Well, time for an update on these.
Yesterday was our 5th "Go and Get 'Em" geocaching event. I managed to log all 25 new caches in the 24 hour event period, including a healthy nine hours of sleep time, so all is well.
Both the curly cherry docks and the shells are now complete, at least with regards to the woodworking. Next, the shells need to be wired for ethernet, and then sold and shipped; the curly cherry docks will spend much of this week having blonde shellac sprayed onto them. My prototype looks better than I expected after a single coat, so there's still reasonable hope that these babies will shine.
Cheers