last game: W 6-4 vs San Jose Sharks on Saturday)
Next: Thu., Oct. 29, 8:00 PM ET, @ St. Louis Blues (NESN)
Standings: 9-2-1, 19 points, 1st in the Atlantic (3 points up on Ottawa and Toronto), No. 2 in the East, one point behind Carolina (9-2-2, 20 points)
Eight-game point streak (7-0-1) on the line, and a win tonight puts the B's on top of the whole East. Carolina's goalie Kochetkov is 7-0, so the boys will have to earn it. Home with Chicago Saturday afternoon after St. Louis.
New England Patriots
Yesterday / Today: No games (last game: L 30-24 @ Chicago on Thursday night)
Standings: 4-3, 2nd in the AFC East, 1.5 games behind Buffalo (5-1), No. 8 in the AFC
Nothing changed in the AFC last night; Monday's game was Dallas at Philly. A few extra days of rest after the Thursday game won't hurt. Reminder: clocks fall back Sunday morning, so you get an extra hour before the 4:25 kick.
Boston Red Sox
Yesterday / Today: No games, season over
World Series: Milwaukee leads Tampa Bay 3-0 after a 10-1 win last night; Game 4 is tonight at 8 PM ET in St. Petersburg (FOX)
Next: Spring training opens Fri., Feb. 19, 2027; 2027 Opening Day is Thu., March 25, @ Seattle Mariners (time TBA)
Final standings: 87-75, 3rd in the AL East, swept by the Yankees in the AL Wild Card round
An AL East team is one loss from getting swept in the World Series, and it isn't ours. Hard to feel too bad for the Rays. Hot stove's still on low.
That's the Tuesday board. Celts at 7:30, B's at 8, so have the remote handy. Enjoy the day, everybody.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Tuesday traded yesterday's 60s for a proper late-October chill. A low gold sun over a rippled harbor at the coast, and up north the hardwoods have pretty much given it up for the year. Sunny everywhere, but cooler, with a hard frost on tap tonight in the mountains. Here's how two corners of New England looked around 7:35 this morning.
Marblehead Harbor (BYC Oceanfront) — The sun just clearing the trees on the left and throwing a gold streak across the water, a light ripple on the harbor, mooring balls dotted all the way out, and a couple of boats still tied up at the float. Sunny with a high near 53 and a northeast breeze around 8 to 12 mph. Sweatshirt weather.
Bartlett Experimental Forest, NH — From the top of the NEON tower, the hardwoods are bare and silver now, the pines and hemlocks carrying all the green, and the last rust and copper fading on the mountainsides under a pale morning sky. Sunny with a high near 48 and barely a breath of wind, then a clear night down around 20.
The Mount Washington Observatory cam was iced over this morning, so the Rockpile sat this one out.
Webcam views courtesy of the Boston Yacht Club and NEON/PhenoCam.
This is catching the MOAM's attention today….. how many good finishes get ruined with sandpaper. Either somebody jumped from 80 grit straight to 220 to save twenty minutes, or somebody polished cured epoxy so slick the varnish had nothing to hang on to. I'm building a Chamberlain Marblehead gunning dory, and between bare wood, epoxy-coated planks and primer, I go through a lot of paper in this shop. So today: which grits you can skip, which ones you can't, and where to stop for wood, for epoxy under varnish, and for epoxy under paint.
Why it matters: Each grit's only job is to take out the scratches the last grit left. Skip too far and the finer paper just knocks the tops off the deep scratches. Lon Schleining put it plain in Fine Woodworking: no matter how long you sand, 180-grit won't remove the scratches made by 100-grit. They hide until the stain or the first coat of varnish lights them up. Go the other way, too fine on a surface that's getting another coat, and you've sanded off the "tooth" the coating needs to grab. WEST SYSTEM, Epifanes and Interlux all warn about that one.
The rules for skipping
Start coarse enough, not coarser. Bob Flexner (Popular Woodworking) starts planed solid stock at 80 and factory-sanded plywood at 120, because 80 on veneer is wasted work and risks sanding through. Schleining starts hard maple at 120, since 80 and 100 scratches are tough to get out of it.
Never skip two in a row. Uneeda, the abrasives maker, calls it the golden rule: never skip more than one grit. 80, 120, 180 is fine. 80 straight to 180 isn't.
By hand, with the grain, you can skip one. Jeff Jewitt (Fine Woodworking) says hand sanding leaves scratches that run with the grain, so you can go 100, 150, 220. The American Woodworker editors checked with sandpaper makers and got the same answer: 80, 120, 180 or 100, 150, 220.
On a random-orbit sander, don't skip. Jewitt again: those machines put cross-grain scratches in the wood, and if you skip, you'll likely see the coarse ones later. Flexner calls every grit (80, 100, 120, 150, 180) the most efficient way to go, as long as you only sand each one long enough to take out the last.
