I love Sailing Anarchy. If it wasn't for that site I would never have attempted this project, but SA is a place you can go and get answers for ANY question. This time it was the deck. I didn't want to leave the deck as just 1/8 ply, it just wouldn't have stood up to abuse. So a quick question on SA gave me the answer. The deck now has a layer of carbon and kevlar underneath which should make the deck quite strong while adding minimal weight. By the recommendations of SA, the kevlar runs the length of the boat and the carbon runs the width. Is the boat now bulletproof? probably not, but I'm at least not going to put my knee through it.
I also got the mast bases turned last week. They look good, but I think that material I got (2" dia delrin) was about 1/8" too small in diameter. I don't like the amount of lip I have holding the base of the mast. The last thing I want is to get it base jammed into the mast and end up cracking it. I'll probably get some more material and turn some new ones in the spring, but at the moment this will work.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Mast Attachments
There are things sticking to the mast. Yay! If I'm in the mood I may try and get the mast up this weekend to start looking at everything and take some pictures. The test spreaders are constructed (amazing what you can do with a jig saw in an hour). This thing is really starting to look like a boat. Now if I only had foils....
Monday, October 12, 2009
Current Build Status
Ok, so after my long delay in progress I'm getting working again and things are moving right along. I'm actually pretty surprised at how fast things are going at the moment, but with the hull and racks mostly completed, much of the rest is the small detail work which is fairly easy In the last week I have in installed the compression struts to the mast post and am currently working on the rigging. The components of the rig are as follows:
Boom - pretty easy really. Just cut the end of the boom to fit around the mast and then attach it with a bolt. I also have the hardware pieces for the vang and outhaul on order.
Spreaders - I spent some time with some scale drawings trying to figure out the perfect geometry for the spreaders. I think I'm pretty close, but I'm going to build a set of test spreaders that will have a variable geometry so that I can test them a bit before I build the real set.
The mast attachments will be made of solid carbon and are pretty close to being ready to put on the mast. Once these few things are done I should be ready to put the rig up and start testing it out. Once I get everything how I like it there will be some finish work to do, but I have all winter to do that.
- Mast Base
- Boom
- Spreaders
- Shrouds
Boom - pretty easy really. Just cut the end of the boom to fit around the mast and then attach it with a bolt. I also have the hardware pieces for the vang and outhaul on order.
Spreaders - I spent some time with some scale drawings trying to figure out the perfect geometry for the spreaders. I think I'm pretty close, but I'm going to build a set of test spreaders that will have a variable geometry so that I can test them a bit before I build the real set.
The mast attachments will be made of solid carbon and are pretty close to being ready to put on the mast. Once these few things are done I should be ready to put the rig up and start testing it out. Once I get everything how I like it there will be some finish work to do, but I have all winter to do that.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Progress, OMG!
Wow, has it been a year since I've posted? I guess it has. After dealing with a bunch of happy horse $hit over the last year, work on Mothball one has resumed. I'd almost forgotten where I was, but now that I'm going again I remember how much fun this project really is. Hopefully over the next month or so I'll get a lot of stuff done and have the boat ready to go in the spring. More updates to come soon.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Hey, it looks like a Moth!
This thing is actually starting to come together. The racks are assembled and most of the hull is done. I need to re-inforce the deck with a carbon/kevlar fabric and do some extra finish work inside the hull, but its just about ready close up. After that I need to finish the mast support and then tape the outside joints and it will be time to think about fairing and painting the hull. I'll probably wait a while to do that though.
Some fun notes about racks, building them off of the boat is the ONLY way to keep them square and I think I did a pretty good job. It is a little scary putting everything together on the floor and then hoping that if fits on the boat. To this end I didn't reinforce the angle in the carbon tubes until I checked that it was all going to work. This was probably a good plan, but it also lead to several joint failures while moving things around. They were easy to fix, but it was a bit un-nearving. Another note, the rack frames are quite large when assembled. The frame is close to seven feet square. Once its on the boat its fine, but its really hard to pick the entire frame up just because you can't reach very much of it at a time. I am really glad that I made the frames collapsible.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Racks!
The racks are coming together. This is somewhat of a slow process with lots of little pieces needing to go together in a particular order. The racks will be removable from the boat and will be collapsible for storage/transport.
A few things I learned so far about racks. They are not easy to put together. First they need to fit on the boat, and they also need to be square, and they need to be solid. My method for attaching them to boat should work fairly well. First I made the crossbeams and attached them to the boat where I wanted them to be. However, its really hard to make them square on the boat, so I needed to remove them from the boat to square everything up. Then it will be back to the boat to re-attached them. It sounds a bit weird, but I really couldn't think of another way to do it. I'll post some pics once all the parts are attached.
The racks are solid carbon and should be really tough once I get done with them. Strangely I had to purchase almost no carbon tubes for this project. Some people have random 2x4s in their garage, I have random lengths of carbon. I purchased the big tubes years ago with the idea of putting racks on my I-14, never got around to it. The cross tubes I purchased for almost nothing a long time ago, just because they were a good deal. I used a few of these tubes over the years and had just enough left for this project.
One more note of interest. I don't intend to attach the racks pieces in any permanent way. The big bars will have stubs which will slide into the cross beams. Then everything will be held together by the tramps. I'm going to use a few tricks to keep the parts from rotating or moving at all. Hopefully it will be really solid.
A few things I learned so far about racks. They are not easy to put together. First they need to fit on the boat, and they also need to be square, and they need to be solid. My method for attaching them to boat should work fairly well. First I made the crossbeams and attached them to the boat where I wanted them to be. However, its really hard to make them square on the boat, so I needed to remove them from the boat to square everything up. Then it will be back to the boat to re-attached them. It sounds a bit weird, but I really couldn't think of another way to do it. I'll post some pics once all the parts are attached.
The racks are solid carbon and should be really tough once I get done with them. Strangely I had to purchase almost no carbon tubes for this project. Some people have random 2x4s in their garage, I have random lengths of carbon. I purchased the big tubes years ago with the idea of putting racks on my I-14, never got around to it. The cross tubes I purchased for almost nothing a long time ago, just because they were a good deal. I used a few of these tubes over the years and had just enough left for this project.
One more note of interest. I don't intend to attach the racks pieces in any permanent way. The big bars will have stubs which will slide into the cross beams. Then everything will be held together by the tramps. I'm going to use a few tricks to keep the parts from rotating or moving at all. Hopefully it will be really solid.
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