All hands on deck

Some of us became very attached to our tubes. . .

Once again, another early start for the Tube Cubed team. The plan was to meet at 8:45 and start the cutting of the tubes. Joe had made a list of the lengths needed so once we had sorted them into the rows and made individual cutting lists. We had three teams up and sawing and were finished soon after lunch time.
As all the tubes were all different we had to measure each diameter individually. This was recorded on the cutting sheets which were kept and Joe was able to make the appropriate adjustments to the drawing of the frame. 

We weren't going to let the guys have all
the fun!

Teamwork was crucial

Once cut, the tubes were labelled with the grid reference according to our drawing and the ends sanded down to give a clean finish to them.

Organising the tubes into their rows was fun. A lot of them were already pretty much together as they were cut by the same teams but we needed to group them together and separate them before we could start gluing.

Someone order plywood?

Whilst we were busy in the Shed, Taniya and Sheel headed down to B&Q to pick up some glue and brushes. Warren, our white van man stole Sam and Panicos to help him collect the 13 sheets of plywood we need for the frame. I was also able to get into contact with the rubber suppliers and ordered the sheet we needed. It was meant to be ready for today. Yesterday afternoon I got an e-mail saying it was ready so Warren, Alex and I headed up to Cheetham to pick it up, making a stop at B&Q to pick up more PVA and buckets on the way back.
We were then able to FINALLY start coating the tubes with watered down PVA as a waterproof  base coat for the varnish - which should be happening today.

Gluing Tubes

Tubes, tubes, everywhere