The spirit is willing, the flesh is waek...

I lost about 6 hours of shaping last night - I was due to wake "head shaper" up at 2:30am so she could get back to the task, and I fell asleep at about 2:20am. I got so close and just couldn't make it. I was just thinking I should probably wake her a bit early as I was so tired, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Oh well.

Anyway - I re-built my stands. Keeping the same end pieces, the former ok looking but functionally only passable legs are gone. In their place are several pieces of timber. I half designed a layout in my head, but what I came up with isn't a rigid shape like (for example) a triangle would be. To remedy it I used a hole saw and a chunky reeded dowel wrapped in masking tape to secure the whole thing.It is now stable, level (leveled with foam off-cut wedges) and generally much more sturdy - while still being fully collapsible/adjustable.



The multiple holes along the bracing arms are there to make the whole thing adjustable. Since we're making two 7' boards I've got it at maximum length to support the thin ends of the board.

I'm back on a break for breakfast and to get more work done.

When I left the shaping room I had foiled the deck, finished the shallow bottom contours (a single to double) and marked out some rail bands.
Master shaper is currently planing the rail bands in, by now she's probably got all the bands on one side of the board done, ready to swap over to the other side.

All that remains then is to shape the rails, nose and tail, check for any final things that need tuning/smoothing and job's done.
Then it'll be a none stop shaping marathon on the other board to get it to the same stage.

The gappy stringer repair failed miserably. It turns out the foam shifted part way through the process (despite the 10 or so house bricks piled on top of it) and I have some big gaps at the deck side, while the base side is pretty much spot on.
I think I will probably just carry on as normal and fill the gap with resin and microballoons when I come to do the filler coat in a few hours time.