I think I'm allergic to staples.

I mounted the stern strips, it's a combination of 1'' and 3/4'' strips, It turned out well. I did end up with a couple of "extra low" spots, but I'll easily be able to bog and fair them out (I guess these little "surprises" are to be expected, I have never built a plywood strip mould before, so, all part of the experience....)


I finally got around to adding the bow piece. I needed to get this on before I could start the bow stripping. (for obvious reasons)


Here is the bow stripping in progress, I couldn't get it done because I ran out of time and strips. Can't cut any till Monday so I guess I'll have to go back to working on the Deck mould a little bit at home over the weekend. I used three levels of stripping on the bow area. It starts with wide 1'' strips, than 3/4'' in level two, and finally 1/2'' strips for the tight curve of the bow.


Here is a closeup of the 1'' stripping. I'm trying to find the balance between enough/to many staples. I'm still not very good at that, I tend to just start shooting and see what I have when the dust settles (I'm starting to get blisters and sore wrists).


And this is what the mould looks like as of now, I trimmed up the overhanging strips on the stern and sanded the bumps out a little to see what its going to look like, i think its pretty good. Not bad for a rookie, No?

more strips and things

Mounted the big piece of ply for the bottom today, its definitely the easy way to do it. 1/2 of the bottom done in one foul swoop. Glued the side strips in the stern. Also pulled about 1 million staples, it was about as fun as I thought it would be, just need to keep pullin them, as many as I can stand. It's looking very boaty as of late. Tomorrow I want to do all the stripping for the aft bottom area. If I can I would love to get to the bow as well. We'll see what happens.

more of the same:

this is as far as I got today, pretty happy with the progress.......

Make my skin crawl

I started to mount skin today, My friend Murray picked me up some 16mm x 5/8'' upholstery staples so I was able to start gluing and stapling some plywood (thanks Murr), got signed off on our big Altendorf saw last week as well, so no more bugging people to do my dirty work. I borrowed a line bleeder from my buddy Cliff so that I could adjust how deep my staples went, (wanted the crowns exposed so they would be easy to extract) but found that it was easier to just turn off the compressor and bleed the tank till the pressure was about right, a little stapler doesn't seem to run through much air. Made some good progress, hope to do more tomorrow. The plywood has some definite waves in it, so I see some fairing in my future, but all in all I think its turning out pretty good. (I was thinking of doing a little bit of video, we'll have to see if I have time.) Thanks to James Lindblom for today's pics......(sponsored by Macintosh I-phone........no, just kidding)

Another Saturday

Since I wrote last I have cut out my Kinkos stuff, traced the Hull mould decking and sheeting, cut a pile of ply strips that very from 1/2'' to 4'' to mount on areas that have deep bends. I also mounted the Kinko's prints for the deck mould stanchions and have them rough cut. So things are progressing. I'm really excited to get back to work monday so I can start skinning stuff. I'll post some pics of that when I have some, right now it just looks like a boat skeleton with a bunch of funny shaped ply pieces piled on it.

cutting, cutting, cutting

Finally got to Kinko's today and got everything I needed for the rest of the boat project printed (except for the foredeck stanchions). So I'm cutting everything out. over the next couple days I hope to get the Bulkhead templates mounted and cut out, the Deck mould stanchions glued to MDF and jigsawed, build the Deck mould structural framework, and start skinning the hull mould. Its going to make for a very busy week, but it should make up for the work I haven't been getting to lately. Sometimes its good to just take a week to think about things and formulate a plan before jumping in to the next phase...........

Next project.......

Just received these renderings of the Cabrillo "Kids Skiff", a wonderful little boat designed by Chris Ostlind to be built out of glass/ply/epoxy by fathers in garages everywhere. My daughters can't wait to get going on one, so now I have a ten year old and seven year old bugging me to get moving on the foiler so we can get going on their boat, I guess it's a good thing though. After I finish the SR-71, I'll try to pump one of these out in a couple of weeks, then I'll have something to to with the little monkey's while I'm out doing tuning, "just sail over there, stay where I can see you".

