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  1. #76
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    Dec 2007
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    Komenda, Slovenia
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    Hi Alex

    Nice work and quick too.
    Regarding pics. It's funny because on my laptop I can't see pics also but on my desktop I can
    I don't know what setting are different but I can see all other pics on my laptop except yours

    All the best with your duck

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  3. #77
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
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    65
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    I forgot to mention yesterday that the order to Permagrit in Melbourne for their "Wedge Block" that I had made on Thursday, arrived yesterday (Friday) via Express Post. Fantastic! Thanks guys! Thanks also to Jeremy (again) for putting me on to them :).

    The block has two sides covered with coarse and fine Permagrit sheets, and because each end of the block is tapered at 45 degrees (vertically), you can get into tight corners easily. I'm beginning to sound like a Permagrit salesman, as well as someone from Triton and BoatCraft ;). This little item is going to make high-strength glue removal more accurate (less inclination - as it were - for lateral wobble), and without the danger of cutting my thumb with the thin tin plate of the "old" sample. That latter item is going to be glued to of a shorter but wider version of my "french curve" block at some stage, probably onto a piece of scrap radiata. Given the rigours to which the block will be subjected, balsa will be too fragile. Back to final assembly of the "new" saw table setup...

    The Triton is a precision instrument: it needs to be treated as such to work that way, i.e., if carefully adjusted and which in turn means reading and following the instructions! I must dig out the instructional videos again sometime. They are in one of those book boxes currently infesting the workshop...

    After rearguard action by the Triton's sliding protractor (got it sorted now :), I've got all the stern transom bits cut and dry-fitted, and have fished out the cockpit bulkhead to start work on it. Checks with the engineer's square shows that I've trimmed it as slightly trapezoid... Fortunately it's 2.5 mm on one top corner and 1.0 mm on the other, which I'll be able to "fix" by fixing the cleats in their correct positions and hiding the gap with a 3 mm glue fillet each side. That portion is mostly hidden under the side decks so it's not as much of a drama as it would have been had it been in fully exposed positions.

    Thanks for the kind words, Koala :).

    I'm not going to post any more photos until I've worked out what's going on with my "gallery". This may necessitat reloading all the images directly from the HD, which will take a while. I'll experiment with this tomorrow morning with a few of today's (maintenance) pics.

    Fingers X-ed that Cliff is going to be OK.

  4. #78
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Minbun, FNQ, Australia
    Age
    66
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    12,881

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    Hamish is not well past us but it is now a very severe cyclone.
    Cat 5 heading south east.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml
    Cliff.
    If you find a post of mine that is missing a pic that you'd like to see, let me know & I'll see if I can find a copy.

  5. #79
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
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    65
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    2,551

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    Hi Cliff,

    I wouldn't like to be in Hervey Bay - they (and the islands in between) appear to staring right down the throat at this stage. We stayed there (HB) about a week just over 15 years ago, until we got chased away by - a cyclone. Chickens ;). I think that one stayed out to sea, from memory. Got to see Fraser Island (and its four-legged canine wildlife) before we nicked off, though. Lovely neck of the woods, the whole region - when it's not blowing Force 9+!

    Keep your head down!

  6. #80
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
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    Blaxland, Australia
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    65
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    I'm not going to glue up the stern transom first - I'll practice the wet-on-wet precoating and Storer/DF piping-bag methods on the forward bulkeheads first, where there is much less fiddling - although I sort of shot myself in the foot with the cockpit bulkhead, see above. Maybe the bow transom first. That checks out square!

    In any case, I'm going to have to spend a good part of what's left of the morning in investigating the image link problem.

    So, first up, some direct uploads from my HD, bypassing the album completely. I suspect that this is going to fail initially, as the Forum's uploader/reducer has choked size-wise on direct uploads.

    If it doesn't work, I'm going to have to put the photos on a diet at this end, a process that has to date yielded less-than-satisfactory results for me.

