Stephan and I arrived at the normal time of 9:05, and like usual, Stephan was into it straight away. John and I shared a quick tale, before setting to the task of finishing off my bridge. I have found fitting the bridge to be the most difficult task of all thus far. Pegs took time, but were seemingly easy. Sound posts were tricky, but I always had the excuse that I could not see what I was doing. The thing about bridges is you can see what you are doing, but it takes great care to make sure you don't take too much off, or in my case, use the wrong technique and snap off the bridges' foot. It became quite evident to the other folk in the class when I managed to lose my foot on each occasion. Not keeping tally, I think it were about five times. There were no swear words or stamping, but my disappointment was clear. I became a bit hesitant, but once my technique was analyzed, my confidence grew. It was a good learning experience.
John took us down to a local auction room to have a look at what was on offer for this week. Unfortunately there weren't any dentist mirrors or tools for me to bring home with me. Hopefully we will find a chisel for me to practice my sharpening technique.
After arriving back to The Chapel, I continued to work on shaping my bridge, living in fear that a wrong slip of my knife or chisel could mean beginning once again. We were joined by another couple of students in the afternoon, which took the total to five. There were a few moments where I had to wait, so I was able to take some shots of people at work and items among the classroom.
 |
| Woodstains |
 |
| Window detail |
The evening was highlighted by sharing a meal with Grammar teachers Dean and Fiona Whitehouse and their nearly two year old daughter. The Whitehouse family are here in England on a working holiday, having taken leave from school for the year. They are staying ten miles from here. I was looking through Facebook last night and remembered hearing that they may have been close by. I was lucky enough to get in contact with them via Facebook and Skype and we arranged to have dinner tonight. We ate at the local pub where I have eaten with Stephan before. Tonight I tried the Chicken Tikka - mmmmmm.
I will now try to fill in some details from earlier in my trip. Check out "Chapel Violins: Day 5"
Posted with Blogsy
Kate,
ReplyDeleteThe window latch picture brings back many memories for me - all our windows at Sunny Dunny had them - just as in your picture. When I was a lad, the fastening post to one bedroom window latch had to be repaired. It had about ten coats of paint over it and the screws had to be decimated to clean the work area up before repair could be effected. My dad let me screw in the new screws. Gosh - working at such great heights and no hard hat and harness!!
Love Dad