Thursday 16 June The poor fit of plank 2 had been worrying JP and I since Tuesday. JP wondered if the poor positioning of the locating holes was because we weren’t dealing with the right match up of planks. Had they been mis-labled, or did the plank locating plan have an error in it? We…
Tuesday 14 June A much more pleasant day today, weather wise. However boatbuilding didn’t go to plan. Firstly JP found that one of the aft scarf joints had slipped under the clamp but not irrevocably and when we laid it on we could see where adjustments were required to make the stern fit. But it…
The weather this morning was atrocious. Damaging winds and heavy showers lashed the South and West coast of WA. In the shed it wasn’t a day for leaving the doors open, perhaps that’s why we didn’t get many volunteers. JP turned up and later Paul H and we had visits from Veronica and a nervous…
Friday 10 June It wasn’t warm first thing this morning but the weather forecast was for 20 degrees and so potentially a great day for glueing in Denmark, thus we decided to put in and extra day this week. I was late getting to the shed and JP and Dr John and Harry were already…
Thursday 9 June I brought in some big blocks of Jarrah this morning to lift boat 1 and its frame about 15cm off the floor so it wouldn’t be so hard on our backs, especially Adrians, to reach into the middle of it. Adrian arrived and helped me lift it, one end at a time…
Tuesday 7 May It was really quiet and slow with just me in the shed to begin with and I’d been late, it must have been the cold weather. I got the rudder out and a print of a photo I had found of an unpainted shaped rudder with the ply laminates acting as contour…
Mon 6th June Over the weekend JP and I did a bit of work offsite as we needed a drill press to cut the gunwale blocks out of two 3.9m length of 45 x 19mm oregon for boat 2’s inner gunwales. Yes we’re going fancy in order to have somewhere to tie fenders and dry…
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…
Tuesday 31 May A great turn up today and lots of jobs got done. On Boat 1 Adrian began the task of filleting (putting a bead of thickened epoxy along the glue joints). Back breaking work but he managed well and did a great job. We took the clamps off the keelson and Veronica supported…
Monday 30th May Before we start on today’s activity I’d like to go back to Friday when I took the Oregon timber around to Pete Wilson’s shed at Handhewn on Middleton Street, Denmark, otherwise known as the boatyard where JP is currently renovating his Couta boat, SallyAnne. The job we had to do was to…
Thursday 26 May JB dropped me and two boxes of new Denmark Rowers fleecies at the shed as we are still having car troubles with our Subaru Outback. There was a big roll up of the regulars and I handed out the fleecies which had been ordered and we had a group photo. After we…
Tuesday 24 May Adrian arrived and was just as happy as I am with the weekend’s election result. He got back in boat 1 and continued with the heat gun and scraper. Later Stuart joined him. I had to keep asking them to go gently on the boat. Veronica and Lesley had also turned up,…
Monday 23 May Another slow start to the day. As I arrived Nick was leaving. It turned out he’d left his glasses at home and wouldn’t be able to work without them. I started by continuing to sand the frames of boat 2 to get them ready for fitting. I was soon warm doing it…
Thursday 19 May After all the excitement of turnover day, today was a quiet day in the shed. A day that started with me having a good tidy up of the tools and stowing the new tubs of glue that had arrived from BoatCraft in Queensland. I also returned Harry’s jigsaw of beautiful wooden rowing…
Tuesday 17 May The big day had arrived and it was full of sunshine and promise. The boat was gleaming and thanks to the good weather yesterday, the resin coat was nice and dry and hard. (Note to self – don’t use resin on cold wet days). People started turning up to help out. Mark…