Boat Plans Arch Davis | Working on the mast for SEI

Boat Plans Arch Davis

Beefing up the mast.

Chuck Leinweber at Duckworksmagazine.com has been using a woven fiberglass sleeve to reinforce the wooden masts he’s made for the various boats he’s built.

As far as I know he’s been using fairly cheap lumber for the birdsmouth system spars, and with the glass sleeve over them there has been no failures even when pushed very hard in events such as the Texas 200 and Everglades Challenge.

Heres his catalogue listing along with a little video showing how the glass sleeve is applied.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/supplies/cloth/sleeving/index.htm

When visiting last year I had a look at what he’s done, looked over the material and decided that I’d give the stuff a try.  So, today, got the parcel out, sanded the mast blank off a little and got into it.

Its like a Chinese Finger Puzzle, push the ends together and it gets bigger in diameter, pull and it gets skinnier.  To apply, I shoved my hand down it while pushing the ends in, made it big enough to fit the mast through easily, and slid it through.  Taped the butt end to the wood and smoothed out the glass sleeve running my hands toward the other end making it smaller and a close fit as I went.

 I put a tape around the mast at the top end of the sleeve, this to provide a clean end to cut the strands of fiberglass to.  Next, I taped the end to the mast to control it while wetting out, and got into it with a brush and epoxy.

With two layers of gloves on, I smoothed the layup out, working from the start end up to the top of the mast pushing any bubbles out as I went.

This is fairly heavy fiberglass, and it soaks up quite a lot of resin, this 3.5m length took 300ml of resin. 

To see how the sleeve would work if I were to use Peel Ply or a similar substitute to control the resin content and finish, I wrapped plastic masking tape around the lower 800mm or so ( I ran out of tape)  and checked the rest to make sure it was properly wetted out.  I’m away for two days, and will pull the tape off when I get back so lets see how it comes out.

After all this was done, I was sitting on my bunk reading and sipping my mug of tea, watching this guy sitting on the end of my dock.  He or she is a Pied Shag, quite a big bird, similar to a Cormorant.  There are lots of them here as well as their cousins the "Little black shags" and the occasional King shag.  Its that time of year when the birds are seeking mates and making nests, so there is lots of interest and activity here on the river.  

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Boat Designs And Plans | Its cold out there!

Boat Designs And Plans

Its the shortest day of the year today, here in the southern hemisphere anyway.  Its calm after the mayhem that yesterdays fast moving winter storm caused, and while there is some light cloud its mostly sunny.

The significance of the day though is that  springtime, warm weather, boisterous early season breezes and the promise of summer is just a couple of flips of pages on the calendar away.

Maintenance, lots to do.  Haul, antifoul and paint my ship.  40 ft. of motor cruiser is a lump of a thing to do,  its three years since the last one,  the first since I bought her, and she not only needs her bottom done but the topsides are looking tired as well so it’s a big job.

I do manage to keep the worst of the barnacles off her, have several times put her on a sandy beach an hour before low tide and walked around with a hard broom to scrub and scrape, an hour means the water goes down about a foot so she leans over just enough for me to get well under with the long handled broom, but she’s about through the soft antifouling paint under there so its up on the hard when I get back from the  next trip.

Same with the little yacht “May” as well, living on a trailer she is not antifouled, but there is much maintenance to do there, even under her sheltering tarpaulin the varnish has peeled and some of the paint cracked, the interior is musty and there is a bit of mould, the rig needs attention and, well, more work.  I want to cruise her this summer, so its time to make a plan.

Paint, paint rollers and brushes, thinners, scrapers, sandpapers and sanders,  scrubbing brushes, all the tools and materials need to be assembled ready for the big days,  the ship will be done in one intense weeks work up on the hard, two ladders, a scaffold plank, mask, tyvek suit, gloves etc.  I’m not looking forward to that but little “May” can be done a bit at a time. Sanding, varnishing, and as the warmer weather dries out the lawn up where she is parked I can take the rig down, assemble it on the grass and make the changes I want.

So there is a shelf and a toolbox up there in the boatshed, devoted to the spring maintenance.  The toolbox has all the sanding and painting gear plus protective clothing, one end of the shelf has the paint and varnish for the little yacht, the other for the ship.  I’ve got quite a lot of it including $450 worth of antifouling,  but there is more to get.

I’ll go and see my friend at Burnsco the boat chandlery about that, but am sorry that they don’t sell bulk elbow grease.  I’m going to need some.

