The last days of winter threw water at us from the sky. A melancholy wet greyness that made you look for a warm fire and a hot brew to warm the cockles of your heart. Practically though, it meant rain through the side of the container and into our nascent workshop. A well watered workshop is not good when you’re dealing with untreated wood.
A solution was promptly found by unravelling a blue tarpaulin and hitching to the inside of the container and securing the edges and base with clamps.
We’ve partnered with a Veteran run motorcycle club, the Military Brotherhood, to raise funds for a container dome that will sit atop our workshop container and the container next to it. This will protect the workshop from the elements and, importantly, provide shade during the long summer months. The Brotherhood have committed to a fundraising ride in November so more to follow.
Once the container was secure from future rain, Chris and I went back into the larger shed, to the mezzanine level where we’d stored the bulkheads to dry overnight. With excitement I grabbed a few bulkheads and fitted them into place on the floor board. Both Chris and I then stood back wth a stomach full of bees as we could see the dream come to life. You could imagine the sweeping bow pushing through the water and the wide beam playing with the chop as the wind filled the sails. Ahhhhh – that’s what its about.
The dry fit of the bulkheads into the base allowed us to see that the tabs, which fitted into pre-cut slots on the base, were too big for the slot…
So it was back to the workshop, grab a seat and start sanding – again!
Before we could do that though, we set up three saw horses and placed the base onto those. This then elevated the boat to a more practical height for us inflexible old buggers. We placed the middle saw horse under the jigsaw join to stabilise the base and prevent “droopage”.
Now time to take a seat, trim those tabs into shape and dry fit once again to confirm a flush finish.
It’s such a pleasure to be at this stage where you can see the results of the each days work and the boat beginning to take shape. We are only working about three hours each day as we still have other things, commonly called family duties, work and life, to take care of. I have to say, the three hours is just enough though. Plenty of time to achieve something but not too much to take the fun out of the build.
From here we collapsed the bulkheads back down and brought the side planks down to lay onto of the base. You can really see the sweep of the bow and the full 17 feet of the craft. Its going to get tight in our 20′ container but that sounds like Future Reece and Chris’ problem. Next time we start to stitch the dory together.