    It didn't work. The uploader doesn't like 4 Mpix images. I could, of course, ramp the image quality down at the camera end, but why bother having a reasonable res camera in the first place?

    So, to Plan B...

    Good grief... "The Dimension limits for this filetype are 800 x 600. We were unable to resize your file so you will need to do so manually and upload it again. Your file is currently 600 x 800."

    So rotate the image 90 degrees to fool the uploader, and:

    "Your file of 1.14 MB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 100.0 KB for this filetype."

    Yeah, right. I knew there was a reason why I uploaded straight to the album then cross-linked (as it were). The uploader-into-albums seems to function "properly"...

    OK. now a "Save for Web..." change, with a drastic reduction in image quality (down to 50 %). But is it drastic enough? Yes.

    Can people see it yet?

    Over to you, guys...

    Computers, eh?...

    1. This is a closeup of the L-bracket between the saw body and the chassis bracket.

    Attachment 98574

    That seems to be fine, although there was no apparent facility for explicitly "thumbnailing" it. I'm going to have to do it manually using snippets from AJ's post, by the looks, otherwise people will be getting dumped into another tab/window/whatever.

    Hmmm...there is a possibility that it's a javascript problem in the browser that I'm using - be right back...

    Interesting. Now all my images - on all pages - have disappeared. This is using the latest Firefox. I have NoScript installed, but have allowed the Forum and subsidiary/linked domains...

    Attachment 98574

    Good grief (again)...

    Let's try Safari...

    Same deal: no images - anywhere.

    Well, I have one more option left to explore: OmniWeb.

    Same deal.

    There *is* one more - IE 5.2 for Mac (MS no longer releases IE for OS X) - it's so out of date that it might work ;)...

    No. The only browser that shows images in this thread on my G5 OS X 10.5.6 system running (and logged in on!) five browsers is Opera v. 9.

    Well, it's just gone twelve. I'm off down to the workshop! Grrrrrr! Aaaaarrrgh!

  7. #81
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
    Age
    65
    Posts
    2,551

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    NOTE: To avoid ovrly clutterng the thread, PLEASE PM the answers to me, don't post here!

    A quick questionnaire:

    Which browser(s)/version(s) are you using?

    Which OS/platform is the browser running on? (E.g., mine is OS X/PPC.)
    Can you see any images in this thread?

    If you can see images, are there any that don't show up but should?

    Do you have any explicit method showing up in either Edit mode that allows for thumbnailing?

    Cheers,
    Alex.
    Last edited by AlexN; 8th March 2009 at 12:12 PM. Reason: Typo

  8. #82
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
    Age
    65
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    Given that work on the boat is somewhat snail-like at the moment, I will put some time into trying to find out what is tripping up my photos. There are quite a few possibilities, but until I get some more data (i.e., feedback ;), I won't start forming an opinion.

    Had to re-do the Triton's saw alignment as I wasn't happy with it. I got a bit firmer with it and gave it a good telling off ;). Seems to have worked so far but keeping an eye on the dreaded drift...

    Also did a bit of trimming of the 19 x 45 mm oregon cross-members to bring them within sanding distance, plus some marking out of the remaining two bulkheads and cutting of 19 x 19 mm Paulownia cleats. I now have a kit of parts for all three bulkheads, but there still needs to be some final trimming (especially of the 19 mm dimension of the 19 x 45 mm stuff) and sanding before I commit to screws and glue.

    I'm going to draw up another sheer line tomorrow, having worked out what I can use to draw it on (the door used for the chinelog jig's way too short). Then I can work out where I've stuffed up the foredeck part of the sheer, and make a final decision on how to fix it.

    What is that shiny cold stuff falling out of the clouds? Hey, it's getting damp!

  9. #83
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
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    65
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    2,551

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    Still no real idea what is causing the Mysteriously Vanishing Hyperlink Problem(tm), and I'll email MIK or the other admins if I can't determine the problem's whereabouts by end of today. I have started looking at a trend though, although it's not consistent enough to make any sort of clear statement about it.

