PLASTERERS or RENDERERS HAWK

[ranald]

MY LATE FATHER WAS A SOLID PLASTERER & LATER A HOME BUILDER. Duting the late 1980's I went "owner builder" for a second time but was caught with my pants down financially due to a boom in the building industry. It was a matter of "just do it" or go broke like so many others did at the time when materials doubled in price & availability went from in stock to 6 months wait.

My dad came to visit for a few days and saw i not only had the "roof on" walls were being finished with gyprock plasterboard. My horizontal setting was ok but the perps were terrible & needed much sanding. He always called a spade a spade and without mentioning the quality he did so in asking where the bags of plaster, tape and so on were to be found. "Where is your hawk?" he asked & I showed my prototype one made of form ply & 2 by 1 1/2" ceiling batten. He laughed & said "this will do but its a bit heavy". He proceeded to make a batch & set it. I reckoned I could make a lighter one.

I rummaged through my building stuff and found a streel traffic sign that some "idiot"( thank you so much idiot) had thrown in my front yard after a night at "The Beach Chalet". I often had to seek out street numbers and return letter boxes between the two properties. I had an old coffee table & scavanged a leg from it. Easy Peasy.

My dad frowned before picking it up & after using it claimed that "if it were square it would be better than" his tradies one. I now have it stashed somewhere but borrowers haven't cleaned it so is full of spent render.