Tuesday 24 January 2023
Dan had asked me to drop the trailer and boat around at 8am this morning so I came in and hitched it up and took it around to him. He said he’d chat with Denmark Signwriters next door when they arrived.
I went back to the shed and made a cup of tea and a start on sorting out the benches. I opened the boxes of lifejackets or PFD’s and printed Denmark Rowers in the inside of them. I found we were one strap short for holding down the seat cushions which we can only source in Perth.
JD came in at 9am as we had a plan to make thick nylon washers to go under the rowlock gates from offcuts of trailer protecter nylon Dan had given me. Harry had leant us his plug cutters and we examined setting up on JP’s drill press but JD decided it would be easier to do the job in his home workshop where he had all his tools, so we went around there together.
After a cup of coffee we cut eight 16mm thick plugs of blue plastic and marked the centres and then drilled them with a 13mm bit and cleaned them up with a file and sandpaper and a neat plumbers scurf removing tool, JD has shown me before.
The top ones were too large so we repeated the process making 16 washers out of a 3mm vinyl sheet. We briefly went back down to Harry’s shed to collect the other pins and my lunch and I went down to Denmark Country Tools to get some shiny new stainless washers to finish the job under the new lock nuts JD had bought previously. Back at JD’s house we had our lunch on his verandah looking out over his beautifully manicured garden.
In the shed we fitted the new washers and nuts and then JD cut the excess thread off the top of the pins with an angle grinder and we did the final assembly and with a bit of silicon spray we had four beautifully functional composite rowlocks.
I know they are not legal in the competitive St Ayles Skiff world but they are a practical solution to getting our boats rowing easily with free carbon fibre oars from Murdoch University Rowing Club. Our next woodworking project will be to build wooden oars that rotate around a wooden peg that can be swapped out for these wooden, plastic and steel rowlocks.
I went back to the shed and went on with the clean up before going back to Dan’s to check on the progress. He was very busy and his guys had only just started on the job so he said he would put the boat in the welding shed for the night and finish it in the morning. The guys at Denmark Signwriters had had the day off so no progress there either.
Tomorrow we have our last committee meeting as an Incorporated Association and I just want to thank all of you who have been on the committee and helped out in so many ways.
Job done! Launch on Thursday at 2pm at the Denmark Riverside Club. See you there if possible.
Cheers Dave
