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  1. #1
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    Default Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

    I recently acquired a set of plans for the Mk 2 OZ PDR and the GIS from Duck Flat. To get onto the water as quickly as possible, and allow saving up for the Goat, I decided to build the Duck first.

    Michael has very kindly offered to move some related posts that I've made elsewhere into this (more relevant) thread, but as a quick summary (from memory), the following things have - or haven't - occurred to date:

    Probably asked Michael far too many questions, as many of his answers were right there on his and BitingMidge's sites already;
    Rang up a lot of Sydney plywood merchants in attempt to find a marine plywood that isn't too heavy *and* that I can afford;
    Rang up a number of timber merchants in Sydney re "affordable" clear oregon or wrc - it seems that there really isn't, nor hoop pine neiver;
    Costs for even such a simple boat as the Duck appear to have almost doubled in two years, even accounting for changes in materials - ouch!;
    Changed expectations of cost to be more realistic, revised building starting time estimates;
    Found some useful oregon in my wood cache;
    Discovered (quite coincidentally - no, really!) that some simple alterations in our house will also "liberate" a large amount of secret-nailed WRC cladding boards, many over 2.1 m in length and knot-free :);
    Acquired a bundle of excellent milled-to-size Paulownia timber at a good price, thanks to a suggestion from Nick Pullen;
    Will make two rigs: the standard sprit boom and the lug, starting with lug;
    Mistake when ordering Paulownia - overlooked inclusion of timber to make up standard mast: oops!
    Bacon saved by Michael: suggested glassing the mast to make up the difference in density (stiffness) between paulownia and oregon, plus increase length of long internal block slightly;
    Note: will need to alter diameters of mast step & partner accordingly;
    Will make lug mast in paulownia as it's over a metre shorter than sprit rig mast;
    Ordered BoteCote, powder and other consumables to enable start on mast; "Eurolite" poplar "caravan" plywood recommended by boating materials supplier, may trial 5-ply 6mm if OK on inspection, else back to gaboon hunting;
    Quick info-gathering on scarf jointing in wooden spars;
    Cutting up timber for spars out of scrounged oregon (will use 6:1 or 8:1 scarf joints and high-strength epoxy);
    Marking out staves for lug mast;
    Test-coated paulownia with WEST 105/205, suspecting it might be rather like balsa, happily not nearly as thirsty as feared (see MIK's comments);
    Toughens up the wood nicely even though part-cured;
    Note: chamfer off the 90 degree edges of exposed paulownia cleats, use router for consitency;
    Made new shopping list for rest of epoxy, etc., revised hull start further into future;
    Reminded self that it's still going to be much cheaper than the cheapest non-PDR boat and to be patient;
    Changed mind numerous times about boat's name, settled on short list of two;
    Note: check what hold-up with epoxy supplier is;
    Started this thread...
    Last edited by AlexN; 11th February 2009 at 11:02 AM. Reason: Removed edit headsup

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  3. #2
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    OK, holdup with 'poxy was indeed the Hobart wooden boat festival: stuff is on its way, bewdy :).

    Checking out the Eurolite tomorrow, fingers X-ed.

    Found out why saw wasn't cutting straight - I assumed that the timber edge running against the table fence was straight, but it was in fact quite banana-shaped. And I usually check for such things...now the weather's cooled down a bit I won't be able to try to shift the blame onto the heat! And maybe I won't make so many stupid mistakes.

  4. #3
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    Added a photo to the "GIS for the former small dinghy sailer" thread: end-grain uptake of resin by Paulownia. This was in response to a comment from Nick Pullen (who had the same experience). Bit off-colour so no workshop work this evening, had hoped to continue marking out the mast staves and play around with the spar oregon :(.

  5. #4
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    An interesting day...got a good look at the Eurolite for the first time.

    1. It's nice-looking - good, clean, smooth surface finish with attractive grain;

    2. It's light(!);

    3. The laminations all look as though they're whole pieces of wood, and there were certainly no visible voids;

    4. The outer plies are a good deal harder than I was expecting: still a bit soft, but will toughen up quite a bit with 3 coats of resin, plus epoxy primer and aquacote;

    5. The light colour will be a nice contrast against...

    6. The other ply sheets, which aren't gaboon! They made a mistake - have lots of 6m gaboon, no 4 mm. So it's a couple of sheets of 3.6 mm pacific maple marine. Why didn't I get the 6 mm gaboon? The Eurolite was, well, l i g h t! MIK will have a fit ;).

