Shifter

The Monkey Island (If anyone has expertise in aluminium corrosion control, can you get in touch please)

55 / 100

A bit of a windy one today and testing the mettle of the Big Top. It is standing up so far but requires tweaking and maintenance. Also we have still to shield the forward and after ends, but we are awaiting delivery of further anchors and clamps.

When we had run out of tent tweaks, a couple of feasibility studies were carried out to assist in planning the restoration of the deck. A tentative needle gunning was carried out to remove old paint from a small area. This looks like a suitable method of paint removal.

In addition, we investigated a small area of the deck to determine how best to remove the wood with out further damaging the structure. We chose a section which looked rotten for this investigation.

Soft enough for a shifter to penetrate.

As can be seen, parts of the deck are in poor condition. Tentative buzz saw manipulation in this area revealed a couple of small surprises.

The main planking (in this area anyway) seems to be laid over a substrate of bitumen. The caulking can be seen at the edges but conventional caulking would be done by forcing tarred hemp into the seams of the laid deck and not as shown. Additionally, on top of the main plank which was around 2″ thick, another layer of planking of perhaps ¾” had been nailed on. Whether this was a patch applied while in service or the builders installation is unknown. The game is afoot Watson!

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