No More Sanding!

I will probably have to eat the words in the title of this post! All the fillets are in the corners inside the hull. All the fillets have been sanded (actually the surfaces next the fillets have been cleaned up) and the inside of the hull has 2 coats of epoxy.

Next will be primer and undercoat so that at long last the inside of the hull will be a uniform colour. There might even be some finish coats in front of the forward bulkhead while it is still relatively easy to get at.

I have been doing a lot of sorting out of stuff that is simply taking up space, stuff that has been kept because "it might come in useful one day". Two large steel cabinets have moved out of my boat workshop leaving me more useful space. Moving them also gave me access to a corner that hasn't seen the light of day for more than 5 years. Look what I found.

Behind one of the cabinets there was a rat's nest with a long dead resident. At least he/she wasn't preparing to leave the sinking ship before it is even launched!

I had forgotten about this - it has been a long time hiding in the corner. About 10 years ago I was going to build a model steam launch (before I started building large boats and before I moved to Brisbane) and Paul Gartside kindly provided a lines drawing of one of his steam launches. I digitised the lines and then used my small CNC milling machine to make this plug. It's 1 metre long and bears an uncanny resemblance to the bigger version of the Paul Gartside launch that is the subject of this blog. Maybe I will finish the job, cold moulded with some veneer over this plug! Perhaps I should finish the big one first!

Inside Hull Ready To Paint - Well Almost!

This is a status report because 3 weeks have passed since the last post. I've been busy doing other things and there has been little boatbuilding. My aim has been to put in all the fixed woodwork inside the hull and to bring it to a state where I can apply 2 or 3 coats of epoxy and some paint. I wanted to do the finishing work before adding the deck and supporting woodwork, that is to do as much of the painting etc while the inside of the hull is easy to access.

I managed to put in a few hours yesterday and glued in the last two floors. I also shaped the side supports for the forward bulkhead and while doing that realised that I could not glue them in place until the deck beam above the bulkhead was also glued in. So I glued in the deck beam first and then the side supports. Here are a couple of photos showing the floors and bulkhead supports.

In the next photo you can see the "engine" bearers between the last 2 floors and also the steering quadrant on the temporary  (broomstick) rudder shaft.

Here's a close up of the homemade quadrant; laminated plywood with an aluminium bush. The two holes about halfway along the straight sides are where the ends of the steering line will come through to be clamped.

The next photo shows the two aft floors with the engine bearers fitted loosely. When the final drive arrangements are sorted out the bearers will be glued in place. The temporary propellor shaft is in place held in alignment by a couple of wooden bushes in the stern tube hole. The tapered pads on both sides of these floors are where the thrust bearings for the the propellor shaft will be bolted.

I've made a temporary bracket out of scrap plywood to get a feel for how the electric motor will be mounted. The motor runs at too high a speed (about 4000 RPM max) for direct drive and so will need to be geared down. My plan is to do this with a belt drive; small pulley on motor shaft and larger pulley on prop shaft to get down to about 1000 RPM at the prop. The white tin is about the size of the 3kW motor I plan to use. The motor is aprox 180mm diameter and 100mm thick - not very big!

Here is an overhead view, the big pulley (more scrap timber!) is 170mm diameter. When I sort out the final details of the belt drive the height of the motor bracket may be reduced.