Where to stop depends on what goes on next
Bare wood under a film finish (varnish, shellac, lacquer): Flexner says it's rarely worth going finer than 180, because after a couple of coats the finish makes its own surface. Go to 220 if random-orbit swirls still show, and finish by hand, with the grain, at your last grit. Water-based finish is the exception; Jewitt goes to 320 or 400 to cut down the raised grain. (Raising the grain was the 10/13 tip.)
Bare wood under marine varnish: Epifanes says bare wood should normally be prepared to about 100 or 120 grit, and that much finer won't give that first coat enough grip. Then 220 dry over the first few coats to knock down the raised grain, and 320 wet or dry once the grain fills, right to the end. 400 is the finest they'd ever use between coats. Anything finer, there's no tooth.
Epoxy-coated brightwork under varnish: TotalBoat says let the epoxy cure 5 to 7 days, wash it with mild soap and warm water even if it's sold as "non-blushing," dry it, then sand with 220 or 320. Only reach for 80 to cut down runs and sags (WEST), then climb back up through the grits.
Epoxy under paint: WEST SYSTEM's manual says the coating maker's directions rule, and gives the ballpark: 80 to 100 grit is usually enough under a high-build or filling primer, 120 to 180 for primers and high-solids coatings, and 180 is often recommended for high-gloss finishes. Finer than that may not give enough tooth and can lead to sags and runs. Interlux's system for a clear-epoxy surface: let it cure 3 to 7 days, wash off the blush first (Interlux says sanding doesn't remove contamination), sand 80 to 120, fill and sand 120 to 220, then a two-part primer (Epoxy Primekote), 120 between primer coats, and 220 to 320 on the last primer coat before the topcoat. Their one-part Brightside topcoat gets sanded 220 to 320 between coats.
Materials
Sanding discs for your random-orbit sander: 80, 100, 120, 150, 180, 220
Sheets for hand and wet sanding: 120, 180, 220, 320, 400 wet-or-dry
Maroon Scotch-Brite pads and clean water (for washing epoxy before sanding)
A soft pencil
The coating's data sheet or can label, so you know your last grit before you start
Tools
5-inch random-orbit sander hooked to a shop vac
A flat sanding block (cork-faced or rubber) for flat work, and a longboard for fairing a hull
A bright light you can set low for raking across the surface
Shop vac with a brush head, and tack cloth for between coats
Half-mask respirator with P100 filters for epoxy, primer and fairing dust
Steps: climb the ladder without missing a rung
Read the can before you pick up the sander. The coating sets your last grit, so know where you're stopping before you start: 180 for most film finishes on bare wood, about 100 to 120 under Epifanes varnish, 220 to 320 on epoxy under varnish, and whatever the primer's sheet says under paint.
Pick the starting grit by the worst defect, not by habit. Planer marks on solid stock: 80. Factory-sanded plywood: 120. Hard maple: 120. Cured epoxy with runs or sags: 80, just on those spots. A smooth epoxy coat that only needs tooth: go right to your finish grit.
Epoxy gets washed before it gets sanded. Let it cure all the way, then scrub with water and a maroon Scotch-Brite pad, and dry it. Sanding first just grinds the blush in. (The full story on amine blush was the 10/24 tip.)
Scribble pencil across the surface. The American Woodworker editors use pencil lines to tell when glued-up boards are flush. I use them for every grit: when the scribble's gone everywhere, that grit's done its job.
Sand, then check with a raking light. Set the light low and look across the surface before every grit change. One stray scratch is easy to fix now. Find it after the next grit and you're backing up two.
Vacuum, then move up one grit. On the random-orbit sander, go every grit. By hand, with the grain, you can skip one. Never skip two. Vacuum between grits so a loose coarse grain doesn't get dragged across your fine work.
Finish by hand, with the grain. After your last machine grit, hand-sand with a flat block at the same grit to take out the random-orbit swirls (Flexner).
Test it, clean it, coat it. On epoxy, rinse with fresh water: WEST says it should sheet out evenly. If it beads, wet-sand that spot again. Then wipe with whatever cleaner the coating maker calls for and get the coat on.
Between coats, sand light and not too fine. Wait until it's hard enough to sand. Epifanes says one-part varnish or paint is generally safe after 24 hours. Interlux's Brightside sheet says 12 hours at 75°F, 16 at 60°F and 20 at 50°F. Then use 220 to 320, and never finer than 400.