    Although they did say that some of the gaboon coming through has had heavy non-gaboon core plies with gaboon only on the outer - and almost as heavy as PM or hoop. And it is almost 0.5 mm thinner than 4 mm, so will save a little bit of weight there (10 % less than if it had been 4 mm PM). And it's tough (and looks nice too :). Will have to keep an eye out on the placement of the bulkheads and the tank sides, and adjust accordingly...

    On the other hand, the relatively large amount of paulownia going into the boat, plus the lightness of the poplar, should balance things up. And the lug mast may still end up being a bit lighter than it should, even with its glass coat. So may get a light-ish boat anyway.

    Remembered on the way home that I have sufficient 4 x 1" radiata left over from form work from a large concreting job (tanking) on one side/corner of the workshop, to make up a 6 x 3 frame to clamp in the Triton support stands and use as a support for working on the ply. Has the added advantage that it can be used for other projects and will lean up out of the way when not in use. Bewdy :). (The various benches are covered in an unholy mess of metal-working machinery at the moment, with no room to put anything out of the way.)

    A mate with a light truck has offered to help me move the ply across town, so that's that sorted. Came home this arvo with a big box o' BoteCote System stuff, and another trip to Bunnies yielded some more cheap (and not-so-cheap) clamps. Some boat building on the weekend! Hooray!

    MIK - any thoughts on using Purbond to laminate the foils, or should I stick to epoxy and Q-cels?

    Cheers,
    Alex.

  6. #5
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    Was on the wrong tab in Firefox (too many tabs open) when I wrote up yesterday's advances, and put the blessed thing in "GIS for the former small dinghy sailor"...

    Anyway, I've also decided on a final name for the boat:

    "Wood Duck" .

    MIK suggested that I do it in all-over varnish to go with the name. I had trouble getting my head around the idea at first (I like paint), but maybe some different coloured stains. Hmm...

  7. #6
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    If you put a post in the wrong place ... just tell me where you meant it to go and I can move it for you. The only consideration is I cannot change the ORDER of the posts ... they always follow a strict date order as far as I know.

    As far as varnish. It was only a suggestion following the name of the boat ... "Wood Duck". But if you don't like the idea ... you shouldn't do it!!!

    MIK

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    Having seen the photo of the PDR-US <grin> on the pdracer.com home page, I wasn't too impressed, but as I thought about it a bit more, and with Nick's "Duck's Nuts" in mind, I started to think about putting a bit of zing and contrast into a varnished job using stains. Bit of a change from Duck Yellow anyway (I like Duck yellow though ;). Next time I'm at the hardware store I'll have a look at the range of EtOH-based woodstains they (used to) have.

    The Goat, on the other hand, is definitely going to be eye-dazzling white on the outside and a varnished finish on the inside!

  9. #8
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    After yesterday's nightmare ride in the rain and Sydney's Friday arvo traffic to get the plywood for the Duck (next time I'm going to risk the courier!), and clambering around on the roof cleaning gutters and removing the (by now soggy) kindling from the roof this morning, I've actually made something.

    It's the frame-table. It sort of designed itself and ended up looking pretty well the same thing that BitingMidge has in his garage. That is to say, it started off as a sort of 'H' (two supports linked by a cross piece); then two side pieces to add extra suport; then more pieces parallel with the original supports and dropped the cross piece, and there was BitingMidge's frame-table :). Each part is held to its neighbour using two 100 mm chipboard screws. I also went to some pains to make sure that everthing was square, including the cuts for the individual pieces. Good practice for the Duck build!

    The pictures below show several stages of assembly of the final "in-my-head" design, then installed on the Triton support stands and finally the ply popped on top as a test. Tomorrow I'll flip the frame over and put the rubber non-slip on it, so I will have one side bare wood, and one side non-slip.

    The photos also rather unhappily show the dire mess that is my workshop at present - mostly full of household furniture and boxes of books, and which is very difficult and rather dangerous to work in. A 1:4.5 P-40E Kittyhawk can be seen languishing at the back of one shot, sitting in the home-made building jig and not moving very fast...

    I think that after I've fixed up the rubber on the frame I'm going to have a good cleanup and see if I can't get some of the book boxes back upstairs where they belong!

