Tiller - 6 December 2009

 I'm looking forward to the arrival of my marine ply so I can get stuck into building the hull. I'm using Joubert Okoume (Gaboon) marine ply, which is made in France. Denman Marine (Kettering, Tasmania) has just acquired the sole distributer rights here in Australian and we are awaiting his first shipment which should be soon.

This weekend I completed some more fiddly bits. 

• The mast received its final coat of Marine polyurethane clear varnish (7 coats on top of the 3 coats of epoxy).

• I made the stem from Paulownia. This needed careful planing to get the taper right. If you look closely, you'll see the sort of "twist" that this taper induces. Clamping such a shape is impossible so I used long panel pins to hold it to my sawhorse while I planed. I was careful to punch the pins deep enough to prevent the plane blade striking the nails.

• I also made the tiller from Hoop pine with Paulownia infills. This will connect to the rudder stock when I make that. It now has 2 coats of epoxy.

 

Being short of stuff to do, I found my old chisels. These did not receive the best of treatment when I was repairing cricket bats a few years ago and had built up a goodly layer of glue which had promoted rust. They cleaned up nicely with a wire wheel and then I took them to my diamond stone for sharpening, so now I have some nice, gleaming and sharp chisels, ready to take on the Goat :)