Bits and Pieces!

Not a very imaginative title for this post but it is what I have been working on for the last 3 weeks. The weather has been very hot here in Brisbane culminating in a 44C day last Sunday. In my tin boat shed it is usually 2 or 3 degrees hotter and so I have been lucky to put in 4 hours each day. Hence slow progress on bits and pieces.

I made the two pulleys for the PolyV belt drive between motor and prop shaft; the 4:1 ration will give me 1000RPM at the propellor.

I made a bracket to mount the motor. Plywood covered with fibreglass, glued together, the corners filleted and then tape applied to reinforce the whole structure. This is the third bracket in a trial and error approach to design!

The motor is mounted on an aluminium plate with slotted holes for adjustment of belt tension.

 Here's the view from the other side showing the motor. It's a 48V 3000 watt (4HP) motor from Golden Motor in China.

The section of the gunwale around the stern had to be laminated from 5 x 6mm thick strips. I soaked these for 4 days and then bent them around a former. After they had dried out, another 3 days, they were glued and clamped around the former again.

Here is the cleaned up and fine tuned section of the gunwale glued in place. The rest of the gunwale was done in 2 sections starting at the bow. Both these sections were laminated in place from 2 x 12mm strips. The mid ships section was fitted last with scarf joints. I definitely need more clamps!

The cover strip on the top of the coaming was also laminated in place using 6mm thick strips again soaked, bent, clamped and allowed to dry out before being glued in place. Here is on of the strips being glued; this is about the first job where these spring clamps that I got for a bargain price have been useful.

While all the above was going on I had cleaned up the paintwork in the forepeak and given it 2 coats of topcoat, this was much easier to do while I could still reach through from above. With that painting done I glued down the 2 ply panels making up the deck. There will be covered by the deck planking.