Steel Order Arrived

The steel to complete the shell sides roof and water tank arrived today.

Now all I need is some good weather a mini-digger to lift the sheets, oh and my knee to ease up so I can get on with construction.  I went skiing last week and once again knackered my knee.  Its become an annual event over the last few years, so I have made an appointment to see a knee specialist.  I did the original injury 20 odd years ago skiing.  I'll never learn  SWIMBO says.

Many thanks to my friend Andrew for attending with his all-terrain forklift to unload the steel. It doesn't look much for £2k but there is about 2 tons all cut to size and some profile cutting.

I have the parts for the skeg as well as a couple of bits of steel I didn't order.  I need to find out how the skeg goes together, although I shan't be needing that any time soon.

Snow Boat

Christmas & the weather has kind of put pay to play.

I am now waiting on the steel I ordered just before Christmas to be delivered.  Normally I would have waited until after Christmas to order the steel, but as there was quite a few £'s worth I wanted to save on the VAT increase.  Also I know from my day in the trailer business, the steel wholesale business is not the hottest in December so I was able to hammer out a good deal for the remainder I need to build the cabin sides and roof.

Snow boat

Steel Is Ordered

I have now ordered all the steel to finish the sides and roof as well as making an integral water tank.  This should be with me in the next couple of weeks.

Shapes

I was having a real job visualising the front side panel.  This is one of the parts I spoke about earlier in the blog that was a special shape to fit with the upswept curve as the gunwall heads towards the front of cabin    bulkhead.

I had asked the designer to modify the files to do the roof a different way to the original plan.  He did this for me but I still wasn't convinced the parts would fit as I wanted.  I'm not very good with blind acceptance, I need to see things in the flesh.

The original file had already been sent to a local sign-making firm as I know the equipment to computer cut metal or vinyl are essentially the same and can be driven but the same software and files.

The sign-making firm imported the file into Corel Draw and was able to modify the size for me. Once this was done it was sent to the vinyl cutter and in a few minutes I had a full size patten.  £20 well spent IMO.

The bottom shown here is the front, the right is the roof edge

On the left side it can be seen there's a definite curve and the same on the right although its less pronounced. Its not perspective, or a dodgy lens on my camera.

After cutting round this I marked the shape out on an old piece of hardboard and cut that out.  When this was offered up to the hull.......... it fitted and followed the curve :-)  I have left it longer than the original for now as it might help with spacing the sheets that make up the cabin sides.  I will also change the shape of the front detail on the final template.  I shan't bother getting these parts laser cut now, I will do it with an angle grinder.

I have a side, even if it is only made of hardboard!

It's Been A "Smashing" Day

The day started off very well, smashing weather for outside welding.  I got the prep done ready for welding the rest of the rubbing strakes on.  This was cleaning the joints with a rotary wire brush to clear the paint and rust and green stuff that has developed over the time it has stood outside.  I then blew the joints out with compressed air to dry behind the strake. 

I have changed to .8mm wire from 1mm for now which needed a new drive roller which fortunately arrived just in time.

I got a good few hours welding done finishing the strake welding.  When it got dark I packed away which is where the day went bad.  The trolley I have the welder on tipped over on some soft ground.  So the new regulator I bought 2 weeks ago now needs a new gauge, but worse than that my Velux welding mask got smashed.

I have had this mask 10 years, and they no longer make it I am told.  It was £140 then.  I know they have dropped in price since but I still have to replace it, and I could not find one with a view window as big as the velux.  I have a standard Jackson mask which will do for now, and have orderd another auto mask form an ebay tool merchant which seems to have good reviews,

Great Website

The weather today has been 'orrible.  So I spent some time lookimg through this web site.

Screen shot

I've had this on my bookmarks for ages but only got around to trolling through it recently.  I can't believe how much information there is in it that's from real life, on the ground (water) experience rather than merchants with products to peddle.  I even have my own blog mentioned on their blog roll along with others now.

Thanks to Ian for a great resource.

Hmm! Curvey

Not much done today.  I have got some revised drawings from the designer to accommodate the way I want to do the roof.

The roof beams I ordered on Monday arrived today.

Stored on the bow for now

Here is one the right way up

These have been deliberately left long and will be trimmed to length later.

I am keeping a spreadsheet of the weight I am adding to the hull as I need to have this so I can determine at how much ballast to add later.

I found a neat metal weight calculator on the net.  Here is the result for the trimmed to length roof beams.

So another 525 kg to be added.  Just for fun, I told the calculator to work it out as if  it was gold.  Result  1308kg