Thread: GIS - Sacramento

I have an unbranded block plane that I picked up somewhere a long time ago. It looks like a Stanley but lacks the name.

When I was working on the Cosmos Mariner I was going back and forth between the electric plane and the no-name plane. I finally took the blade out of the block plane and gave it a quick sharpening with nothing more than sandpaper on my granite countertop, increasing the grit until I was satisfied.

The long and short of it is the cheap block plane beat the electric plane once I had a sharp blade. Pushing it along to level out the gunwales was a piece of cake.

Sure, you can spend hundreds on the LN stuff and you'll get the job done with bragging rights. Or, you can take just about anything you have in hand, sharpen the blade, and you will get 'er done in a snap.

You pays your money and takes your chances.

Thanks everyone for the words of advice. The important thing for me is building the boat, not which plane I get. I'll figure it out.

As to building, well... I picked up some WRC and a bit of ash to mill into the foil staves. Two pieces of WRC measuring 5/4 x 12" x 6' and one 5/4 x 6" x 6'. The ash is 5/4 x 4" x 6". Saturday I'll cart this stuff up the hill to Placerville. A buddy will help me turn these big pieces into littler ones. Price of admission is a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine. Cheap in my estimation.

I'll bring those little bits and pieces home and get started assembling the foils.

Guess I better figure out that plane situation pretty soon...

Thanks again.

Bob

I wonder if Lee Valley does a BBQ set?

MIK

Not that I could find...

Bob

Actually ... I imagine it would be a top seller!!!

A fine day it was!

We managed to turn 3 relatively large pieces of WRC and one lesser piece of ash into the multitude of staves needed to laminate the centerboard and the rudder. Also resulting were the two pieces that will become the tiller. The cut-offs will become the inwale and rudder spacers.

Yesterday, I was telling a co-worker of my weekend plans to mill this lumber into the pieces needed to laminate the foils. Before his eyes glaze over he thought for a moment and wanted to know if he understood correctly... "you're taking a perfectly good board and cutting it up so you can glue it back together? Are you nuts?" Maybe so... but isn't it amazing how satisfying it is to cut up lumber?

We celebrated the official beginning of construction - the First Cut - with a bottle of McWilliam's Hanwood Estate 2006 Shiraz. We thought it was fitting to salute the moment with an Australian wine. (We did wait to have the wine with dinner after we finished milling the lumber.) The steaks were, by the way, nicely grilled on a rather mundane Weber BBQ.

The next step is to finish the assembly of the work bench/table that, I suspect, will become the workhorse of this project. After that I'll be gluing up the blanks for the foils.

Bob

BW - and so it begins. Don't forget to celebrate, and document, each of the milestones along the way.

Then (yesterday morning)...



and now (this morning)



Same amount of wood - well nearly so, I did leave one board at Ed's.

Guess I'll be learning about tuning and sharpening a plane sooner rather than later... I bought a plane on eBay this evening. I should have it by the end of the week. I'm sure I'll have questions...

Bob

I didn't see this in Soling's Questions thread so I'll ask it here.

BOM for the tiller calls for 5/8" x 1 3/4" x 72" (old habits die hard and I am using Imperial measurements). However, the diagram detailing the rudder box and tiller shows the overall length of the tiller to be 1297 mm. This converts to (approximately) 52".

Two questions.

1. Which dimension is correct? 72" (1800 mm) or 52" (1297 mm)?

2. Why 1297mm? Why not 1300mm? Not a major issue, just curious.

Thanks.

Bob

Measurements in a BOM are for shopping. The 1297mm finished length is the correct length.

Perhaps some of the extra goes in the tiller as spacer blocks?

Howdy BobWes,

Sometimes a bit gets trimmed off or it is a particular length from the front of the rudderbox or some other factor. Sometimes it is a horizontal projection of something that is angled.

Actually in this case .. just remembered I had a problem some years ago that the drawing had rescaled itself when I upgraded software ... so I had to expand it again without actually knowing what the change factor had been.

Sometimes one is missing one critical backup ... actually in this case .. all my backups had been changed too.

You can round it up if you like!

MIK

This week has been busy - even if I haven't gotten much done in the way of fabrication or construction.

The plane I bought on eBay arrived on Wednesday. Turns out to be a Stanley 9 1/2 in okay condition.



This is the sole early on Wednesday:



And here it is this evening:



Getting better, but not there yet.

The blade needs work, too.

I purchased a Japanese saw this week and have been using it to cut my inwale spacers. Not terribly exciting stuff, but that saw is very nice to use.

Here is a dry fit of the centerboard blank.



I intended to glue up this and the rudder blank this weekend but the bar clamps haven't arrived. Actually, that's not quite true. They have arrived, but they have not been delivered. The apartment manager was off-site when the UPS driver came by today, so he left me a nice note telling me he'll try again on Monday.

In the meantime I will work on the stem and continue cutting inwale spacers.

I'm really enjoying working with wood and making sawdust again.

Bob

Nice to see you building up a head of steam Bob!

MIK

BW - If you plan ahead, you too can have a beautiful sail like this one. This is the draft image of an advert - featuring our beautiful boat (with its usual old scruffy skipper) for this event in Eugene, Oregon. Yes, Eugene, as in Hippy Capital of the Pacific NW. Hence the tie-dye sail: