All Hands On Deck…

… for the first of the season’s catering events.

Cook and the team got off to a gentle start looking after 21 people for a couple of days in a very grand house in Suffolk. This wasn’t the first time at this particular venue and so, to continue the metaphor, we knew the ropes.

During a break in the proceedings I spotted an idea for a painting. I enjoy watching shadows and big houses with strange lighting always seem to have plenty of them.

I’ve found a use for the two small brackets that I’d had cut out and folded by the laser-cutting people. They’re perfect for the rear bulkhead and because they’re detachable, I can still gain access to the spare wheel brace if there’s a problem (there’s quite a lot of weight hanging on the back). I showed the door handle the polishing wheel and although I thought it would need to be re-nickled, I was pleasantly surprised at the way it came back to life..

There’s just enough pitting on it to make it look right.

The back plate came up trumps as well although the nickel had worn off completely. I might still re-nickel that as it would be better to have a more or less consistent finish throughout on the same bit of equipment.

The lower longerons at the tail have been tied together with a bolt and an aluminium plate – it’s all very rigid now.

Apart from shaping the skin support blocks behind the seats, I haven’t really been able to make a lot of progress this week. At one point I decided that perhaps I’d put the door in the wrong place and it should have been a couple of inches further back but the thought of moving it was too much, so it’s going to stay where it is. It was the forward cockpit coaming that threw up this anomaly and it looked as though the passenger side of the coaming was going to be further forward than the driver’s side – contrary to what might be expected. However, I think I’ve thunked a way round that by combining more of the coaming support with the top of the door and keeping the supporting blocks the same size on both sides.

Many years ago, I was introduced to the work of a Danish artist, Hammershoi. I was commissioned to reproduce one of his paintings and I think that it was his style and palette that first alerted me to the world – obviously not disconnected but still somehow separate to our own – of shadows.

I’m jolly glad not to have been a deck-hand in the period when this girl was a girl.