Thursday 17 March 2011

The sun is out...

and so am I. Had a very pleasant day making and fitting new capping's at the front end.
For quite a while, I've wanted to replace the capping's at the front of Dove. The first ones I made were not very good and soon split and looked a bit tatty.
I recently found a supplier of green oak, just up the road as it happens! He gets full trees in and will cut to size. Why didn't I know about the place before?
Working with green oak is a new experience for me, it's a good job all my power tools are industrial, I don't think regular DIY tools would cope.
After all the faffing about last time, steaming and pulling and riving the timber round compound curves. This time I decided to buy wide planks and just bend one way then cut to shape and put up with the waste. Sounds easy doesn't it, well...it was. You thought I was going to give you a list of cock ups then, didn't you. The only thing that did happen is, I dropped a plank in the cut. Not too concerned at first, then the bloody thing sank. What!!!! I fished around for a while but couldn't find it. I finally had to go and get "Rigsby" that's the Fradley dingy and go hunting further a field. I eventually found it yards away from where it went in. From now on it had a line tied round it until bolted in positions. I didn't know that green oak sank, you learn something new every day.

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