Thursday 22 September
A trip to Supa IGA for morning tea supplies proved unwarranted today as Ted arrived with scones, jam and cream from Mrs Jones and then Kay dropped in with a cinnamon twist. Both of which went down well at morning tea, so well that I hardly had any photographic evidence left to use.
Ted took on the task of shaping and sanding the gunwale blocks for Boat 2 using a plane to get the taper then Harry’s barrel sander to round off the ends. This is what he gets to do on his holidays which are over again and he’s heading back to Perth today.
JP arrived with a bucket full of painting equipment including cutting in brushes, and was determined to get stuck into the next coat of paint inside boat 1. Veronica joined him and they painted the upper 4 planks and the frames. JP reported that the Norglass Weatherfast enamel was much easier paint to use than the primer yesterday. Both of them thought the colour was great. Its called Opal White but it is very custard cream. It goes well with the woodwork of the gunwales.
I started my day sorting out the remaining oregon which has many defects but we will have to use in the gunwales and the thwart beams. Trying to work around the defects such as missing knots and splits was a brain teaser and required some concentration. One particular knot I couldn’t work around so I had to cut it out and insert a block in its place. The splits I couldn’t avoid I later filled with resin and glue.
In the afternoon I sanded the wedges on boat 1’s transom where the rudder pintles will sit. I then resin coated them and boat 2’s rudder cheeks prior to mixing up some of the new glue and gluing them on using a couple of drilled holes and meat skewer to get them to stay in exactly the right place while being clamped. I also glued the rudder yoke pieces together and started on the coxswain’s seat slats but ran out of time to finish them.
I’ll be in again tomorrow if anyone is free to join me. There is a lot to do between now and the launch day on the 5th November.
Cheers Dave