between trips to port glasgow, spencer was renting a room in epsom, to be near carline and his children, but the landlady there disliked him and he wanted to move back to cookham and work on the paintings in his old studio but he could not afford to rent it from preece, so waac agreed further financial help for that purpose. in may 1942, spencer delivered "template", followed by twelve portraits of clydesiders in october 1942. by june 1943 spencer was having problems with the composition of the next painting in the series, "bending the keel plate" and considered abandoning it. although he was not entirely happy with the painting, waac purchased it in october 1943 for 150 guineas. about this time, the owner of the shipyard, james lithgow, complained to waac about spencer's portrayal of his shipyard. waac duly commissioned henry rushbury to go to port glasgow and produce some rather more conventional views of shipbuilding for lithgow. spencer made further visits to glasgow and by june 1944 had completed "riggers" and begun work on "plumbers". after waac had purchased these two paintings, they did not have enough funds to authorise the completion of the entire original scheme of paintings. by the time waac was wound up, money had been made available for one further picture, "the furnaces", which would become the central piece of the scheme. after the war, when the waac collection of artworks was dispersed to different museums, the complete "shipbuilding on the clyde" series was offered to the national maritime museum who refused to accept the pictures and they were given to the imperial war museum instead.