Today I rewarded my work ethic of the last 2 weeks with a brief 3 hours work. I really enjoy watching Grand Prix racing and I usually stay up to watch them on TV, and in previous more prosperous years we even go down to Melbourne for Friday practice, I don’t go on race day because you don’t see enough of the race at the track, things happen at other parts of the circuit and you don’t get to see them, but on TV you see it all. Anyway, I went in around 11.30am and was on my way home by 2.30pm.

What I did get done was to glue the last of the foam to the second beam. I still have a little bit of a bow in the second dagger but I noticed the board is still flexible so I will just have to wait until I shape it. I wont be able to push the bow down as it will just spring back after shaping and still be a problem, but I may just have enough spare on each side for it to be shaped out with the router.

Then I set about cutting the uni strips for the spine and the sides of the boards. The plans call for 7 layers of 450g uni each side of the 120mm spine. I have a roll of 100mm uni but it wont do, so I pulled the full width roll of uni out (1300mm) and I cut off 3700mm (length of dagger blanks) then stripped it down into 120mm lengths which I then rolled up. Once I had cut 14 strips I cut the lengths of glass for the outside of the dagger (2 layers with threads up the board, 1 layer with threads across the board) and I put the roll away.

I went home to watch the grand prix feeling pretty satisfied with myself, until writing this blog when I realised that the 14 lengths of uni I had cut were only enough for 1 dagger! I still have to strip another 14 for the other board. So I wish now I had worked for half an hour longer and got that done. Anyway, I am getting close to shaping and glassing the boards which is exciting.