One of the trickier challenges in this boat building exercise has been the construction of the oars. The basics were simple and we ran up four roughly shaped examples in a few days, even allowing for my building one back to front and the subsequent correction.
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| Rough shaping the spoons |
However, shaping them so they would 1) match and 2) look 'proper' was something we baulked at. Despite suggesting to Joe that he could whittle away of an evening, while watching Game of Thrones or some similarly undemanding nonsense, the oars remained untouched for over a year. I spent hours trying to work out a method for guaranteeing a uniform and seaworthy shape.
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The basic shape
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Well, today, I decided just to get on with it. I started with this. You can see the thickness of the spoon:
I got out our small plane and set to. To my amazement and delight, within a short time, I had brought one to a state of 'almost perfection' (see earlier blogs for definition of this term):
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| One done, see the difference! |
Only the need to feed my boys prevented me from continuing into the night: I shan't sleep with the sheer excitement of knowing that, tomorrow, I shall get all four up to scratch. Unless, of course, I make a cock-up.
No, that's very unlikely. Isn't it?
Those oars are works of art. Fantastic...
ReplyDeleteVery kind of you to say so. Thank you
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