Wednesday 2 November I got the the shed early to finish the trailer benches/stretchers with carpet held on with Tech screws. I then measured the position I would like the boat to sit on the benches and adjusted the threaded supports to that position (400mm out from the roller and 220mm up from the cross…
Tuesday 1st November This morning I went around to Denmark Mobile Welding to get the paperwork for registering the trailers. Dan was in a bad way as he had lost one of the bits of paper and then on top of that his printer wasn’t working. I was going to get a print of the…
Monday 31 October I dropped round to Denmark Mobile Welding on my way in and saw the trailers waiting for licence plates. Dan wasn’t there so I went back later and caught up with him. He just needs to make brackets to hold the wooden benches in place and get me the paperwork for getting…
Sunday 30 October I went in on my own today to get two coats of Awl Wood varnish top coat onto the primer within the requisite time frame and with nobody stirring up the dust. It was windy and wet outside so I had to keep the doors shut and wear my chemical mask to…
Saturday 29 October This reminds me of my work before I retired – working weekends to meet an arbitrary deadline! Paul rang to see if I was going in before I’d left home. He was there already and wanted to know what the priority job was. With JP wanting his orbital sander back I suggested…
Friday 28 October I’d taken the rowlock blocks home for homework. More sanding to get the Sheoak to shine as it should. The main action for the day was to glue them to the gunwales of boat 2 and to shape the stern stem so that everything would be ready for the first coats of…
Thursday 27 October The main event of the day was to get the inside of boat 2 coated with resin and there were a couple of things we had to do first. I got a head start trimming the little thwart support blocks down with the multitool sander so that the thwarts sat squarely on…
Wednesday 26 October It was a quiet day in shed except for all the noise I was making with the orbital sander. Two orbital sanders to be precise. One with a coarse paper on it to knock off the remaining glue and filler lumps and one to do the polishing up ready for a resin…
Tuesday 25th October I made an early start on the thwarts today as I wanted to get all four to fit so that their supports could be glued into place. I was joined by Lesley and then Adrian and Stuart and we had a bit of a chat about the planned regatta in Augusta which…
Monday 24 October We welcomed back Nick today who has been living between Perth and Denmark. He joined Paul and Geoff and I who were all sanding this morning. Paul went on working on the gunwales while I used JP’s awesome orbital sanding machine to sand the breasthooks flush with the gunwales. Geoff sanded the…
Friday 21 October Harry and Kay got back from their holiday in NSW, having driven from half way across the Nullabor (Eucla) to home yesterday. They started at 3am and arrived at 6pm. JP and I were happy to see them and Harry joined us for morning tea and told us about the bumper crops…
Thursday 20 October Yesterday evening I gave a presentation at the Denmark Riverside Club General meeting in support of the motion that Denmark Rowers should amalgamate with the Riverside Club to share their great facilities. This has always been part of our plan. The motion was carried unanimously I’m happy to say and we will…
Wednesday 19 October It was if the good fairies had been in the shed over night. There was a cryptic message penciled on baking paper, something about shackles. Then I looked inside the front of boat 1 and found JD’s handiwork (J D from the Men’s Shed). He had been in the shed the day…
Tuesday 18th October Adrian was the first in this warm morning. It was going to be another milestone day as I had asked the members for help to turn boat 1 back over so we can put the finishing touches to her. It then went a bit quiet as Adrian went ahead with the cox’s…
Monday 17 October Mark was already in the shed when I got there this morning. His first job was to tidy up the outer gunwale battens and then to use the router to bevel the outer edges. Dr John returned from his holidays in the Queensland rainforest. He and Paul W finished fitting the top…