On the dory: The epoxy-coated planking that's headed for paint and any bright trim headed for varnish get two different ladders. The trim gets washed and taken to 220 or 320 for varnish. The hull gets washed, sanded 80 to 120, and goes under a two-part primer before any one-part topcoat, because Interlux's Brightside sheet calls for Epoxy Primekote or InterProtect over clear epoxy before the one-part topcoat goes on. And Primekote and Brightside both want the air, the paint and the hull at 50°F or warmer, so in a Marblehead shop in November, that's a warm-day job.
MOAM's shop note: The most common mistake I see is the guy who sands his last coat of epoxy to 600 because it feels like glass, then wonders why the varnish peels in the spring. Smooth isn't the goal. Tooth is. Epifanes says anything finer than 400 won't give enough mechanical bond, and WEST says going finer than about 180 under paint may not give enough tooth for good adhesion. If you want it slick, do it with the finish, not the sandpaper. The other mistake is the guy who goes 80 to 220 on a random-orbit sander, puts stain on, and finds a tabletop full of little curlicues. Every grit, on the machine. It's faster than doing it twice.
The numbers here come from the makers' data sheets and help pages (WEST SYSTEM, Interlux, Epifanes, TotalBoat and Uneeda) and from Fine Woodworking, Popular Woodworking and American Woodworker. Read the label on your can. If the coating maker says something different, the coating maker wins.
This is catching the MOAM's attention today….. 7 new listings hit the North Shore market in the last 24 hours, and Marblehead led the pack.
Top towns: Marblehead 3, then Beverly, Nahant, Salem and Salisbury with 1 each.
By property type: Commercial Lease 3 · Commercial Sale 1 · Residential 1 · Residential Income 1 · Residential Lease (rentals) 1.
The MOAM's take: all three Marblehead newcomers are small commercial spaces for lease, so if you've been hunting for a little shop or office in town, now's the time to look. Plenty of variety for a Monday, from a rental to a multi-family to a commercial building.
Contact Nanepashemet to view these.
Nanepashemet Real Estate Services
Call or text 781-727-6516 jnestor@nanepashemet.com
MOAM Out.
Listing data courtesy of MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN); listings shown are held by various brokerages. Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, MA Broker Lic. 136995-RE-B.
This is catching the MOAM's attention today….. the 30-year mortgage rate finally blinked. It dipped to 7.32%, the first weekly drop in Freddie Mac's survey since late August. Here's this week's short video with the real numbers for Marblehead and Nahant, plus one practical tip from a guy who sells houses and builds things. No hype, no made-up stats. If I can't source a number, you won't see it.
This week's numbers
Mortgage rates (Freddie Mac PMMS®, U.S. weekly averages as of Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026)
30-year fixed: 7.32%, down from 7.40% last week. A year ago it was 6.19%.
15-year fixed: 6.68%, down from 6.71%. A year ago it was 5.44%.
Per Freddie Mac's historical data, that's the first week-over-week decline in the 30-year since August 20, after two weeks at 7.40%, this year's high so far.
A quick reality check: on a $600,000 30-year loan, principal and interest runs about $3,671 a month at 6.19% and about $4,122 at 7.32%. That's roughly $451 more a month than a year ago, before taxes and insurance, but about $32 less than last week. (My own arithmetic at the Freddie Mac average rates. Your actual rate depends on your lender and your loan.)
Marblehead, single-family, September 2026 (Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®), still the latest month posted
Median sale price: $1,127,500, up 15.6% from $975,000 in September 2025
Closed sales: 14 (20 a year ago). Small sample, so one month can look extreme.
Homes for sale: 28 (down 15.2%)
Months of supply: 2.0
Cumulative days on market: 53 (36 a year ago)
Sellers received 93.0% of original list price (99.3% a year ago)
Nahant, single-family (MAR, September 2026 report): this week's rotating town spotlight. September had just one single-family sale, so these are mostly year-to-date figures.
Year-to-date median sale price: $1,018,000, up 19.8% from $850,000
Year-to-date closed sales: 15 (27 at this point last year)
Homes for sale: 15 (14 a year ago)
Months of supply: 4.8 (4.2 a year ago)
Year-to-date cumulative days on market: 74 (58 last year)
Year-to-date, sellers received 93.0% of original list price (98.6% last year)
So what does it mean? Marblehead is still tight at about two months of supply, but homes are sitting longer and sellers are giving up more off their first asking price. Nahant has nearly five months of supply, the most of any town we've covered on this show, and buyers there have real room to negotiate. A small rate dip won't change the math overnight, but if it keeps sliding, expect more buyers off the sidelines before the holidays.
The broker-who-builds tip: old wiring and your insurance
If a home inspector finds knob-and-tube wiring, or an old Federal Pacific or Zinsco electrical panel, a lot of insurance companies won't write the policy, or they'll charge more, until it's dealt with. Buyers: get your homeowner's insurance quote early in the inspection window, not the week before closing. Sellers: have a licensed electrician take a look before you list, so it doesn't blow up the deal later.