****On an actual SR-71 project note, I have cut out the pieces for the Deck Mould structure, I plan to put it together in the next couple of days, take some more stanchion files to Kinko's and get the whole process going again, I plan to have the deck and foredeck mould going at home and the hull mould going at work, should be able to start really motoring soon. Pics coming when there is something worth seeing****

We are the champions my friends

Well, nothing really significant happened this weekend project wise just finishing up some drawings for the next stage. After a week of hard training I was finally able to win my first race on SAILX online racing. SO stoked. Its a great game on a great site and I hope to race you all sometime. My screen name is (as would be expected) "Wind_Apparent"


SAILX link: HERE



*****

Ready for skin.

Here are the pics of the finished skeleton and also of my deck screw centering system (I know its not pretty but it works great.) I'm thinking of moving on to my other two mould skeletons before I skin anything.

all up?

Woke up early, started mounting the last couple of stanchions, didn't get them all done because I had to do some special treatment to #22 (the bow) to get it on just right. got everything mounted though except for that one. I also spent 30min anchoring all the frames to the dowel rods, tried to use wood glue and spring clamps but the clamps kept slipping from not enough pressure and the glue was just really slick, so after fighting with that for a while, (the frame/dowel placement is what makes everything square vertically) I finally just grabbed some 1'' deck screws and pinned the frames in place from each side (I realize now that I don't have a picture of this, so I'll put one up tomorrow) worked really well, all the frames are "dead nuts" square and don't move at all. I mounted the final bow stanchion and trimmed the dowels on my way out the door but didn't have time to snap any pictures, I'll post some first thing tomorrow of the finished mould skeleton.

It's starting to look like a boat......

Stayed up late drilling out all the 1'' dowel support holes in the hull stanchion frames, and started mounting them this morning. Mounted five first break, and five second break, and stayed after work for a little while and mounted eight more. Only have a couple left, which should get finished tomorrow. Then I need to glue in the dowels that support the upper portion of the frames and its time to start stapling on 1/4'' plywood for the skin. So excited.......(I am a lot farther than these pictures show, these are from this afternoon, I'll have bigger, up to date ones tomorrow)

Patron Saint of Hydrofoils

I've had some (including myself) question the safety of this project, well I've found the answer to that. While out and about I found a cheap ($20) Bell bike helmet on sale, figure it might be a good thing to add to my sailing gear for the "tuning" stage. It was the right price, is yellow (for safety) and has an image of the Virgin Mary on the back (I'm not what you'd call a "God" fearing man, but at speed, up on the foils, and out on the wire, lets just say every bit helps).

It's late and all the stanchions are done. All glued, all trimmed, all tabbed. Stacked them together to show what my hull should look like. Monday I can start mounting them on the strong back frame.

Biscuits and gravy

Got out the biscuit cutter today and cut the little grooves in everything. Started to glue all the 2 piece frames together. lookin good, had a little help from my daughter Melody (she wants me to build her a boat too. anyone have any plans for a stressed ply Opti?) ****note, don't try to cut things that mount on a frame if the frame is 15 miles away. they wont fit and you'll have to do some of the work over****

More Saws

Decided that it would be best to use a jigsaw to cut out the frame tabs instead of gang clamping the stanchions and using the dado on the table saw. They have turned out pretty nice I think. I used an old crap desk as a clamping surface (only flat skinny thing I had around.) I now have to biscuit together my remaining 2 piece frame sets and cut the tabs on them, and it should be time to start mounting stanchions on Monday. (Tonight's picture was provided by my daughter Melody)

A little off the top.

So, spent the last couple nights gluing and cutting and sanding my stanchions. They are looking good. Still need to dado the frame notches out, and also biscuit together my two piece frames, but aside from that I hope to start getting stanchions mounted to the support structure in the near future.