More woodwork, and leaks!

Planking goes on to wooden blocks glued to the hull with Sika

The woodwork is still inching along, but now Phineas has joined the crew, and he has already told me off for not sawing the planks straight enough. We are planking the lazarette, using 100mm (mostly) wide strips of 12mm Spruce plywood. It is an education for a kitchen cupboard maker like Phineas to work on a boat where no lines are straight, but he is coping admirably.

Now to get them to fit. 

Recently Prince tackled the accumulated dirt, and two buckets of water flung over the deck showed up water leaks in the forward portlights. (The deck hatches also leak, that is another problem seeking a solution.) David and I had to bite the bullet: The portlights had to come out, we had to (try to) clean up the old Sika, and they had to be rebedded. The problem is the very gently curve of the front of the cabin. The Lewmar portlights are straight, so something had to make up the difference, and the previous attempt did not provide enough Sika. Well, they are in, and sonce we expect a lot of rain this week, results of Tropical Cyclone Dineo, we will have some sort of real life testing.

Prince enthusiastic about the washing

The coming weeks will see a lot of interruptions, but we must soldier on.

Sticky stuff

What a mess!

Of sails and blocks...

Unpicking is not fun.

While I am still edging along with the woodwork, we have given more attention to the sails. The foresail is done except for a few quality control issues, and the mainsail is almost there. Problem is, if you get something wrong, there is a LOT of unpicking to do. Been there, done it... But the elation of having completed the seams are apparent.

Done! At least almost. Note quality controller
in the background. 

I also started finalising the rigging. Now, the old salts made up their steel wire stays going around the Horn. I found out why they don't do it any more: It is bloody hard work, and hard on the hands too. So when a friendly guy offered to do it professionally at a good price, my penchant for the historical method vanished. But I am still going to go for traditional deadeyes and galvanised wire stays instead of stainless steel.

First router jig. Not so great. Note jagged groove
in the deadeye. 

I had some deadeyes made up from a few planks of Mvule wood we brought back from Uganda. Traditionally the old salts used teak, but that is a little hard to find here. And I needed more deadeyes, and the Mvule was not enough. Also, I noticed that it was cracking.

But more important: The jig I made for routing the groove in the Mvule was not so clever. The router did not like it, and grabbed the wood....Don't argue with a router!

So I tested a piece of engineering plastig I was given as a sample, then went and bought more. It is called Polystone G, and seems rather impervious to sun. At least I hope so!

Polystone seems to be a HDPE and is said to be good for making tanks! In front of my favourite plastics place they have a slab of it bridging a small channel. It has been there for years, and shows no weathering despite being in the direct sun.

Don't argue with a router!

So I made a jig to bandsaw the 24 deadeyes from the plastic, broke one blade, and then made a better router jig where you cannot get your finger into the bit unless you really try. Results look good. Now to have the stays made up, then to get the masts up! What fun!

Bandsaw and deadeye blanks

Jig mark 2 for routing deadeyes. 

Bored with woodwork.

Shower pan fits. Now for fibreglassing.

I am bored with the woodwork. The bulkhead between the toilet and storage behind is taking shape, the shower pan fits, but I need something else to do. So I started on the masts and the sails. Badly needed rain made woodwork outside complicated in any case, but also prevented putting a second coat on the masts and battens.

David spraying the masts and battens. Thanks, David! Overspray
 on the pool is a problem we did not anticipate. 

The sails presented a new learning curve. My Mother's old Meister machine was resurrected, oiled, bobbins unearthed, and it works! Well, I got it working a little until Shahnaz shoved me aside and showed me how things were done in her days as a quality controller in the textile industry. Thank you, love!

Ready to help

As we speak the foresail is done, with some advice and support from the dogs, who closely supervised the laying out process. After long deliberation I decided to go with Arne Kverneland's design of building progressive belly into each panel. I used the ingots of lead for the ballast as weights, the battens as splines, and managed a pattern that I think will work. Sailing trials will tell. As I write the foresail is done save for the last set of webbing and rings (Thanks, David, for welding up enough stainless steel rings!) and loops for the yard and boom. Then we tackle the mainsail. I am sure the dogs are ready to help...

This is boring!

Shahnaz hard at sewing. 

Pirates!

Much has been written about pirates at sea. This week it was our turn: Dreamtime was attacked, boarded and invaded by two ferocious pirates: Josh and Cooper. Grandchildren to the owners of the nursery where I am fortunate to have working space, they boarded, and politely asked if they could come and see what I am doing. They gave some real help: Cooper crawled right into one of the cabinets I made to hold the spanner to a recalcitrant nut.

And we had a stow-away too: Cooper decided he likes the cabinets under the front bunk as a hidey-hole.

What a pleasure to have such nice, well brought-up pirates on board!

Stow-away1

Sails

I am bored with woodwork. I learnt a lot, also about fibreglassing, but it is just taking too much time. So I ordered the rest of the sailcloth and reworked the sailplan.

What material? Well, it is something that the cute Tanya with the nice accent tells me will last for ever in bright sunlight. So there. It is a ripstop thingy called ALIAS MPC 1.8.

The sailplan is a chinese rig, with abut 32 square meters. I had it in my head for a long time, but only recently put it down on paper. There may be a jib in front in due course, we will see. I decided to use 25mm fibleglass pipes for battens. A little pricey, and probably way overkill.

David helped me lay out and cut the panels, with Shahnaz' invaluable assistance. Pythagoras helped determine a square foot. Thanks, old boy!

Now the panels have to be trimmed, the proper seams installed, and then the big one: The sails have to have some shape. I decided to try Roger Taylor,'s triple H sail, see his YOuTube video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-IbUt-CTRQ 

As usual the possible sailmakers backed out, so yours truly will do the honours. Watch this space...

laying out the battens. Pythagoras helped ensure that the
 foot of the sail is square. 