  10. #84
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Blaxland, Australia
    Age
    65
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    I have a suspicion that the photo problem might be a Gecko (Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox, etc.) bug or at the very least a "quirk". I started to wonder if it the Gecko-based browsers are being switched into "mobile" mode (like on my phone, where pics are replaced by links. There are two bits of evidence against this: some links don't appear at all in FF et al.; and the normal page formatting/eye-candy appear as normal (but don't on the phone browser).

    I'm setting this aside, uploading some images per normal for me, and hope that MIK reads this when he gets back from Goolwa ;).

    OK, boat-building! Spent most of today's time on the boat tinkering with trimming timber to sanding sizes on the table saw, selecting the right pieces of 19 x 45 from the trimmed bits for the hull stiffeners and cleats, and checking the sheer line against one drawn onto a length of radiata 19 x 20 mm stock. The kink is exactly where I thought it was, and is "only" 2 mm. I can work around this per a previous comment concerning this problem (clamping and checking). I screwed on the top and bottom cleating this evening, sticking them in position suing some of the double-sided sail-maker's tape that I got a week or so ago per MIK's suggestion (for the sails). This worked really well and saved a whole lot of really awkward and risky clamping. And it was dead on! Just popped a bit of tape on each end of the cleat, positioned, pressed down, flipped, screwed, checked, flipped and undid and removed tape, rescrewed (very carefully, used normal screwdriver), hey presto! Almost quicker to do than to write!

    I'm also collecting quite a bit of 19 x 45 mm oregon bits and pieces for the Goat inwale spacers from all of cutting up I've been doing :).

    Photos (if you can see them!):

    1. This is a carry over from Saturday or Sunday. Adjustments almost completed: note the engineer's square - still not trusting the alignment at this point. Redid it and got a better result. The square is to make sure that the protractor is as normal as possible to the blade. I ended up stripping the protractor and cleaning it before proceeding - still needed to fix the blade alignment...





    2. Squaring up the stern transom centre stiffening block with bench hook and new Permagrit "Wedge Block". If the block looks a bit wide - it is. I'm allowing for the possiblilty of putting an outboard on the back (not while sailing, though ;).





    3. Stern transom, inital dry-fit photo from Sunday; screwed the top and bottom cleats and centre block onto the ply stern piece this evening. Found that the 3.6 mm PM ply sheets are 1222 wide: pondering what to do about the "extra" 2.9 mm - 12 x 4 x 25.4 = 1219.2 ;). Perhaps I can use that to help "adjust" the slightly trapezoid cockpit bulkhead. But maybe I'll let sleeping dogs lie. There is a 3.6 mm gap (thickness of the pacific maple ply I'm using) between the cleats and the end of the ply (bottom of photo).





    4. A bit heavy handed with the Permagrit at this point! The side panel compared with a purpose-drawn sheer line. The correct line is the "lower" one - I mis-measured station 5 at 295 mm from station 4, not 305 mm, oops! Had to re-do from station 4. Even with the corrected line, the difference is really noticeable!



    I checked the foredeck region proximal to the mast step again with actual numbers this time: - it is unfortunately not at the correct height. The fore edge of the mast runs close to the lowest (2 mm) point of the dip. I am going to fix this. I have, however, thought of another way and possibly more practicable of getting the sides identical to the correct line.

    Fortunately for me, the sheer clamp of one side panel runs along the correct line almost perfectly after removing several screws aft of the "bow" screw. I'll re-screw that clamp, and clamp both sides securely together so there's no chance of movement, and with the aid of the engineer's square so that the sides are aligned as closely as possible vertically. I'll then apply clamping pressure to the other sheer clamp (which is much straighter with the pressure off) until it matches the correct one, then screw the errant one down. That should nail it to within a few 0.01's of a mm. I hope!

    Yet another alternative may be to build the dip back up using slivers of ply and superglue, but that would probably be more fiddly that the above approach, so I'll leave that the build-up alternative in case the clamping method fails.
    Last edited by AlexN; 10th March 2009 at 09:30 AM. Reason: Correcting wrong statement!

