Thursday 2 June
Busy again today with a great roll up and scones from Lesley and marmalade muffins from Paul W. Thanks guys.
Adrian had arrived first with a boot full of clamps that we will need for dual glueing operations when we are planking boat 2 and fixing the gunwales in boat 1. I had decided that perhaps we should start by wetting the plank edges in boat 1 with diluted resin before putting the filler in to make the seal even better so Adrian set about that and even though it was back breaking work, continued filleting all day.
Veronica had done such a good job with shaping the stern end of the keelson that I kept her the job of shaping the bow end ably supported by Paul W.
JP’s first job was to remove an undetected squeeze out between the stern stem and the keelson with his multitool and a heat gun. It cleaned up nicely then JP, Geoff B and Dr John sorted out the scarfed planks and cleaned up the bench so that we could drill the misplaced hole in the forward plank end and get a perfect string line up ready for glueing.
Lesley planed the scarf joint on the gunwale batten so that it was ready for glueing. while John I worked out the tricky angles to cut the the ends of the starboard battens to fit into the stern and bow stems and cut them with the Japanese pull saw.
The rain had been blowing in the back door so it was partially closed when Harry arrived for morning tea. Nobody felt like sitting in the draft so we stood and chatted in small groups as there wasn’t a lot of space left around all the various jobs going on. After tea break JP, Geoff B and I glued the plank scarfs and clamped them in place and with the excess glue filled a few holes in JP’s own boat’s floorboards. As people drifted off JP and I went up to Harry’s other shed and used the thicknesser to reduce the thickness of the gunwale batten we are going to cut into blocks. Veronica and Paul W were still working away when we had finished but everyone else had left. We had a visitor, Ian, who had come in to see how we were getting on and promised to come back and help.
Thanks everyone another great day of progress. I’m sorry if there wasn’t quite enough jobs and space for everyone all of the time. We’ll be getting the first planks on boat 2 on Monday.
Cheers Dave