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| As in made an oar, this is what the blank looks like before you start, a 10 foot length of spruce with two chunks glued on the end. |
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Following 3 days of labour and a large pile of wood shavings I ended up with this!
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Okay I know it is only one oar, but there is another under way, so contrary to common belief I shan't be going round in circles, well no more than usual!
The rest of the time has been spent working on the garboards, steaming the second and finally fitting the starboard garboard, a task that we completed today. We can now move onto the second and start browing off and spilling the second planks, this will hopefully go a little quicker than the first as we at least know what we are confronting this time; this remains to be seen.
This week has also seen the first of our underpinning knowledge exams for City and Guilds, I think it went alright but I had forgotten how much work one needs to do in preparation for an exam and found myself burning both the midnight and early morning oil.
However back to the garboard, assisted by Christian and Jackson and a cast of, what at times seemed thousands and accompanied by lots of sucking of teeth and shaking of heads, (the sort of behaviour that from a car mechanic spells lots of money) and even the occasional 'I wouldn't have done it like that!" the garboard was finally completed and attached to the boat with a multitude of nails and screws.
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| Jackson drilling pilot holes |
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| Examining a pilot hole ? |
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| Steaming the other garboard.. I am nothing if not optimistic! |
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and yes it is a high tech. wall paper stripper, producing lots of steam and most importantly they are cheap.
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Steaming is a highly technical business, well maybe not, involving duck tape, polythene tube and a wall paper stripper, the average plank of 19mm takes about 40 minutes to soften to the point where you can bend it easily, at which point there is a flurry of activity normally resulting in my fingers getting trapped in a clamp and suffering 3 degree burns from the boiling water trapped in the tube.
I actually excelled myself this time by stripping off the tube and pouring the water into the extension socket, this instantly tripped the breakers and the building was plunged into darkness, well I exaggerate slightly, but the lights did go out and one or two power tools ground to a halt.
So we make progress and we now have lots of other bits that need assembling so plenty to keep us all busy...
