Thread: Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

Originally Posted by keyhavenpotter

Pleased to report that Ted from Duckflat has the PDR rudder fittings in stock. Complete with fixings $65.

Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for that - I meant to ring him, but time got away from me today for some reason. Too busy having fun playing with towring templates, I think (I made three attempts before I got it right ;).

Presumably that kit is 2 x transom gudgeons + 2 x rudder gudgeons + bolts & nuts + 6 mm SS pin? Or is the pin a separate item?

Cheers,
Alex.

Just checked out the Europly-resin sample - it's tough! I put a brass sprinkler connector on the concrete workshop floor, then put the test piece on it, then put my hoof in the middle of the ply and bounced up and down a few times.

This resulted in a new ding, but not nearly as deep as those made 10 or so days ago by the stone. With the glass it will be - well, not bullet-proof, but pretty good. And in any case, I am going to contrive to sail the boat in sandy reaches :). If I have to deal with rockier shores, then the glass will be good insurance for minimal weight cost, and still cheaper than a new piece of hardwood ply.

We found that hardwood ply was very brittle and that the face veneers were very thin with our Mk1 PDRs.

Of course there are good hardwood plywoods around as well but often you end up moving into a different failure mode.

MIK

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Of course there are good hardwood plywoods around as well but often you end up moving into a different failure mode.

MIK

The different mode(s) being?, the alex asked ignorantly...

Often with hardwood plys their purpose is decorative .. so the face veneers can be high quality but VERY VERY thin.

Also the inner plies can be terrible.

The timber is can be very brittle

We put our feet through 4mm hardwood ply where I know the softwood gaboon would not have trouble.

It was a combination of the three factors about.

Note though that the hardwood tropical plywood from a wide variety of species marketed as Marine Grade Pacific Maple is a pretty nice board.

But if finding another one .. look for reasonable thickness face veneers. Where there were voids in our hardwood ply we could see the light through the face veneers when the sun was behind them. At first I thought it was a laser beam line.

MIK

Actually, the JE Gordon books that you mention on prdacer look useful, I will investigate....available in Oz via Penguin. Booktopia claims to stock them, which is good :).

And on the subject of other threads, I've been pondering the new post by CompassProject to the WELCOME thread regarding the trashing of Port Adelaide (ak.a. its yuppification), and my own response to that. This is all occurring in a context of an apparent wide change of intrerests in recreational activites, which seem to me (although they may always have been like this and I'm only just noticing it ;) to be focussed far more on passive participation, e.g., the internet, "home theatre", viewing sport on the teev, clubs-n-pokies, etc. Not sure how much of a time-soaker "home theatre" might be, as presumably that sort of activity takes place in the evening (and isn't necessarily all that different to going to a movie except that you don't go out ;). I will continue to ponder this as I suspect that my initial thoughts are a bit simplistic or naive. There also appears to be an aesthtic involved as well, but again, this one needs much more thought before I would be brave enough to make any further comment other than it is another symptom of a larger, more encompassing phenomenon, another element of which is "the West" - including Austraila - exporting most of its manufacturing. But I am swerving severely off topic, and will get back on track forthwith :).

Or almost: the avatar photo that I use is one that is pretty well historical now! I took it in March 1987 on one of my many visits to go and gaze at the "One and All" sail training ship, after hopping down off the wharf onto a handy water-level pontoon, after checking to see that noone was looking ;).

I suppose it's a matter of whether one cares sufficiently about a particular thing to take up the cudgels on its behalf: one reason, in fact, that I continue to make a fool of myself to an apparently wide audience.

Woke up in the middle of the night feeling pretty below-par again, and spent some time cleaning up yesterday's post, sitting up in bed using the iPhone - it was a bit like wading though treacle, but the mobile interface doeas actually give a good clear overview of the rubbish that I was writing, so I made some much-needed changes and additions. There are a few more to do before that post turns into a pumpkin.

Apropos the towring, I started to have second thoughts during the editing: the lower ring placement gives a much better opportunity for water to find another way into the boat, compared with the fairlead version which sits on the very nose of the craft. That is, of course, if it isn't sealed properly: but the procedure will put weak point where one wasn't, and that makes me twitch.

