While working to cut the laminating strip of hardwood, I become aware that I may become complacent and there are safety risks to this. Familiarity could breed complacency as I become more familiar with the workshop environment and machineries in it. This is how accidents happen as I moved on my learning journey from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence before I can hopefully reach unconscious competence as seen in the learning matrix below. However therein too lies the dangers of "assumptions" when one becomes unconscious competence. Therefore it is onus on me to continuously check my assumptions..
http://www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com/Instruction/TestingEvaluation.htm
The group's efforts on the temporary frames was progressing well until John discovered that the interval between several frames were not correct at the top ends. Measuring the bottom ends confirmed that the intervals were correct (except frame number 0.5 - I think but this I am not certain). We also decided to recheck the leveling again with the spirit leveler. I could see the frustration of the some members of the group rising though they did not verbally expressed them. Again this is where learning take place.
On the stem construction, we seem to be doing much better. I suppose the construction is focussed only on one piece which made the task less complicated as there was no need to ensure co-ordinated effort with other pieces as in the temporary frame task. The greater challenge for both Stephan and I was in aligning and placed the supports (I do not know what it is called as this is the first time I have seen in the workshop; it was kept in the far end cabinet) for placing the clamps to hold the pieces of laminates together. The challenge came from the the points when the stem "changes" in it gradient (not a smooth curve). I only discovered this after talking to Brett about the need to ensure that the stem follow the lofting drawing we have done. I am happy that we could use sandpaper on the supports to align them into position to follow the lofting drawn. If we have to plane the supports, it will be quite a difficult task - as there were nails (could destroy the blade of the planer) and two different type of wood.
The next challenge we had was to place the all the strips into the position after steaming it for an hour. At the first try I thought we did not do as well as there were mis-alignments. The "steamed strips" were then allowed to cool with clamps on them in the position we had made on the lofting drawing. The next day (toward the end of the day) we learn to use epoxy mixing (with the West System) to glue the strips together and to clamp/hold them in place into the required position. This is the first time I am working with epoxy though I had read about it. So I am very aware (conscious incompetence) of the safety hazards and therefore was more attentive. It seems to me that two pair of hands, for inexperienced person like me, were not enough to work fast on using epoxy. I was also very conscious of not having the epoxy spilled all over. Wearing rubber gloves is a must but it also "hinder" on our ability to work, example on the clamps if we were not to "spill" epoxy onto to the clamps ( I do not know what would the consequences but I suppose the epoxy could easily be removed from metal parts rather than wood). The pace we were working was also quicken as we were told that the epoxy mix started to cure immediately after it is mixed.
Pouring the epoxy raw materials and the hardener into the containers in the workshop was also a memorable experience for me as I was continuous aware of the hazards of working with epoxy especially with such huge volume as the epoxy was being poured in.
My conclusions for this week are:
1) Our team individual skill level needed huge improvement. Personally my eye sight is not as good as before and so I need to be more available of any possible mis-readings of alignments (especially of the central line for the temporary frames). This means for me checking and rechecking again and verification by someone else.
2) Due to the nature of the division of the tasks among our team members and the structures of the lesson, we can only do and learn "our small parts" as we practice Therefore debriefings and discussion become all the more important for each one of us to "know" what the other is doing.
3) As newbie, personally I do not know the whole process of building a boat. Yes I have read up from books but the process of building one still eludes me. So for me it is discovery learning as we "gets" along. Only a faint idea of the end product, I am at a loss at the various stages of the process. It has been a journey of one discovery after another for this week - quite different from all the theories and the even the autocad sessions.
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