Move along….

Nothing to see here.

End of week thirty two and because of the weather the only thing I’ve managed to get done is finish the kids blackboard. Hopefully next weekend will be more productive.

Play Has Been Delayed by Rain

Continuing Auckland’s weather tradition the weather was on again, off again. I’m still shaping the ama which produces a lot of dust so it needs to be done outside.

Saturday morning it was raining and I had to visit a client so Nico and I set off to do the rounds which included taking Loki for a walk around the Onehunga basin. Incidentally there was a school age waka ama group practicing in two canoes. So we stopped to watch them for a bit. Both canoes were fibreglass probably 7-8m long and had a crew of 6. They went across the pond at a good pace. After that Nico got to test the slide and swing.

After we got home I pulled the ama onto the drive, put 60 grit paper on my sanding board and got stuck in for an hour before rain forced me inside.

The sandpaper did a good job and I was finding it easy to get a good rounded edge. I have to take care though to keep the strokes smooth so that the paper doesn’t jump along the surface and pull pieces of foam out.

Sunday morning the sun came out and the four of us went to Ambury farm for a French playgroup outing. After we got home and had lunch I took the ama out again, only to have it start to rain. Frustrated I pushed it back inside and decided to do something else.

Last week while collecting supplies from Bunnings I also got some blackboard and glow in the dark paint. So instead of working on the ulua I grabbed a scrap pieces' of plywood and timber and built a small blackboard (waiting for the topcoat):

So at the end of week thirty one, no pictures of the ama; even though I did manage to get some more sanding done on Sunday it’s hard to show the progress in photos so I didn’t bother to take one.

Fathers Day and Power Tools

The two just seem to go together!

After stocking up on more glue and epoxy on Monday, I managed to set some time aside during the week to glue & cut the second side and then glue them together. So by Saturday morning I had the basic shape ready for some POWER TOOLS:

First up I had to flatten the top and bottom so that the foam is flush with the plywood core.

Sunday morning started with Nicolas’ normal routine of jumping into bed with us. I’m not a big fan of the commercialization of Mothers and Fathers Day so I wasn’t expecting anything except maybe a bit of a sleep in. Cecile had gotten me a chocolate bar as a treat, that I put on on the bed stand. Wanting to catch a few extra minutes sleep I tucked back in.

With Nico wriggling in bed between Cecile and me I gave up after half an hour. Nico was in my face asking for Coco-puffs when I noticed a brown smudge on his face… I looked to the bed stand and noticed something was missing, sure enough a quick search of the bed uncovered the remnants of chocolate bar wrapping!

Oh well, as they say; you snooze, you loose.

Back to work, with Nicolas’ help I measure and draw up the outline for the ama’s shape on the top.

Nicolas trying Papas’ boots on for size:

With the basic shape draw up, I cut the excess off with a saw and then it was out with the belt sander for the next stage of shaping.

So at the end of week thirty the ama is taking shape. I think I’m finished with the belt sander, while it does a great job, quickly, it’s a little too fast and un-wieldy to get the shape nice and smooth. So the rest will be done by hand with sand paper.