Progressing sails and hulls; and testing new fixing arrangement

 

As I have said in an earlier blog post doing multiples in metal can be tedious and time consuming. I am making process with the sails - a stack of 100 cut and ground blanks above.

I have started to drill holes in the blanks for the mast to go through - see below. I'm doing this before I anneal and form (hammer) the sails.

I also wanted to test a new more stable but detachable way of fixing the boats to mesh - photos below. As you can see the new design clips around one strand of mesh and over the adjacent strand.

Because I got bored and my arm got tired  with drilling holes for masts I made a start on folding the metal for the hulls. I have worked out that I can use a groove in my aluminium vase jaws to bend the blanks in half - saves a lot of hammering on the anvil.

The copper patina on some of the hull blanks is gorgeous.