Having finished the two kevlar canoe repairs requiring gunnel replacement, I am now working on yet another Huron?Bastien Brothers/Big Chief canoe.  This one is not too bad, actually.  Opened her up, 4 rib repairs, stem repair, sanding and two coats of fresh varnish, re-canvas, paint, etc.  Pretty straight forward for a change.

But that's not what I want to show here!

Tadaa! Two demi-globes successfully made!

Now to turn my attention to the screens. I had thought of laying in random strand but then thought about drilling them in another globe screen made for the front. So I drilled some test holes in the sample piece that I had made in order to test my mold and fabrication process. Three sizes of holes. I just aligned these by eye just to see how it looks and how strong the shell would remain. At this point my son is still trying to talk me into making authentic style aluminium shells. He has no idea how much work that would entail, especially as it isn't him that would be doing it!

 

So, how to drill all those myriad holes in a pattern? Some head scratching all weekend provided me with this idea. A drill in an old drill/drill press tool, that I had inherited from my father-in-law and couldn't throw out, is mounted on a pivot allowing the drill to arc around the globe, which in turn will be mounted on a disc which rotates on a centre pin. I'm still working on this, not quite done, but enough for you to get the idea.