'Canvassing in the Dark!'

At last the Waggon Gods smiled down on me and finally the long awaited canvassing of the roof took place. Ideally I would have preferred it to be done in the warmer weather with paint drying times quicker and daylight hours longer but my family assembled team took it in their stride on the day and produced a professional result.

The roof has seen so many changes since it was first photographed before the start of restoration. From its natural coat of much greenery, a meadow carpet encompassed down to the eaves. With layers removed after the initial mossy mass, of felt upon felt with its mountain of never ending tacks, an old and previous canvas and sporadic areas of bitumen blotches. It's been stripped, repaired, filled, sanded, primed and lastly glossed for applying the new canvas.

Fiddly on the Roof

Trying to take the weather into consideration and also the availability of family members to assist, there was not a big window of opportunity for this process. Having done gloss paint drying time trials earlier in the week, I was armed with the knowledge that we were looking at, at least 4hrs from painting the gloss to applying the canvas. Myself and my dad took to the scaffold at 9am with 3" brushes on the go, taking a half side of the roof each, working from the back end to the front. Finishing just over an hour later it was now just literally waiting for paint to dry ... well, become tacky enough for the canvas to stick to it.

The rest of the team was gathered up to the waggon for 1.30, consisting of my brother Paul, my nephew Iestyn and my dad's girlfriend Sue. A check of the paint had us waiting around for another hour before we could start as it was not dry enough. However I knew if we didn't start at 2.30, we would lose light pretty quickly and canvassing in the dark was not an option. After allocating individual jobs to each member, a free for all ensued as the tricky task of unrolling a 3m wide roll of canvas became an 'all hands on deck' job.

The best method soon materialized and with Paul and dad unrolling, myself and Iestyn began smoothing down the middle area of the roof taking our brushes along the length of the roof boards. Once the middle section was down, myself and Sue smoothed out the off side half of the roof and my dad and Paul the near side. Now for the tacking and painting frenzy all going on at the same time. Eventually the canvas was on, secured and glossed again. So all that's left to do to finish, is another 4-6 gloss coats and weatherboards to be fitted all round.

A really big and special thank you to all the Team involved, it couldn’t have happened without you and your help was so much appreciated.