I love the smell of tar!...

Another weekend, another escape from making models for people. I'm getting to like this new arrangement.

But I am now officially knackered after painting the entire shed. I'm using Bartoline Creocote, because I cannot, for the life of me, see any point whatsoever in putting anything water based on wood.  It pulls the fibres and it doesn't soak in anywhere near as much as an oil based product.  Also, Bartoline is one of the products favoured by wooden canal boat builders and repairers which is good enough for me.
It's a Creosote replacement, because the Health and Safety Saddo Nazis decreed a few years ago that Creosote could no longer be sold.  This stuff is so similar that I wonder if it really is a replacement and not just a renamed original.  It's highly dangerous (all the best stuff is) and is as willing to soak in as turps.
What you see here took just 5 litres and that's with doing all the frames, especially the end grains and the drip rails twice.

I have laid all the elements out in the order they go together, ready for the big build tomorrow.

This was a LOT of painting and has taken almost all day, but fussy sod here likes to be thorough and methodical.  My grandchildren wanted to help, but I couldn't risk their health, knowing that they would never be as careful as me and I only have one big pair of rubber gloves!  But they will definitely be helping me paint the insides white when it's all up.

I have painted it all before building as you really need to soak all the mating surfaces and end grain, before using a good PU marine sealer (NOT bloody useless silicon, PLEASE!).  

Note the missing header rail of the nearest window panel.  Just simply missing...you just can't get the staff these days!  Bazz's portable table saw will rip us a new piece tomorrow.  Ain't nuttn' can't be repaired.

Shedding the weekend....

Having found a bit of spare cash we decided to splash out on a new shed to replace the old leaky caravan workshops.
I could have built my own but it would have taken a lot longer to build, so we got a good deal on a 16 x10.

Not trusting the floor they offered as being likely too thin, I elected to build the base.
Using concrete blocks on beds of gravel, we levelled the site after clearing solid 3 foot high nettles!
Then made up 10 foot long bearers of free 3x3 from Ian's work and today with Bazz's help and his frighteningly powerful De Walt battery screwdriver we laid 5 8x4s of 18mm Sterling OSB3 board and this is the result.

In the Flatlands we have a sloping site!

Having drawn out the insides with pretty much everything I want it to contain, I still have an open space of 10' x 6' in the middle. Plenty to put my Austin 7 chassis on trestles and walk all round!

Interest crossover....

It's amazing how people with a particular interest then show that they have others just like we do.
I recently started a Facebook page for Vintage Model Boats.  Long overdue.
Within moments we had some fascinating pictures put up not by the usual suspects I'd joined up to it, but by a chap who had been a long time member of the 50s/60s Specials page I'd begun months ago!  A chap with a nice Austin 7 Special had, it turned out, a very rich modelmaking past in model aircraft and model boats, including tethered hydroplanes and straight runners, just the sort of thing I'd intended the new page for.

And comments on the new page from the earlier page's members confirmed he wasn't the only one.

It's so often the case that if you like one set of old things, you'll be into the others, too. His photos showed not only his Austin 7 Special, but a pile of old bikes.  And we're talking quality stuff like a Scott 2 stroke too!
Now that's a garage I'd like to have a look round

In this one picture are 2 Impex and three British home made 4 stroke model boat engines.

So thanks to Philip Parry-Jones for this and many other pictures of wonderful old stuff.