Skiffs flying along!

This week saw the completion of another Boats 4 Folks skiff ready for our annual fundraising raffle on Fathers Day - stay tuned for tickets! This boat came out beautifully - one of our best paint jobs yet thanks to Anton's perseverence to detail and the other volunteers pitching in as well. This boat has been moved into our booth in the store at Beaumont Mill Antiques & Collectibles.

Varnished bits go in...

MB, Chris, Jim and George all smiles!

Next step is preparing the kits for this springs 3 skiff builds - two in Toronto and the cancer camp in May and one here at the K&C Boatshop during the Big Daddy Festival on Father's Day Weekend. George and Jim have been on this project for some weeks but the last batch of marine plywood just arrived and George was right at it last night! It is ready for the fine touch of Anton and his Belt Sander to finish before scarphing into the long panels needed to make boat parts!

George up to his knees in shavings - pure heaven...

Meanwhile Quail will need a protective frame in order to go out for a light blasting inside before we get into a full rib replacement - which none of us have ever done before...

And John is going to experiment with refastening the original inner planks on the Shepherd Outboard to see if they will flatten sufficiently to be re-used - stay tuned on this one too.

all dry fitted in original places...

the trickey end.

The original inner and outer planks have various degrees of "cupping" in some areas so we will be experimenting with removing some of this with steam or hot water to try and avoid having to make new planks when these are mostly in good condition.

This is a good time for you to become a Gatsby Member before our boating season begins. Your financial support will be thanked by invitations to join us when we go boating. Ask Malcolm for more details on this programme or pass this link on to someone who might like to help kids and go antique boating!