Thread: G'day from Gippsland Lakes

G'day all

Long time lurker and greatly appreciate the timely tips, knowledge and experience from members. We have a lot of older blokes around here who have fantastic skills and expertise and I love hearing their stories.

I have just recently retired from 33 years in the emergency services and enjoying doing what I want to do for a change which includes all things wood.

I have an unhealthy interest in old wooden boats and have almost a dozen or so in my Boatyard in Paynesville awaiting resurrection. The boatyard provides services and space for people to work on their own boats or we have a number of contract shipwrights and other tradies who can help out with the tricky stuff.

I try and stock timber that is suitable for boatbuilding and have almost finished my collection of large, old 3 phase wood and metal working machines that would give the worksafety man an embolism. I just love the older machines and the superb heavy duty engineering that you don't see in newer machines.

I am looking forward to learning turning and increasing my woodworking skills and have a dozen projects wizzing around my head. I would love to get a lucas mill or similar and am very interested in recycling and recovering timber.

I worked in Fiji for several years and a Fijian mate who is in the timber industry there has just sent over a container load of Fijian Mahogany which I am testing the market with. Beautiful timber from 60 year old plantations. The poms planted Honduran Mahogany 60 odd years ago and it is now coming to fruition.

I would love to build an older style Hacker or Chris Craft design and may have to if I don't get to sell the 16m3 I have in the shed!

Thanks for the opportunity to introduce myself

Best wishes


Mark

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