One the other hand, the gussets would help to prevent grain-splitting on the timber that I've perforce used for the mast step runners, so I may install the gusstes, leave out the tow ring plate, and put in the fairlead support block in the bw end of the mast partner. I also realised that as the step runner bolt cheek forward edge is 12.5 mm further forward than prescirbed (see a previous post, which relates to my concerns to the orientation of the garin in the runners, see also above ;), the rake of the gusset is steeper than designed by MIK. I wondered why it looked rather etiolated - it is! The fix is simple, but leaving the shape as-is wiil save a bit of weight. Will continue to ponder this some more, too :). I'm not about to suddenly do any work in the workshop soon: my forecast of not before last Monday is now looking hilariously optmistic :). Besides, I really think that I need to do some serious organisation and tidying (and play with my new vacuum cleaner :) before doing much else. Things have got dangerous again.

Took a photo of the hull number template this morning, since both the camera and the template were sitting next to each other.

Hull number template, stage 3, having previously set up the numbers in a word process (stage 1;) and printing them (2). You can see the flash shining off the 3M Heavy Duty Packaging Tape coating. And you can also see where the tape hasn't been pressed down properly, on the LH of the photo: now fixed. I'll be taking the cutting out [I[very[/I] slowly, as I'm apt to wander off-line at the drop of a hat. Note that I've also pencilled in some temporary tags for holding the middle of the zero in place until the sticker is on the timber: another usueful tip gleaned from the forgotten source mentioned in my previous post. Thank you anyway, whoever you are!



That's it for the moment, except for going and doing some more tweaking of yesterday's post.

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Note though that the hardwood tropical plywood from a wide variety of species marketed as Marine Grade Pacific Maple is a pretty nice board.

I as actually referring to both gaboon and PM in my original remark, in fact :). I thought gaboon/okoume was hardwood, I'll check... :).

Er, it is a hardwood - technically... Aucoumea klaineana is a dicotyelonous angiosperm, not a conifer: it's just that it's a very soft hardwood ;).

But I do understand what you're saying, MIK! And thanks for the info!

A.

Originally Posted by AlexN

I took it in March 1897 on one of my many visits to go and gaze at the "One and All" sail training ship, after hopping down of the wharf onto a handy water-level pontoon, after checking to see that noone was looking .

Alex to demonstrate that I do read your posts carefully I will ask you to confirm the date above or request some of whatever tablets you are taking.
I can't remember when she was built think it was the eighties so my guess is it should read 1987......and yes I can be a pedantict so and so.

Hi Mike,

Very well demonstrated indeed: I might almost say, "too well" ;). Actually, I've got a Type 40 TARDIS, and you can call me "The Doctor" from now on ;). Gee, I wish I did have a TARDIS <sigh>. (I wonder when the ABC is going to show the Dr Who "Easter Special" that aired in the UK - over Easter...) I hurriedly fixed the, um, "typo", thanks for the heads-up!

As for the drugs I'm on, you can have 'em - they include heavy-duty steroids, and they've busted up my temper like you wouldn't believe :(. The steroids are one of numerous reasons (including tiredness, feeling sick, stuff like that ;) that I'm not touching any tools (other than to photograph them ;) at the moment. At least I'm now down to the half-dose: "only" eight days until I can stop taking them altogether!

Bit more work on the stencil, plus chopped the side tank template exactly in half. I have just enough ply of the right size to do this - so I did. Makes things a little bit neater (not that that'll be seen when the thing's finished, twitch, twitch ;).

Photos:

1. Wood Duck's hull number stencil, "0" cut out. Four little lands were left uncut to locate the centre piece - they will be cut adrift and removed once the stencil is stuck on the bottom of the tank (but before staining, of course ;)





2. All three numbers cut. Holding the sheet backward up to the light showed just how extremely wobbly and ragged edges the edges were! Lucky this part is one that never gets seen :)





3. Side bouyancy tank end template cut in half: exactly in half, in fact. Also shifted the position of the edges of the 80 mm butt-strap up a bit to reflect this. The top half is upside down, to fit in the shot. Hmmm - there's definitely dust in that camera lens :(





That's it. Tomorrow's another day - but that will be spent doing some desperately-needed tidying, sorting, throwing out, &c. If, in fact, I'm up to that yet, even...

