Friday, May 18, 2007

From Ply to Sheaves and Bronze Strips.

I've marked out a 4x8 18mm Marine ply for the transom, centerboard and floors and laminations for the stem and breasthooks. Now all have to do is to cut it out.
Marking it out was made far easier by
* a little spiked wheel with a handle, bought in a fabric shop. Put down the carbon paper and roll the wheel along the lines.
* a T Square made from two offcuts of PLY screwed together at right angles. Or you can buy one for €20 - really if you are building a boat, a T Square should be trivial to make :-)

The only down side is that the forecast for the weekend is rain, so I doubt that I'll get much cutting done.

In the mean time I've been trying to find a good source for for the cute little bronze bits and for fibre glass and epoxy (ouch that's expensive stuff, and it's considered hazardous for shipping which means I can't just buy it in from the US.).

I plan to make the cleets from wood - just for fun. But for things like the strap that holds the sheave for the centerboard, all I need is about 8 inches of 1" x 1/8th" bronze strip. Fine. Only nobody wants to sell less than an 10 foot strip. And shipping a 10 foot strip of anything is expensive.

It's the little things. It's always the little things. The Devil is indeed in the details.

2 comments:

Darren said...

Transom, centerboard and floors!

Soond we can expect to see photos of something boatshaped?

Rational Root said...

I may refer you to the comment I made about needing another deadline like I need and itchy rash -- http://davesboat.blogspot.com/2007/05/weekend-off.html