While Rita headed off for another driving class, I went out to Weldoms to get materials and equipment to start making the polypipe pan-stands for the French Tour. I need to make a total of 19 stands, but today I concentrated on just getting enough to make one stand to ensure that the design still works OK. Having written down all the dimensions before I left Taggerty, I could now not find them, but a quick email exchange with Doug Walter had me in possession of a new set of dimensions. Not being able to find the power drill I bought last year (it could be lost amongst all the other power tools at the house), I bought a new Makita drill but when I got it home I found there was no drill inside the box. So a quick trip back to Weldoms with Rita in tow ensured that we would be able to explain the situation in French, and got the missing drill (in hindsight, we saw the word “EXPO” on the box, meaning the drill from that box was being used as the display drill on the sales stand). I also bought a nifty little workbench for use on small projects; it’s not exactly industrial quality or strength, but will prove very useful for small jobs and can be folded and stored in the engine room on the barge.

Soon after getting back to port, we were greeted by Stuart and Christine (from Hilda May) who had arrived in port that morning. We caught up with their recent news, including selling their boat to a couple of West Australians. We also learned of plans for Stuart’s band, the Kickshins, to play in Moissac on the Fetes de Plaisanciers weekend.

This afternoon, I made a start on the polypipe pan-stands. The original prototype that I made in Taggerty, used white polypipe and the cross-members were joined to the uprights by a bolt and wingnut, that connected with a disc of wood that was glued inside the cross-member. The pan would hang on cup-hooks screwed into the top of the uprights. The new model has a couple of changes in design features imposed by local materials. First, all the plumbing polypipe in France seems to be grey, which will not be too bad for the pan-stands, as they will meld into the background better. Secondly, the T-pieces and elbow bends do not have 90 degree bends, but rather 87 degrees. This means that the uprights are not really upright, but are inclined at 3 degrees to the vertical. I decided to have them lean towards the player. The T-pieces are also not symmetrical, with the stem of the T offset from the centre of the head of the T. Finally, I could not find a good hole-saw to cut the wooden discs to the right diameter, nor put a concave curved end onto the cross-members. I therefore decided to cut the upright into two pieces, and join the cross-members to the upright with a T-piece. This however creates a point of structural weakness halfway up the upright, which I have rectified by placing a rectangular wooden dowel through the middle of the uprights. I will also do away with the cup-hooks for the pan hanging, and instead cut a groove in the top of the upright on which to hang the pan. This does away with any metal components and screws (which are easily lost), and means that the new design is entirely polypipe with just the two 1 metre wooden dowels for reinforcement. The feet and the cross-members are glued for strength, while the other components just fit onto the T-pieces. The overall height of the stand can be adjusted for each player by shortening the length of the lower part of the uprights. All the components will be interchangeable between players, with the exception of these lower uprights, which will be labelled for each player. The pictures below show the original design at left (with feet swung around for compact storage), the components of the new design, and the assembled new design. While this work is specifically for the band tour, it also gave me some practical clues for the design of the convertible double bed that I intend to install in the wheelhouse in the coming year.

In the evening, we took Stuart and Christine for a house inspection (they had not seen it since last year, but had been getting verbal updates from Nico when they were in port). In just the few days since our last inspection we noticed more changes, and remain optimistic about the outcome by mid-August. We then went to dinner with Stuart and Christine at the Abbaye Restaurant, and were the last ones to be kicked out when the restaurant closed that night. We took the opportunity to get a photo of the stage in the Abbey Square on which the band will play at the end of August.