Howdy Alex,

The lower tow ring is purely for those who want to try to tow the PDR behind their yacht or motorboat for long distances.

The simpler deck version is for occasional towing .. like being rescued by a friendly jet skier.

MIK

Howdy MIK,

Thanks! Simple towring (fairlead?) it is!

Cheers,
Alex.

Something of a lazy day today, too :). I did get some tidying done, although not directly in the boat-buidling area. Stuff needs to be removed from other areas so that I can then move stuff from (and back to) the boat area, and so on, and so forth...

Ah, yes, I went down to the local Rabbit Warren (as I so rudely like to call it :) for some cheap 4 x 2 as I've decided to modify my hull-squaring jig so that I can walk around it (novel, eh?), and also make it more jig-like and therefore stable. Rather than saw up the rather good timber that is currently being used as the bow and stern supports, I though I'd get some cheap stuff, as long as it was straight. Well, I sort of hit the jackpot!

I found some engineered beams: 14 pine (radiat?) plies in a 100 x 45 mm cross-section, coated in a very dashing red colour ("Not to be used north of the Tropic of Capricorn"), bought a length and had it pre-docked. As it is a ply beam, it is pretty straight, which is good. Photos tomorrow, maybe. I will install it once I've cleared some space to do so. And it's still a slow business, as I get tired very easily at the moment.

Also drew in the positions for some lightening holes in the Mk 1 towring gussets which I am installing anyway (minus the wooden blocking for the ring bolt). In brief, this is because I'm not at all happy with the grain direction of the mast step runners: it is running across the runners, not vertically - a good recipe for a tearout. It is, however, the only grain direction that I've got to work with in suitably-sized pieces.

1. Towring gusset lightening holes pencilled in: since these two parts will be 6 mm birch ply, I'm wanting to keep the weight down as much as possible. The towring itself, however, will not be installed: a fairlead installed on the foredeck will suffice





2. Measuring the weight of the test-sample of mast coating. The piece is 30 x 40 x 0.24 mm. I got some new batteries for the scales yesterday, so now I don't have to raid the calculator every time I want to weigh something (something small, that is ;). I still haven't made the approximate calculation for the weight for the whole mast tha I was going to do: the sinus op got in the way and I forgot. Now I'll have to turn around and do it! This photo is a couple of weeks or so late, but I remembered that I was going to squeeze one in for completeness. So here it is...





3. By the way, I should have written "repositionable adhesive", not "removable adhesive", in a couple of posts back when discussing the hull number template. Possibly a shade pedantic to make such a correction, especially now, but that's what 3M calls it. The photo shows the can of this adhesive for making the rear of the hull-number template sticky. That's the Forum post-editing page in Opera 9.6 in the background, btw ;). Don't you love these useless bits of info?





Almost a gratuitous selection of photos and/or post this evening. The vacuum cleaner is supposed to show up (again) tomorrow, although I won't hold my breath. Sydney couriers and I don't seem to get on too well. There is still quite a bit of shifting to be done before I start using it, in any case. Apropos which, the junk pile outside the workshop door is slowly getting bigger again. I just put my collection of 100(!) small, crown-sealable Bundaberg Ginger Beer (yum :) bottles in the glass-recycling bin today, as I'm highly unlikely to be doing the Cooper's beer-kit beer-making that I had once planned to do - can't drink alcohol any more, for medical reasons. I was also running the very real risks of breaking multiple limbs and slashing myself to ribbons by tripping over them.

As might be apparent, I was feeling a bit better today, but it comes and goes.

Howdy,

With the partner and step the plywood on the faces where the bolt goes through are to prevent the most vulnerable place for tearouts. With the general design - the ply tops and bottoms turns the runners into a box beam to help distribute loads further through the structure and prevents the runners from deflecting enough (you have the stiffness of the box instead of the individual runners) to do any splitting.

In other words .. I think it would have been OK. But there is no harm in what you are doing either.

MIK