But today I’m going to fit the rowlock plates to SEI. Nothing fancy this time, she’s not a boat that I anticipate rowing for hours at a time, so I am not going to fit my “patent” tufnol lined sockets, just a bronze strap top and bottom of a hardwood block, drilled to suit the rowlocks, and through bolted.

The hardwood came from a shipping pallet, its oily wood, hard, I’ve no idea what species but it is very tough with interlocked grain that should wear well, and like everything else for a serial boatbuilder it was there when I needed something so that’s what got used.

I’ve oars to build for her as well, they’ll be long ones at 9 ft. Again they’ll be simple with narrow blades that wont need to be feathered when rowing to windward and be sturdy enough to push the boat off with.

Stowing  a pair of 9 ft oars in SEI is going to be  a pain, theyll be either in the way or hanging out the end of the boat,  Im thinking of getting myself a pair of Chuck Leinwebers clip together oar sleeves,  this will allow me to make the oars at the correct length, then cut them in half and with these sleeves, clip them together when needed. I have been using a pair of his paddle ones, and theyre very good, those allow me to use the paddle at my usual 45deg left handed configuration and my visitors can use them just straight which is easier than feathering, allows them to concentrate on no falling out.  

The oar ones are shown "Here". 

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/misc/saw-frh/oar.htm

www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/misc/saw-frh/oar.htm

Ive lots to do before springtime. Not a lot of time in which to do it!  On the 14^th of next month I’m on the plane again for what has become an annual pilgrimage to Port Townsend in the USA. It’s a long trip this time, so my spring will be spent travelling rather than doing all the work that’s stacked up at home.

All of the above adds up to the fact that its time I got out of my nice warm bunk and got on with it.

Sigh.

John Welsford

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Boat Plans Aluminium Australia | Progress on SEI and a really good evening out

Boat Plans Aluminium Australia

Ive been working away in the shop, fitting the seat tops and filleting them, turning the offcuts into doublers under the edges and sanding out the odd dribbles of epoxy,  read on.

Blog 4 September

Its getting close,  today I fitted the forward seat top.   Tis is in two pieces joined down the middle and glued in to form  to form not only the seat but the top of the forward bouyancy tank, as well as bracing the mast box.

 Filleting, the white stuff is a low density filler from Epiglass with a little cotton mill fibre ( glue mix) mixed in, thats for strength. The brown is Microballoons but underneath that is a smaller fillet of straight glue applied about 6 hours before.  

So that’s done, yesterday I fitted the doublers under the edges of the center thwart and the after seat ( which should be referred to as “Stern sheets” but I’m not that “correct” in my terminology).  These doublers make a big difference to the feel of the boat, stiffening the overhanging edges of the seats considerably as well as giving them a much more “solid” appearance.

These adoublers re made from the scrap left over from cutting the big parts, there wont be much more than kindling left when I’m done with this project,  successively smaller parts get cut as the project goes on,  so the scraps get smaller each time around.

Stern sheets, the doublers sitting on the seat  above where they will be fitted underneath the overhanging plywood seat edge.

Center thwart.  This is a great way to use the offcuts from the planking, makes a much nicer job of the edges of the seat. Next job to do is to glue them in, then round them off.

Forward seat tops to come next.

So tomorrow its at them with the angle grinder and sander to finish off the endges, round them over and fair them.  Then some filleting, more sanding,  and then its time for paint.

I must say that the Fein Multimaster is an amazing tool for sanding fillets, the point of that triangular sanding head with 60 grit paper on it does a very good job, effortlessly and quickly.  I love this tool and would almost own it just for that.

Paint, the outside looks good,  two coats of primer, and two coats of  satin finish paint looks good, so tomorrow I’ll be splitting the white between two containers and pouring a little of the dark green into one to get the pale green for the interior and then start swinging that paintbrush again.

Tonight, my friend and next door neighbour Emily Scott sings.  She has won a scholarship to the UCLA School of Music where she will study in the Masters classical voice program,  this is seriously top level stuff!  I’ve been to a couple of performances and she’s got me converted to Opera.

Tonights performance is a fundraiser, she’s got to get enough money together to live in Los Angeles for two years to take up her scholarship, and I’m going along.

We’ve had shared dinners, helped each other out some, and enjoyed each others company.  I’ll miss her, all the very best Emily.

http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/news-2014/2014/07/scholarship-helps-talented-singer-find-her-voice.html

Here’s her facebook page, well worth a look.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=675895038&fref=ts

Time I got myself tidy, don’t need the black suit and tie but epoxy and paint covered overalls wont quite cut it.

( I went, full house, I listened, I enjoyed the concert immensely)

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