Started 2019 finishing off the boats above for the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart.
Back in the shed after some days of R&R and starting on some furniture commisions and playing with wood again.
2018 – New Years Day started rolling in beams/floor joists above the showroom to be.
A couple of days later with help from Tom, we had the upper mezzanine floor on and started to move stacks of timber once again. This was the third or fourth time we had shuffled these stacks around, and Tom disquised his disgust at the whole idea with a “Where to this time?”.
Anyway job done and we had a large mezzanine space for timber storage and more clear space on the workshop floor.
Lots of different projects this year. Furniture commissions, a small solo sculpture exhibition, built a few gabion walls , organised a successful ‘country, blues, bluegrass’ concert, put together some ukuleles and built some boats.
Built a 12′ Australian Cadet dinghy using Australian Red Cedar and Huon Pine. This was a collaboration with Ross Muir. I finished it to ribs in, gunwales on, ready to fit out. Ross took it to Battery Point to do the rest of the work. This was an interesting project as I had not built one of these or used Aus. Cedar before. The timber was beautiful to work with and I was very happy with the hull we built.
Next dinghies up are two Foster 10s, just finishing the first out of Huon, King Billy and Celery Top Pines. This will be the raffle dinghy for Peregrine school.
Tickets available at https://www.peregrine.tas.edu.au/wooden-boat-raffle/
Now finishing the second one. She will be Australian Red Cedar and Silver Ash ‘foster 10‘ rowing dinghy.
Both of these dinghies will be at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in February.
Took some time between boats to build our showroom. This is something we had planned for quite awhile, and took a good deal of time, but was worth the effort. It is a nice clean, well lit space to showcase our work. Finished it in time for an open studio weekend as part of an Art trail. Had a few hundred people through and response was overwhelmingly positive.
Our showroom is now open at regular times, 10am-4pm on weekends, or by appointment at other times.
And I have created a lot of birds….
2017 was another very full and productive year.
Started with finishing the move from our old home and workshop, stacking everything into the new space. Immediately started boats and furniture, and tried to make sense of the new chaos. Finding everyday tools was difficult when they were no longer in the place they had been for the last 25 years. However we progressed….
I managed to get three dinghies out of the new space, lots of furniture commissions and exhibition pieces. Also got a fair bit of new workshop infrastructure in place i.e. large insulated machinery room, which then gave me large mezzanine above for timber storage etc. Took six months to find the time but I eventually got a timber floor in over the concrete, planking benches, lots of shelving storage and a set of stairs up to the mezzanine. There is still a fair bit to do but it is happening slowly, whenever I get the chance. At the moment I am finishing the year framing up another large room with mezzanine above. This will be a showroom/studio/gallery, and the mezzanine will give me much needed space for long timber storage.
We already have three dinghies on the books for 2018, and some furniture commissions. So it is shaping up to be another busy one.
Progress photos have been posted on instagram @ned_wood.
Foster10 4th plank Sept18
Ned fitting the 6th plank on the foster 10 in sept 18
In May 2015 Off Center Harbor has released a small 10 minute video of Ned in his shed. Their mission is to provide authentic know-how for boaters worldwide, while inspiring the use of well-designed boats to connect with friends, family and the natural world.
