I set up my floor board production line at home - 5 horse support 6 m of plank, input raw lengths on horses, the drop saw on its stand, output runs on horses.

Tuesday

I realised that to achieve the perfect depth of countersink I needed to either bring my very heavy drill press down to my work area or buy a small drill stand.

The only problem is that the drill stands are intended to mount a drill with a 43 mm collar on them and my drill has a 60 mm collar.

I spoke to Toolmart and they told me to come in and look at something called a "Japanese Drill Stand"

Wednesday

During my lunch break I headed in to Toolmart.

I turned up on just the right day - they were having a sales blitz with various outside stalls manned by representatives for various product lines.

One of these was the Japanese hand tools table.

The salesman gave me excellent advice and various demonstrations. I bought the stand that I had been advised about as well as various dowelling bits and plug cutters as well as a one sided wood saw.

Back home I set the drill stand up to give me a 6mm countersink and applied it to some of the floorboard runs I had already prepared.

This gave an excellent countersink hole.

The only problem I noticed was that the adjustment collets were gradually moving, making the countersinks deeper as I progressed.

Thursday

I visited my local hardware store and purchased 30 x 10 mm washers which I then threaded over the shafts of the stand so that the adjustment collets could not be pushed out of position.

This worked well and I went on to countersink several more floorboard runs.

Friday

During work breaks I quickly countersunk all remaining holes

Saturday

A very busy day with many people coming and going.

Ian turned up to move my mounds of soil around, did a little job for Ian and then retired with a malfunctioning machine.

Linda visited with many pastries and applied clove oil to the areas of black mould.

I installed four runs of floorboards.

Shortly after Linda left the new tarpaulin ripped out two of its corner eyelets and dumped itself on the veranda.

By this time it was too hot to get out in the sun and fix the problem so I retired inside in to the airconditioning, cracked open a stubby of beer and watched tv until the day cooled down.

When I finally emerged I tidied away the tarpaulin, packed up the tools and experimented with gluing wooden plugs back in to the countersink holes.