David and I laying out the sails. It was blistering hot. 

Tools

My Grandfather's setsquare and edge gauge

Allow me a little rant on tools. I bought some extra tools for steel work, but thought all my work would be done by professionals. Little did I know.  For the steel work I bought a small inverter welder to augment my old Italian buzz box welder, and both give me good service. I have a small compressor that does everything I need it to, when I do. Mostly I use it for spray painting, but some light use of air tools are called for sometimes: A needle scaler, a small die grinder, everal pneumaic drills, a sander/polisher.

My woodwork tools are mostly manual, and I enjoy using some tools I have from my grandfather.

Circular saw being used as table saw

Saw broken

Saw fixed...

B&D belt sander, nice and small, light, but belts are not easy to find

Dead mouse, live mouse

Dear angle grinders. 

Professional angle grinder

But most of my tools are electrical, and there is my gripe. For the boat I bought a small 1KW generator, a Kippur, which has given great service, because I do not have electricity where I work at the moment. In due course this generator should be installed in a cockpit locker.

I have an old circular saw, a 500 Watt Black and Decker. It has given great service over many years. The other day I dropped it, and its handle shattered. And I can get no replacement saw under 1200 Watt. Which would not work on the generator. And those are too heavy and clumsy. Bosch does make a smaller, 800W model, but it is not imported into South Africa. In the end Superglue did the job, and the old saw is working again. Manufacturers, can you please take note: Bigger is not always better!

Sanders are essential. I use a Black and Decker orbital sander, it is good and reasonably handy, but the emery cloth is held in place by two feeble springs. I wish for a better method. I also have an old B&D belt sander that had been consigned to a crate because I could not find belts. But with online shopping I can now get belts that fit with some struggle, and last longer than the original ones did. If it goes I will have the same problem: All the new machines are much biger and stronger, heavier and over my power limit.

I also have a new Black and Decker mouse. A small sander, it is handy and very strong. I used it to clean the rusty steel, clean up the undercoat, cut the filling epoxy, and many other jobs, far beyond that one should ask it to do. It got wet and blew an internal fuse on the curcuit board, which I shorted with some copper wire. But at last, one sad day, it went "phut" and died. I now have a new one.

Working with steel is impossible without an angle grinder. I used to have an AEG industrial one, and after years of (ab)use the gear system stripped. Now the parts do exist, but I cannot get them from the agent. I found them on an Australian website, but the dealer there refers me to the South African dealer, who does not answer my enquiries. I then bought a Bosh Professional grinder, a beautiful machine. And then Ryobi offered a promotional pack with a small angle grinder in it. This has done good work, it is useful to have two machines: one with a cutoff blade and one with a grinding blade. But just the other day it went "phut" and died. Sad. Maybe the gear unit can be transplanted to the AEG?

I used to have a DeWalt electric drill, which I bought after previous hobby drills either exploded or broke. The DeWalt gave good service but the gears stripped, and could not be replaced in South Africa. The repairman recommended a Sparky, said to be a German industrial machine. My son turned up his nose: An industrial machine, and all in plastic? But twenty years later it is still going strong.

Sparky drill. A champion. 

With the Ryobi promotional pack came a small (350 Watt) drill. I used it often because it is light, but the real use is as a motor for my small Unimat lathe. It used to have a 75 Watt two speed motor that blew up, and now I have variable speed and too much power for the little lathe. In the next blog I will show how I use it for wood work.

Small Ryobi drill doubling as lathe motor. 

Woodwork is not my thing, but my ex-father-in-law enjoyed it, and left us a number of tools, including a Ryobi router. The boat work forced me to learn to use it, and it is an interesting tool, though much of its uses are beyond me. The problem is: it has an 8mm collet. Most of the tools we can get here have ¼ inch, or 6mm shanks. So there is a reducer, which is a problem. And the collet is broken, so it falls apart when you take it out. Well, the series is discontinued, the collets are not available, and I could make one on the small lathe, but a die for 1.25mm threas will cost half of what a new router will cost. We can put a man on the moon but we cannot standardise on collets? Really?

On cordless tools: I have a Bosch cordless drill/screwdriver, passed on by Alexander. The battery pack has gone south, amd a new battery pack will cost what a replacement cordless drill would be. Since it is a 12 volt machine the drill goes into the boat; with a little rewiring it will run off the battery system.

Ryobi router, but the collet cannot be replaced!

I am also looking into a cordless vacuum, as my present hand-me-down vacuum uses 1800 Watt, so the alternative is hand cleaning...

Slave labour: Cleaning by hand

Bunk beginning to look like something

Front bunk design in place

And the woodwork continues. The design and building of the bunk in the front cabin is taking shape. Keep in mind that it has to be removable, and has to go in through the main hatch, and you will relise that the think has to be made in sections. I had a lot of help from Shahnaz, and also from the dogs, who were not at all reassured that I know what I am doing. Of course I do not, this is an organic design process. I am reminded often of Doug Jackson's saying: I learnt so much from my mistakes that I am planning to make some more.

Are you sure the thing is set for 35mm?

What are you doing there?

My grandson, Diederick, came to help, and thought I am maing a mess inside, so he started cleaning. Much appreciated! The first time he came for a visit he was not quite as helpful.

And we are looking at bow art. My artistic abilities did not impress many people, so Sharon made up a few dessigns. I am inclined to this one. Coments are welcome.

Semi-final concept. 

Oupa, this place is a mess!

On his first visit he slept on the job. 

Sharon's bow art. Comments?