    1. Frame in its early stages. The rubber-jacketted iPhone being used as an RPN calculator is visible, daring me to tread on it...




    2. Frame nearing completion




    3. Completed frame on its supports and levelled; P-40E languishes in the background awaiting planking




    4. 2 sheets pacific maple ply plus 1 sheet 6 mm Eurolite ply sitting on the frame-table; a.k.a., how not to run a safe and usable workshop! This also looks a bit like an ad for Triton...




    5. Non-slip rubberised cloth added to one side of frame, so that I can use the ROS without having to clamp the ply sheets.

    Last edited by AlexN; 15th February 2009 at 04:04 PM. Reason: Added photo

  10. #9
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    Right. I've been doing some boat building, finally!

    I got most of the marking out done on Tuesday, and finished it off Wednesday morning. Used a 19 x 10 strip of paulownia as a batten, worked a treat :). Also used a length of 19 x 12 BMS tool-making stock as a straight edge that would stay put under its own weight and reach across entire sheet.

    I ordered a couple of Kunz spokeshaves aus Carbatec the other day, and they were due this (Wednesday) morning, just in time to do the trimming of the sides and side-decks, having paid for the express service, BUT...

    The weasel courier snuck off leaving a "you weren't home, sorry, pick it up later" card in the letter box, even though it was obvious that I was home. When I eventually did pick it up in the afternoon (special trip to the PO), the post office gave me a complaints form to fill out: it seems that I'm not the only one to have had trouble recently. Duck Flat's sail kit package was in the letter box this morning (Thursday), probably because I didn't have to sign for that one...

    I cut out the marked side parts from sheet 1 with the jigsaw using the wrong (splintering) blade with a reasonable margin (fortunately!) for planing back. I started using the curved spokeshave once I got it - albeit a lot later than I had been expecting - on the inside of the side deck: fantastic! Sanded down to the line with one of my home-made "french-curve" sanding blocks (see photo below). This was an offcut from a 10 mm balsa aircraft wing centre-rib, with a strip of 60 grit green sandpaper contact-glued to it. Perfect for shallow concave curves (and recovering from where I had dug in a whisker too deep with the spokeshave - although not so deep that I'd strayed over the line :).

    Trimmed the bottom curve of the marked side panel with the flat spokeshave, then took it down to the line with another model aircraft sanding tool - a block of 10 mm balsa about 250 x 75 mm with 60 grit (yellow) sandpaper also contacted onto it (with 40 grit on the other side). I use these for shaping and (with finer versions) finishing cowling plugs, wings, fuselages, etc.

    One thing I'm going to have to do and soon is fix up spot lighting and/or do some serious throwing out again, before I trip and do my self serious injury. And a visit to the optometrist - my long-sightedness is getting worse, and my current glasses are failing close-up. Hence the magnifiers in one of the photos.

    I've been thinking more about the colour scheme. I think I'll paint the hull yellow, but keep most of the decking clear and unstained - as in "Wood Deck" ("Wood Duck" - geddit? No? Pretty bad, even for me ;).

    Well, "Wood Duck" (well, a wood duck here in Oz is really a goose, not a duck ;) is on her way now, and I'm hoping to get to 3D in the next couple of weeks, but I'm going to have to pause shortly to tidy up, do some serious workshop re-arranging and get some lighting sorted (and see the optometrist too).

    Pictures below...

    1. Marking out, using a piece of 19 x 12 BMS as a straight-edge.





    2. Should be familiar (array of clamps locking fairing batten onto panel pins)...





    3. First cuts: side deck cut away from sheet (in background, leaning up against milling bench. Like all my benches, it's home-made...). Note the trip hazards - some house-keeping is well in order!





    4. Look, some identifiable Duck portions! Where's the orange sauce! Now that gives me yet another idea for the colour scheme ;).





    5. Sanding the first side deck using my "french curve" sanding strip.





    6. Working on the first side panel: left side deck in place to act as stiffener. Panel cut back using flat spokeshave, sanding down to the line to follow. Then to flip the panel over and do the same to the sheer. Packet of new (sharp!) plywood-cutting jigsaw blades in foreground ;).

    Last edited by AlexN; 19th February 2009 at 11:53 AM. Reason: Edited text, fixed typos, added photos

  11. #10
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    Howdy Alex,

    If using a spoke shave for fairing the curves you need to look carfully from the end to make sure each edge ends up fair.

