Anyway, I am making progress on several fronts. I believe I have located an engine. It is a used Yanmar 1GM10 -- ten horsepower and only 19 inches high! That is exactly the height from the keel to the bottom of the cockpit sole, so I will only have to build the raised engine box a few inches above the sole. The engine is in the hands of a well regarded Yanmar dealer in my area who partially rebuilt it for a buyer who reached the painful conclusion that his "project boat" wasn't worth restoring. If the deal does work out for me, I will need to move ahead on buying and installing my keel ballast, since there are several ballast bolts located beneath the engine. I have NOT been looking forward to the ballast installation, nor, for that matter, the ballast purchase. Try as I might, I cannot get comfortable with the idea of paying thousands of dollars for a big piece of lead, but neither can I get comfortable with the idea of casting my own ballast.
Since my last post, I have finished applying plywood to the deck, reaffirming my awareness that plywood does not take kindly to compound curves. With a bit of fairing, much persuasion, many clamps, and a box of drywall screws, we are now fully decked, stem to stern.
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| Foredeck , looking forward from station 3 |
I am beginning to apply Dynel on the aft deck today. In the past, I have laid out the fabric and then saturated it with epoxy, but Bruce MacKenzie, my boatbuilding advisor at the Independence Seaport Museum's Workshop on the Water (WoW,) says he gets better results by applying the epoxy to the wood and laying the Dynel into it. I'll try his way.
I cut and fitted the cockpit seat backs, applied a couple of coats of epoxy to them, and will install them as soon as the side decks have received their Dynel sheathing. I cut two openings in each seatback, so I can access the storage space below the deck. The openings will be under the seats, once the seats are installed.
The berths are finished, except for painting. I installed stainless steel piano hinge to two liftable sections of berth top, so now there is some good, reasonably dry storage beneath each berth. I will install a mahogany rim to hold the cushions in place eventually.
My friend Bob, who volunteers with me at WoW, is a superb machinist, and offered to mill the bronze pivot pin and sleeve for the centerboard. I had purchased a 1" O.D. rod, and a 1" I.D. tube, naively figuring the one would slip into the other. I since learned that the dimensions are nominal, and both required milling. Bob did a spectacular job. Next step is to get the board itself fabricated and then install it.
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| Dynel on aft deck |
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| Rough cut and ready to glue |
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| One of the cockpit seat backs. Storage access via the two openings under the seat |
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| The berths with their hinged lids. |
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| How fast can I fill that space up? |
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| Centerboard pivot pin and sleeve, milled to the perfect size |
Hi Charles, I'm a bit confused with the board pivot - how does it work, I was imagining just one piece of bar would be ok?
ReplyDeleteI am up to the fairing stage and am wondering how you dealt with frames 1,2 and 9. Did you just fair them in a smooth curve with a batten or step them for each plank in turn ( loads of work!! )I am expecting to do the other frames stepped, but these end ones lead into their relavant stems etc
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Concerning the pivot, I had two reasons for using a bronze sleeve/bearing instead of just a pin. First,since the board will be steel and I chose to use a bronze pin, I felt that the abrasion of steel against the bronze would cause undue wear on the pin as the board was lowered, raised, or simply moved while in use. I will cut a 1 inch or 1 1/8 inch length of the sleeve, braise it in place in the pivot hole in the board (simply to capture it,) and avoid the problem of the board causing wear on the pin. Second, where the pin goes through the keel, I felt that a metal to metal contact would be more secure than a metal to wood one. There would be less compression of the wood, and less twisting due to torque on pin. I don't think I made it clear that I will be cutting the sleeve/bearing into 3 pieces -- one to go into the pivot hole in the board, and one each for the port and starboard sides of the keel adjacent to the slot. By the way, I plan to capture the pin with mortised bronze plates screwed to the keel over the hole. All of this might be overkill, but once I get that board in place, I don't want to have to fool with it again (wishful thinking, perhaps.)
DeleteConcerning the frames at the ends, I faired them smooth with a batten, just as I did the others. I can see the benefit of stepping them. I suspect planking would be made easier in exchange for the additional work on the frames. I don't think frame strength is an issue either way, as you can fill gaps with wedges and epoxy or just thickened epoxy, after the planks are in place.