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  1. #61
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    Sydney, NSW, Australia
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    Quote Originally Posted by bitingmidge
    So when are you coming up for a sail Craig??
    Well I will be in Lennox Head for 10 days at the end of March.

    That's still a fair way from the Sunshine Coast though.

    Thanks for the explaination btw. I kind of figured it must have been for re-inforcing when I thought a bit more about it.

    Cheers
    Craig

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  3. #62
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    'Delaide, Australia
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    65
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    8,138

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    Quote Originally Posted by bitingmidge
    ill have to
    To be blunt, this is the worst mast timber I've ever seen, but it was free, so I'm taking a punt, but we are hedging our bets by glassing judiciously. Michael thought I was absolutely stupid wasting my time with it at first, but I think is almost backing it to stay in one piece now.....

    P
    How it actually works is ...

    If the masts stay up it is my engineering.

    If they fall over it is Midge's fault for not springing for some decent materials.

    MIK
    (Like they say at the entry to underground car parks.
    All Care No Responsibility)

  4. #63
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    Warwick, QLD
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    45
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    3,462

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    Quote Originally Posted by boatmik
    If the masts stay up it is my engineering.

    If they fall over it is Midge's fault for not springing for some decent materials.
    I like your reasoning MIK
    Have a nice day - Cheers

  5. #64
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Australia and France
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    8,175

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    Phew!

    Great weather for ducks!! We've had nearly 75mm of rain over the last three days, and more on the way apparently.

    This, combined with the fact that Michael has to return home on Monday, has caused us (him!) to up the anti a bit in the work stakes. He's at the end of a fourteen hour day at the moment... someone has to keep it up while I'm at work or on the net!

    I started the day fairing the foils , and Michael glassed the tips ready for glassing the lot tomorrow. This evening I also managed to finish the rudder hardware and mark cut some semblance of a sail at lunchtime.... so this can be MY post, and the next one Michaels!

    Pic 1) Final sand of the foils with a long board. Actually it's not really long, at about 300 mm, but it worked fine.

    Pic 2) Michael has cut the glass cloth on the bias ie at 45° to the thread line, to get a perfect job over the tips. One done, the other on the way.

    Neither of us had done this before, and it's a great way to solve what is usually a bit of a messy end when the boards are glassed, so that's how it'll be done from now on.

    3) While I was sleeping at work, Mik also glassed over the rudder gudgeons on the boxes. Five layers of 4oz glass should be hard to shift!

    Here I'm half way through trimming the excess glass with a sharp knife. At this stage the epoxy is partially cured only and it's a bit like cutting stiff rubber.

    4) I finished the aluminium gudgeons to mount on the transom tonight, here's the whole assembly and a spare gudgeon. The rudder box now needs a bit of a clean up, glue on the tiller and a coat of epoxy.

    5) Before work, I cut the skids for the bottom, and Mik glued them with temporary screws in the meantime. Note all the other holes from various fixings (now filled) and ready for sanding.

    On to the next post!!

  6. #65
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    Every try to fit a 7 x 5 metre polytarp in your living room?

    Pic 1) My feeble attempt at making enough space to cut a triangle out! Well the garage is a bit full of stuff, and it's raining a LOT outside!

    2) Just enough room for the first sail, hopefully tomorrow it'll start looking like a bought one!

    3) Art!

    Michael beavers on into the night. Here he is about to fix the last panel on the last boat. Tomorrow morning I've got a little coaming to cut, and we'll work out where the mast hole goes I guess!

    Note that the shape of these things makes them very easy to work on. There is very little bending and no back strain when working in this position, a luxury rarely found in boat building!

    4) Varnish!

    Can't keep a good bloke from his varnish pot, and at 10.30 pm he's hard at it.

    Note the low stool also takes all the pain out of working down low!

    Summary:

    We are really going to be pushing it to get into the water Saturday, but we'd like to give it a go. At this stage the humidity hasn't dropped below 85% all week, so it's unlikely that painting our high-build primer (water based) will be possible, but we'll see. We certainly won't let that stop us, as the boats are epoxy coated anyway.

    Tomorrow?

    Wait and see!!

    P

  7. #66
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    It's midnight Friday, and I've been at work and out to dinner with friends, while Michael remains epoxied to the boats.

    Today he glassed the foils as per this series of pics:

    1) Blank ready to go.

    2) Glass Cloth (6oz) is draped over the blank and cut to size

    3) Resin is squeegeed on using a bit of ply with rounded edges and corners as a makeshift squeegee, and brushed as required. (This is repeated a few times till the weave is full)

    4) The board after the first coat. Note that we use clothes pegs to secure the cloth against the trailing edge while the glue is curing. This is an area where the glass is very prone to lifting during handling, so care is needed till the epoxy is good and hard.

