Frames moving to the build box

-
Putting the frames onto their supports was a little fiddly as expected. A mockup girder helped set the centre line and I learnt to clamp blocks to the workbench at the expected locations to help set them up reliably. Once one side was set I simply then copied the measurements from the side with the plan to the other side.

Frame #5 proved the trickiest. I suspect that my frame deviates from the plan by about 1mm. In the end I made the bottom accurate and think the top will come good when the stringers are attached as they end up being the ply skin bearing surfaces.



And with this finished last night this morning I got to attach frame #1 to the base and started on #2. Going to take a few hours to be satisfied that all is straight but with the string down the centre and a straight box this is just a nudge here and a nudge there and possible a shim here and a shim there until satisfied.

In my "learning to work with MDF" today's lesson is predrill your screws even if self tapping when going through board ends.

This is quite exciting! My base boards extend out because I'm going to add a bumper so that when the kids are opening car doors near the boat it has some protection.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Next round of improvements

-
Image
Had another sail, this time with some wind. Still not on the wire though (I blame my weight, well, also the wind). Almost capsized a couple of times due to slips, or messing up with the long tiller extension. Came back with a few more projects. My hands were weak after three hours of sailing, and my legs bruised (find myself kneeling a lot in lighter air). [ Done ] Rework outhaul so it doesn't rub against the vang [ Done ] Raise the trapeze rings so I can crouch/wire in lighter air [ Done ] Improve travel on the vang, I two blocked it at one point [ Done ] Add ratcheting block to the mainsheet system Add non skid to a couple of sections Seriously consider foam pads in areas on the deck! In general though my first set of improvements (mainly the new smaller lines!) worked well. Some of this is already done. New lines to the left below, old to the right. MUCH cleaner now! The new sleeve on the boom worked well, though it may need some reinforcements yet.
Read more

Upgrade to control lines

-
Image
One big annoyance from my first few sails has been the combination on continuous lines and rail mounted cleats. The cleats are uncomfortable to sit on and much worse kept coming uncleared. The main cause of uncleating being over exuberant use of the continuous lines pulling on the backside of the far cleats. Once the cleats on the rail are undone you have to reach them to recleat, likely a problem as your weight goes to the wrong place. Looking at rigging pictures I found images of Daryl’s Farr on face book where the cleats were centerline and led through eyes at the rail. This seemed to fix all my primary issues so I decided to copy.  Original layout: Removed and holes filled. Also marked out an extra area for more non skid: At this point I commented on Daryl’s picture and he replied that he no longer ran lines through the eyes, but instead to low friction rings on elastic. As I thought about this made a lot of sense as it would allow more control from outboard.
Read more

Repairing the rudder

-
Image
Having decided to repair the rudder step one was to get the main stock rebonded. To do this I embedded two pieces of spruce. Rather than sand down the prior paint I decided to just pull off the carbon skin. This pulled the top layer of the spruce too leaving it pitted and rough so I filled the whole top. With it looking like a rudder again I sawed it into two pieces.... This is in order to work towards the final aim of both restoring the shape and also making the foil a LOT stronger than it was before. Aims are: Remove that big hole. It was way too big! Instead bond the down-haul into a smaller hole. Turn the foil into an I beam with carbon cross sections Thicken up with carbon skin from plan 1 Cutting the foil in half was a prep step towards step 2. To finish up I added two layers of carbon with an ash strip (about 1/8" thick) to replace the wood removed in the cut. Hopefully can finish up fairing tomorrow and get the foil skinned
Read more

Album