Thursday 7 April
I’m enjoying my e-bike ride in these days especially on days like today when the morning is sunny but still a little fresh. Nick who had also cycled in (no battery power there), and JP were already there as I was a tad late. Then Paul W arrived in his silent battery powered car. We’re all doing a bit to reduce our footprint and in the shed I have insisted on cleaning our epoxy mixing gear with vinegar after every glue job to reduce landfill waste. No paper coffee cups here, just old tupperware.
JP had been to collect a parcel from the Post Office containing a set of Japanese saws from Timbercon. Alongside my new big blade we have quite a set. Jokes about how they might be useful in a Saudi Arabian embassy were made.
Well it was on with the planking today. Adrian who had come and gone and come back again when his son wasn’t declared a close contact put on a mask and started fairing the bow and stern plank lands. I worked along the rest of the plank doing the same. Veronica sanded back the last plank’s excess glue and Paul W cut the plank end bevels in the new planks. JP broke out a new saw to shave the ends of the previous planks and Nick got on with bevelling the end of the next planks ready for scarfing.
It was 12.45 before we were ready to glue as we did have a rather long tea break with oat cookies and Hobnobs and a nice chat in the sun. It was fairly warm by this time so we worried about how fast the glue would go off and so we decided to go for one side at a time. Adrian had taken my miserly ways to heart and was a bit sparing on the buttering up of the starboard plank but we were able to remedy it and add more to the port plank. I let fly with an expletive when I discovered we had forgotten to clamp onto the forward frame but had screwed the bow in place (sorry guys!). It wasn’t a big drama and a bit more epoxy in the top fillet fixed the problem. The cleanup went well and this time I sacrificed my cleanliness by going for a crawl under the boat to fill the fillets there. It was amazing how much more you can see from down there. This plank will definitely be easier to clean up once the boat is turned over than the last one. While I was under there, Paul W started sweeping up covering me in a cloud of dust. I scrambled out into the fresh air.
We had a visitor, Mathew, early on in the day who lives nearby and is a lot younger than most of us. He was keen to join in and we gave him a membership form and hoped we will see him again soon.
Have a great weekend. See you back on Monday.
Cheers Dave