  11. #85
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    Jan 2009
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    Got a fair bit finished today, although it felt as though I actually hadn't done very much at the time. No pics as they would merely be a rehash of what's gone before and would provide no new info - except perhaps for the clamp-up to fix the forward sheer curve mistake (though over-sanding). I forgot to take the camera back to the workshop after yesterday's photos, and being right in the middle of adjusting clamps and so forth when I realised, I didn't want to take time out to get the camera and break my concentration. Anyway, I've filed a pretty detailed description of what I was going to do above, and I actually did it without any changes to the procedure. The sheer clamp on the "second" panel now pretty well matches the "OK" one the "first" panel, and there is a bit of room for tweaking once the side-panels' stringers have been glued on and the screws have been removed, etc. I also have a full-sized "picture" of the sheer line on a pine board to compare against, too :).

    The three main bulkheads (stern and bow transoms and cockpit bulkhead) are now all fitted up and screwed together (er - not to each other ;), as are the side panels (again, after adjusting the sheer line), and all are now awaiting epoxy coating and/or glue, depending on what they are. I'm keeping an eye out on bending and warping in these items - I have some lenghts of BMS angle that I can press into service when gluing up, if necessary. A bit like the dreaded wing-warp when gluing up ribs onto spars, which can be further complicated when building in tip washout (determines that the root of the wing stalls before the tips) - at least the Duck doesn't have that problem in its hull - that happens to the sail "in flight" ;).

    Having decided to stay with the 1222 mm board width as received, I am now faced with the fact that the cockpit bulkhead is 2 mm too narrow! I went over this latter item carefully with the square this morning, and found that the bottom corners were in fact square, and that one top corner was one mm too high, which was throwing the two top corners out of square. This is much better than one corner being too low :). I measured again from the bottom corners up, drew a line across with my heavy 19 x 10 mm BMS straight edge, and screwed the top cleat down on to the line - some careful planing along the top will fix the problem. So the trapezoid nature of this bulkhead wasn't nearly as bad as I had initially though, and didn't require any major alterations. The overall width, however, needs some attention, as I had cut the cockpit bulkhead to width per the plan measurements, and carefully added an extra 0.8 mm to allow for the slightly thinner ply that I'm using than Michael stipulates in the plans. I should have measured the ply sheets first, and added the extra 2 mm on top of the 0.8!

    I can either make up the difference with high-strength glue, or machine two thin 23 mm x 346 mm strips (< 1 mm thickness to allow for glue on both sides) from some oregon and glue them on to the bulkhead sides. Strength-wise the latter alternative might have the edge, as the HS glue gets a correspondingly brittle as its volume increases. I may use straight resin between the bulkhead side-frames and the padding strips to get the glue layer sufficiently thin. I suspect that trying to make the strips out of Paulownia would result in the strips turning into flitters as they were being machined. [You may have gathered by now that I don't have a bandsaw: I have most of the materials to make up a very decent one - but have mislaid the instructions and can't remember where I got them from in the first place!] A third alternative is to redo both transoms, slimming them by 2 mm, redrawing the edge "rebates" and repostioning the locating screws: not something that I want to do as the bulkhead sides are all straight and parallel, and are also normal to their bottom edges. I don't want to mess with these angles and end up with a boat that has more kinks than Sid Snake!

    I measured up the mast step runners this evening, after trying to find oregon of a similar density without inconvenient knot holes. I might have to saw up some more, as the grain direction (parallel with the locating bolt) may such that the forces applied by the mast could split the runners, even with the ply patches. Maybe I'm being overly twitchy about this, but I'll have a look at what I've got left that can be cut and see if there is a better alternative.

    There are a few(!) bits and pieces that I can get on with such as the rudder cheeks, mast, foils and centrecase while I'm waiting for a decent block of time over the weekend to do the coating and glueing.

  12. #86
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
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    Aberfoyle Park SA
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    63
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    Strike me pink and blue & purple Alex !