This tip is general information, not a substitute for a home inspection, and it doesn't replace advice from a licensed electrician, inspector or insurance agent. If you're planning repairs before a sale, I hold MA Construction Supervisor License CS-047636 and can talk through what's worth fixing.
Or call or text me at 781-727-6516. I'm available seven days a week.
John Nestor, Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, MA Broker Lic. #136995-RE-B · 328 West Shore Drive, Marblehead, MA 01945 · 781-727-6516 · nanepashemet.com. Renovations: John Nestor, MA Construction Supervisor License CS-047636. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Quiet Sunday around here. None of our four teams played yesterday, so the weekend highlight is still the Bruins' third-period comeback against San Jose Saturday night. Tonight the Celtics get back to work at the Garden, and they go again Tuesday. Grab a coffee, here's where everybody stands.
Short version: the Celts host Chicago tonight at 7:30 and Brooklyn Tuesday, the B's are in Carolina Tuesday at 8 in a first-place showdown, the Pats are off until Sunday in Miami, and the Sox are home for the winter.
Boston Celtics
Yesterday: No game (last game: W 107-103 vs New York Knicks on Friday)
Today: Mon., Oct. 26, 7:30 PM ET, vs Chicago Bulls (home, NBC Sports Boston)
Next: Tue., Oct. 27, 7:30 PM ET, vs Brooklyn Nets (home)
Standings: 1-1, 3rd in the Atlantic, 1 game behind Philadelphia (3-1), No. 8 in the East
Back-to-back nights at the Garden. The Bulls come in 1-2 and have been giving up points in bunches, and Brooklyn is 0-3. Two very winnable games. Let's bank them both.
Boston Bruins
Yesterday: No game (last game: W 6-4 vs San Jose Sharks on Saturday)
Standings: 9-2-1, 19 points, 1st in the Atlantic (3 points up on Ottawa and Toronto), No. 2 in the East, one point behind Carolina (20) with a game in hand
Still riding that eight-game point streak (7-0-1). Tuesday in Raleigh is for first place in the East. Then it's on to St. Louis Thursday and home with Chicago Saturday afternoon.
New England Patriots
Yesterday / Today: No games (last game: L 30-24 @ Chicago on Thursday night)
Standings: 4-3, 2nd in the AFC East, 1.5 games behind Buffalo (5-1), No. 8 in the AFC, half a game out of the last wild-card spot
Buffalo sat Sunday too, so no ground lost there, and the Pats actually moved up a spot to No. 8 when Baltimore lost. Miami picked up its first win Sunday, 28-25 over the Jets, so don't sleep on them next week. Reminder: clocks fall back that same morning.
Boston Red Sox
Yesterday / Today: No games, season over
Next: Spring training opens Fri., Feb. 19, 2027, then the Grapefruit League opener Sat., Feb. 20, @ Tampa Bay (times TBA)
2027 Opening Day: Thu., March 25, 2027, @ Seattle Mariners (time TBA). Fenway home opener is Thu., April 1, vs Cincinnati
Final standings: 87-75, 3rd in the AL East, swept by the Yankees in the AL Wild Card round
Hot stove's warming up. Still waiting on a good rumor.
That's the Monday board. Celts tonight and tomorrow at 7:30, B's Tuesday at 8. Have a good week, everybody.
Not for nuthin'…. But….. Monday came in easy at sea level and cranky up top. A golden sunrise over a glassy harbor, the Presidentials lit up warm under a big sky, and the last of the russet holding on in the White Mountains. Sunny and mild at the coast with a high near 67, but the wind is howling on the Rockpile. Here's how three corners of New England looked around 7:40 this morning.
Marblehead Harbor (BYC Oceanfront) — The sun just up over the trees on the left, laying a gold streak across water about as flat as it gets, mooring balls scattered all the way out, and a couple of boats still tied up at the float. Sunny with a high near 67 and a west wind around 8 mph. Not a bad way to start the work week.
Mount Washington North View — The northern Presidentials catching warm early light on their east faces, a long bank of cloud rolling over from the west, and the Auto Road curling across the summit cone. Partly sunny with a high near 42, dropping into the 30s this afternoon, west wind 40 to 50 mph with gusts to 70 and a stray shower after 2. Hang onto your hat.
Bartlett Experimental Forest, NH — From the top of the NEON tower, the hardwoods are mostly bare now, gray and rust with a few gold stragglers, the pines and hemlocks holding the green, and the ridgeline glowing under a pink and lavender sky. Mostly sunny with a high near 64 and hardly a breath of wind.
Webcam views courtesy of the Boston Yacht Club, the Mount Washington Observatory, and NEON/PhenoCam.