    To next post...

  8. #67
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    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    I know it's late, but we have true storm conditions here and it's not going to let up tomorrow, so we should have the boats sailable by Sunday, a little late, but never mind!

    Pic 1 fascinates me. In the foreground to the right, is a daggerboard, the white bit is the overhanging glass awaiting a trim, (note the pegs), the horizontal slot with all the white light is the dagger board case penetration through the hull.

    The red lines are the voids in the bottom ply! :eek: However it is the shadows which clearly illustrate the structural grid through the boat.

    So 3.7mm ply won't hold back 3000 watts of halogen light! :eek:

    Pic 2: Is where we are at as of midnight Friday. They are actually quite pretty, or is it me?


    Cheers,

    P

  9. #68
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    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    Saturday:

    It should have been like a fairytale: the day dawned bright and clear, but alas it wasn't to be.

    Another two inches of rain overnight, wind gusts at 60 kph, surf at ten foot :eek: , all beaches closed, and to make matters worse, the ultimate warning on the back page of the Sunshine Coast Daily:


    P (There's always tomorrow!)

  10. #69
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    Jan 2006
    Location
    Adelaide
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    31

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    Loverly weather for Ducks!

  11. #70
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    Jul 2005
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    'Delaide, Australia
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    Sunday - rain, wind howling in the eaves.

    Bureau of Meteorology has a storm warning out current until midnight tonight.

    I fly back to Adelaide tomorrow morning.

    One sail is just about together thanks to Peter - the other can be whipped up in a couple of hours now we have been through the learning curve.

    So our plan last night was for him to finish the sails, me to put the dozen or so fittings on the masts and hulls and we would be drinking champers by about 2pm while watching the Ducks screech around in flurrys of spray - doing doughnuts and creating general mayhem in front of the neighbours.

    They are unpainted still - the wet, cold weather has meant that the varnishing I did a couple of day still has that tacky feeling when sanded that means that a new coat may bubble the previous one.

    Also we haven't been able to do the high build undercoat on the decks and hull exterior as it is a water based epoxy and will not behave well if its water can't evaporate.

    But the boats are ready for sailing with their patchwork epoxy coats - but just tooooo much wind and the rain doesn't look like fun.

    While Peter was making the sail I was out the back until about 1am putting a final thin coat of epoxy on the masts, sprits, centreboards, rudder box/tiller. And that followed a long day sanding all the aforesaid to a flat consistent surface - without going through the previous coats of epoxy.

    The centreboards and rudders have turned out to be works of Art - they will be left clear finished despite their humble origins as finger jointed crapiata.

    Soooo - I won't be here for the sailing ( but I'm feeling a great deal of satisfaction from the great appearance and huge structural integrity of the boats.

    At this stage I don't think we can do much better than these hulls in terms of lightness (without adding to the building complexity) or structural rigidity (with Pete on one corner and me on the diagonally opposite corner there is no noticeable deflection - like sitting on a beachrock.

    So the hulls and foils (centreboard and rudder) provide a really good basis over the years for the different sails and rigs that will appear on the boats from time to time.

    What a great project! Can't wait to see the pictures posted to show how they look when painted in their yellow livery.

    A drowsy numbness pains my sense - but in a good way!

    MIK

  12. #71
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    Jun 1999
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    Westleigh, Sydney
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    Great thread gentlemen. I hadn't looked at it 'til I visited, now I'm as eager as you to see them in the water. Also, loved the very witty commentary.
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  13. #72
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    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    Thanks Alex, hopefully a few others who would normally eschew the boaty forums may in time share the fun we've had. Not that it's over yet by a long shot.

    Mik has summed up where we are up to pretty well but it wouldn't be me if I didn't add to it: It will probaby be a couple of weeks before further activity as I need a clear 24 hours to prime and sand the hi-build undercoat, which means I probably can't do it at night, and I have a few weekends of other commitments ahead of me, I will post a few updates in the coming week, but here's a recap of how we got to this point.

    An interim recap if you like.

    Four weeks ago, Christopha (bless his little heart) kicked of a thread called Oy, Daddles!, and since that time the hill has been rather downhill I'm afraid.

    Boatmik was planning to come and visit, and in the intervening week we thought we'd build a Puddle Duck in a weekend while he was here for a bit of a giggle. (I was also planning to finish the Eureka and he was going to finish my rowboat plans I might add).