    You're planning on machining a 1mm thick shim of oregon to plug a 2mm gap !!!????

    You are bothered by a 0.8mm trapezoiding of one edge of a bulkhead ??? !!!

    If I had ONLY a 2mm gap, or a 0.8mm error, the champers would be flowing and all the neighbours invited !!


    And then you casually say you are going to improve on that...
    I am awestruck by the degree of skill needed to do that.

    cheers
    AJ

  13. #87
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Adelaide
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    2,139

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    Hi Alex,
    From memory Shorty has allowed a 10mm variance to all hull dimensions so may I suggest you trim the bow transom 1mm each side or even a smidge more. You will then have a square boat with a slightly pointy end.

    When I was planing the lower sections of my bow I put a very slight (5mm) convex in it, just couldn't help it

    I also found that the joy of thickened epoxy is that it can disguise most of those minor lapses of concentration (stuff ups). When glueing up I inadvertantly fitted the bulkhead about 3mm proud of the bottom so I got some filleting practice in before attempting the tanks.

    In other words what AJ said.............

    Mike

  14. #88
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    Jan 2009
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    Um...thanks, guys :). I tend to think in engineering tolerances these days (forgetting that I'm working with wood, not metal ;). If I was a thou' or more out on a part it would be getting binned and I would be cursing and swearing - and that happens far more often than I would like (or admit to - oh, I just have...). This is one of the many good reasons why being on a forum like this is so very helpful - people can point out things that one wouldn't otherwise notice when working in isolation. On the subject of tolerances, I'm going to have to be careful not to fall into the trap of not allowing room for the glue!

    Hmmm - a slightly pointy Duck... I'll give that some thought.

    As to planing the bottom cleats, that's something that I'm really not looking forward to at all - even with a sharp plane blade. I've tried to select timber with as straight a grain as possible, but there are other factors such as, um, skill. I am the first to put my hand up and confess to not being a very good hand at planing. But as Mike says, the glue mix will hide all sorts of stuff - and noone will know. Except me. And people reading this. And...

    And as for skill, it's more a matter of being a completely obsessive and worrying type! Having made my own oboe reeds as a music student, that's about as obsessive as you can get! A whisker too much off and a reed can be ruined - a literal whisker. It's one of the reasons I gave up playing the instrument - before I went (completely) stark staring mad! So 2 mm seems like rather a lot to me (see also the comment about the engineering). A boat is a much less head-banging thing to build (even if I do appear to be doing so).

    But once again, thanks for your kind and encouraging words.

    Cheers,
    Alex.

  15. #89
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Rockhampton, Australia
    Posts
    227

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    Alex, your attention to detail is really meticulous! Though, if you had seen the size of some of the gaps in my PD, that I just stuffed more epox+filler into, you would have been pulling your hair out. I think some of them where up to 15mm... Hey, my duck floats, and does not leak. and hasn't broken apart....YET. Wood is very forgiving, and once you add in the the amazing strength and gap filling properties for epoxy systems, its pretty hard to make a major stuff up.

    You are doing a great job, but you shouldn't sweat over a couple of mm... She'll be right mate.

    Cheers.

  16. #90
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    Hi Nick,

    I think I took Michael literally when he mentioned in the instructions about measurements needing to be exact. As I said in a previous post, if I keep going the way I have been, there won't be room for the glue!

    I'm going to do a dry run of the hull sides, stern transom and cockpit bulkhead using mitre clamps before I glue the major panels to each other. I'd do it right now, except that cutouts need to be made in various corners first.

    Query to Mik, if you're still reading this thread - is it inadvisable to carefully measure and pre-cut the relevant corners (bottom corners of cockpit bulkead and bow and stern ends of chinelogs) before glueing up the various parts? If it's OK to make the cuts before glueing, I might be able to get away without having to sharpen my brand new chisel too soon ;). Although from the cleanup point of view there's always the Permagrit block, which tore through the epoxy on the piece of Paulownia that I'd test-coated with WEST 105, in a trice.

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