Monday 15 August
Excellent weather forecast for glueing today, sunny and 19 degC, so when I reached the shed I opened up the doors wide and let in the sunshine on my foul mood created by a struggle with a bicycle pump. JP joined me and we started the morning with a robust argument about the angle of the thole pins. Two schools of thought: mine that they should be vertical to the water level and secondly that they should be perpendicular to the gunwale. JP had studied hard into the wee small hours to come up with back up for the latter while I was going on what I had heard from Augusta Rowers and seen in the RFBYC boats. We both listened and agreed we didn’t have to decide right away.
We then went off to separate boats to work. JP tackled the excess glue on the keel timber scarfs before moving on to fit the stern stem.
I used a multi tool to shape the frame ends to fit the gunwale. It was noisy but it enabled me to get the job done by tea break.
Harry made an appearance to collect a few of his clamps for a job he was doing in his other shed. He showed me the coasters he had made from multi coloured recycled pallet timbers glued in strips which were beautiful.
After tea break JP ran a small errand while I made small chocks to go into the gap below the gunwale on the frames. This gap was caused by us putting a 5mm Oregon veneer on the top of the exposed grains of the top plank. Making these wedges was fiddly but again the multitool helped to be able to fit them. JP set to mixing and spreading resin on the joints and the keel timbers and when I was finished I mixed up glue and buttered up the keel timbers and the the frame ends. There was also the remaining beam to glue into place.
Tomorrow we can shape the keel and prepare it for glueing into place on boat 2. On boat 1 we will drag the timber out for the thwarts and make MDF templates for them. We will also be ready to cut out the breasthooks from the same slabs of timber.
We had a few visitors today: Andrew from the Denmark Bulletin, Dr John on his way to a meeting and Mark ? who I had met on polling day at Kentdale hall.
On Friday morning I was interviewed on the Denmark local radio morning show by Sue Howard who has a reputation for an awesome past at the ABC. You can hear it on www.denmarkfm.com.au/shows/breakfast check it out on the 12th August recording.
I mentioned the winners of the Skiffy Worlds in Holland this year, a small village in Northern Ireland called Dundrum. There was a lovely picture of the kids holding a banner in front of the victory march in their community which says it all.
See you tomorrow.
Cheers Dave