Monday 5 September
A hectic day in the shed today with lots going on and lots of visitors. Mark, JP, Geoff were the main stayers with Dr John and his neighbour Brian dropping in for an hour. JP got into boat 2 with a rocky start until I added some more support clamps. He attacked the glue dags with a heat gun and scrapers until he managed to singe himself on his unprotected legs.
Mark had the task of settling the thwarts on their newly glued in side supports which he did with the multi tool and a lot of bending in to see if there was any daylight left between the thwart and the cross beam.
Geoff sanded the inside bow section again to get a good surface for painting resin on.
Brian, our first visitor, sanded the stern breasthook and Veronica stuck her head in to do quality control. Brian passed with flying colours.
Dr John had a go at cutting the end of the inner gunwale batten to fit into the bow stem using an off-cut first. Unfortunately he had to admit defeat and admitted he hadn’t spent his allotted time very well.
It turns out he wasn’t the only one who was to make mistakes today. My attempts at pattern making for the plywood floor board under the cox’s seat didn’t go according to plan and JP had to give up drilling rowlock pin holes after his second attempt came near to disaster.
We had a visit from Justin and his home school group who he does woodwork projects and bushcraft with which sound fun (Longbows!). A few of the parents came as well and they asked plenty of questions about the history of the design and the building processes which would have been used by the Vikings versus our plywood and epoxy construction.
We also had a visit from the Wood Turners Group members, Mike Bentley and Dave Walter, who had, at JP’s request, turned a Jarrah thole pin (the wooden peg that will act as the rowlock for wooden oars). It’s just another example of the wonderful community support the project is receiving. Discussion around the strength of various woods was had but we decide to start with locally grown Jarrah although it can be brittle.
Geoff had brought in orange muffins for morning tea which was interrupted by the stream of visitors. After tea break Mark and Roger, who had turned up, worked out how to drill the holes through the frames to take the pegs that will hold the thwarts tightly in place. With a lot of banging around Mark cut up the 22mm broom handle I had bought for the purpose from Thorntons Mitre 10, and using Harry’s sander shaped them to have a taper and fitted them into their holes.
I finely got to do some woodwork on the stern mount for floor boards for the cox.
The crucial task of the day was to decide on and cut the shape in the stem heads. The consensus had been for the Scandinavian Faering look which is a sort of an S shape. The alignment of the near horizontal sections has to be in the same plane as the sweep in the gunwales as they come up to the stems. JP and I sketched it out and then JP took to shaping them with a pull saw and a multitool.
Great progress today and not much left to do before we start painting boat 1. JP added more glue to places if was needed in boat 2 and it should be ready for a sand tomorrow.
Cheers Dave