    As we got into it, we let out enthusiasm get carried away a bit, and realised that these little boats were potentially a heap better than perhaps many of the existing ones give themselves credit for, and we both felt they had potential to kick-start grass roots level sailing which has been in the doldrums for many years, mostly because of the high costs involved. So a little extra effort was called for, and while we were at it, it just seemed like a good thing to build two of them....

    Now that led us to get more serious, and we spent many late nights talking through all sorts of details, and while I was working at my day job, Mik spent lots of hours, developing those ideas, and refining them till we (he) came up with a beaut, simple to build, light, cheap, not bad looking.... thing.

    At this point it looks as though my original budget will run over a little, by around $25 or so, or 10% if you want to get persnickity, but I'll post full details later in the week.

    We also ran over time, but again, a lot of that was in the nutting out, and standing looking and scratching our private bits while we tried to figure ways of doing things simpler/better or to get a stronger/lighter end result.

    Oh, enough of this: here's some more pics!

    1) After glassing the boards, I've trimmed the overhanging glass and Michael has commenced sanding (ROS @ 120grit). The board on the right is ready for it's final epoxy coat, the darker one not yet sanded.

    2) The "Old Finger Gauge" at work. If you ever read about rounding spars, you'll see that it's best to make a spar gauge to mark planing lines, and it is, but after you've done it a few dozen (hundred?) times, it's not that hard to eyeball, and mark the lines using your middle finger as a guide.

    This shot was clearly set up, because I'm right handed!

    3) Rudder case trial fit. There's no point in adding unnecessary weight to the back of the boat, so the case is as small as we dare.

    I was horrified when Mik's plans for the Goat Island Skiff called for a bungee cord to hold the blade in place, ten years later I wouldn't do it any other way. Simple, light, and will give a bit when it runs aground as well.

    More on that later.

    4) The boards as they are at the moment. All they need is a going over with wet and dry to take off the dust, and I'll varnish them, but they look really pretty. A testiment to My LV BU Jointer, and Mik's epoxy skills.

    Cheers,

    P
    Last edited by Boatmik; 12th December 2007 at 08:37 PM.

  14. #73
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    Making the sails could have been a pain in the bum, but thankfully when we renovated, I pulled all the walls out and now have a large living space which makes a quite terrific sail loft, and spare-boats that-we-aren't-working-on space!

    Pic 1) I'm not at all sure about polytarp, it's cheap, stretchy awful stuff, and we can't be sure that it won't delaminate under load. Masking tape pulls the blue surface off it!! :eek: Anyway, here I am playing sailmaker while the Two Footer and the Eureka watch from my study...

    Pic 2) The notorious polytarp cut, reinforcing patches stuck on with double sided tape, and edge seams ready to turn over. The mark of the outline of the sail is clearly visible in the pic.

    Pic 3) Well into the night, the whole place starts to look like a sail loft (if you can believe that sails are made of blue polytarp that is).

  15. #74
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Toowoomba Qld.
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    64
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    2,792

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    You've dragged in at least one non-boatee. I'm enjoying the pics and the sleek woodwork, but really have no idea what I'm looking at! I'll be interested in hearing your opinion of the blue tarp...would it make suitable windmill sails? You know, those old Greek style things...

    Cheers!
    Andy Mac
    Change is inevitable, growth is optional.

  16. #75
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    Nov 2003
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    Australia and France
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    And now getting close:

    1) These bits are the mast partners. They are the bit that holds the mast where it penetrates the deck. To give an idea of scale, the cutout is 56mm square. The picture shows them after glass has been added to the top and bottom, one has been trimmed ready for a second epoxy coat, the other in the pre-trim state.

    2) Mik demonstrates the centreboard slot cut out in the bottom of the boat, and the surgeons' tools needed to accomplish it: Drill, file, hacksaw blade with a bit of tape wrapped round it, and a bit of wood to wrap some sandpaper round.

    Actually we used a router with a bearing bit, but we could have used all those things if: a) I didn't own a router b) my router had been stolen, or c) Bunnies hadn't been kind enough to replace my defunct $40.00 one the night before! (Thanks Mr GMC and Bunnies)

    3,4,5) It stopped raining long enough to take these shots, but the wind almost enough to capsize the boat sitting there with just the mast up, which is why Mik is holding it up!

    I couldn't stand back far enough to get the whole of the mast in, but you get the picture! Also it's raked a bit radically in the shots, but we have built in a lot of adjustment and will fiddle with it depending on which sail configuration we eventually use.

    I guess that's now near the end of the show, but there's still painting, signwriting, rigging and of course the launch to cover, so stay tuned!

    Cheers,

    P

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