New recruit

Within days of being born Peter and Rebecca were often in my studio. It's always been littered wth their toys, their first drawings were pinned to the walls and a drawer in the large tool box stocked with their tools. Having them present and helping too meant my tasks only took a little longer than doing them alone. The rewards were priceless. Our kids, now grown still work along side of us on a daily basis, much to our delight.

When our first grand daughter Phoebe was born she carried on the family tradition. Eleven years later she is still a regular in the shop. Our newest grand daughter now often comes to work with Peter. As with all new parents (and grand parents too) safety is a major concern. Juniper understands and came well equipped. 

Napkin plans

Not every drawing we do is detailed or beautiful. As we work out ideas Peter and I draw a host of quick scribbles. We both communicate best with a pencil or pen in our hand. The drawings don't have to be in scale nor pretty. Their requirement is simply to assist us as we work out everything prior to doing the final engineered plans.

Today we were working out how best to break the Viking ship frames into sections. They first need to be in small pieces in order to fit into the galvanizing vats. Then they need to be bolted (not welded) into larger assemblies, still small enough to fit into the shipping containers, but without wasting a lot of space. Plumbing, ramps, bracing and other requirements have to be allowed for.  Lift and tie down points for shipping need to be located as well. We'll add the theme work at this stage and then stuff the massive pieces into the containers. 

Once the pieces arrive in Dubai they will be assembled one last time - without us there to direct the operation. It's one of our biggest challenges to date - but a whole lot of fun to work out. Here's one of those dozens of scribbles...

Viking beauty

After two weeks away from the studio gathering inspiration we hit the ground running this morning. Peter had finished the sculpt of the half model of the Viking ship and he and Hailey had polished off the base coats of paint. With the important meeting client scheduled for this afternoon we had no time to waste. We made great progress and when we broke for lunch the half model was colourful and beautifully aged, the sail on and everything was ready to go. At forty inches long the model is impressive. The big version will be twelve times the size and will sport even more detail. The client meeting went well.