    This is because the spokeshave has such a short base and it is easy to make each edge a series of scallops.

    If you need to fair anything out with the plane make sure the two critical points for the bottom rocker curve.

    MIK

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    Is it just me or do others have problems with Alex's pictures? I can't see 'em at all.

    May I suggest adding them as attachments (makes them little thumnails - much easier to load and takes up less bandwidth.
    Cheers

    Jeremy
    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly

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    Answered my own question by opening up the other URLs for the WWF - there are the pictures in all their glory.
    Cheers

    Jeremy
    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly

  14. #13
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    Yes indeed! I had to backtrack on a number of occassions and fix up some humps! Part of the problem was created/exacerbated by the weaving about by the jigsaw operator.

    Latter is easily (!) fixed - slow down and use a sharper blade...

    I'd just come up from spending a couple of hours very carefully sanding back with a piece of "Permagrit" that I once got as a subscription inducement for the late and still lamented "Radio Control Scale International" magazine. It is a piece of thin tinplate coated on one side with tungsten carbide granules, is moderately flexible - and cuts like anything, so you have to be gentle with it!

    The curves on the side panel and side deck are now scallop-free - after a lot of squinting from the side and touching up. I then found your message, so I must have read your thoughts via remote.

    The critical points are of some concern, as when I initially drew out the curves with the batten, etc., I was surprised to see that there weren't quite the slight "bumps" as the curve exits the flatter part between the CPs that I was expecting, and that the flatter part also wasn't as flat as I was expecting either (when viewed from the ends).

    I will go and have another look when I've had my lunch: I'd just drawn around the two bits to produce the duplicates befre I came upstairs, so it will behove me to do this immediately I go back, and before I continue with the tidying up!

    If the worst comes to the worst, I'll measure out and draw the side panel again and check the first panel. If the first panel is out, I'll use the second panel as the template and reshape panel # 1 to it; in turn, if I have to, I'll reduce the hull height by one or two mms for both panels if it turns out that I've slipped up on the bottom curve of panel # 1. That isn't ideal, but it will hopefully still be within the error margin for the spec...

    Cheers,
    Alex.

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    Hi MIK,

    OK, I've taken some photos:

    1. Looking forward along the bottom curve: pencil & screwdriver mark the actual CP positions (don't be fooled by the straight lines across the sheet - they're left-overs from the marking out of the original panel). The LH line is that drawn off the side panel, the RH line that drawn from the side-deck (vice versa in photo # 2, of course). The "finished" side panel is visible on the left. The curve between the CPs appears to be a bit too curved (deep) when compared with your drawing viewed from either end at a similar altitude. This edge was sanded using the permagrit held on a piece of flat timber to keep it straight and rigid. Once the line reaches its final form (!) it will get a careful smooth sanding to remove the roughness (from the permagrit) that's currently visible;





    2. Same, looking aft. Note that the original markout outline (pencil) is still just visible on the sanded panel.



    One thing I've noticed: I'm suddenly looking at the curves with a far more critical - and less complacent - eye!

    You'll probably noticed that the two parts are closer than they should be - I made a mistake when cutting out side panel # 1 and sheared off what should have been the top corner of the transom! So the side panel got dropped about 12 mm so that it just cleared the "nick".

    As I'm having to take photos without a tripod depth of field is limited, otherwise they'd be underexposed and full of camera shake! I've got a rather flimsy 'pod somewhere - if I can find it I'll press it into service as even that will be better than my shaking paws!

    I'm also going to try tweaking the white-balance, as the camera's auto wb doesn't seem to be too crash hot.

    Here's another snap, this one taken with the tripod and the still (4 Mpix) camera mode of our Panasonic NV-GS400 (usual camera is Canon A80 4 Mpix..) -





    The kinks will get the permagrit/board treatment.

    Cheers,
    Alex.
    Last edited by AlexN; 19th February 2009 at 09:22 PM. Reason: Photo added

  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmk89 View Post
    Is it just me or do others have problems with Alex's pictures? I can't see 'em at all.

    May I suggest adding them as attachments (makes them little thumnails - much easier to load and takes up less bandwidth.
    Hi Jeremy,

    I agree about the bandwidth problem. I tried to use thumbnails but couldn't find the function that does it - possibly only if you're uploading from the HD initially? I've been using files that I have already uploaded into my account. Will investigate.

    Cheers,
    Alex.

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