BoatBlog: December 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

Here I'm trial-fitting the pintles and their fit to the gudgeons. Everything seems to fit, and the rudder can fold flat, as I intended, but spot the deliberate mistake!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

The pintles in stainless steel starting to take shape.

Here I'm pondering the design of the pintle. The one's too long, the other one too short.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Here are the gudgeons, ready for installation. They came out quite pretty.

These two little arches will form part of the rudder gudgeons.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

This is the new rudder box, ready for varnishing.

A trial fitting of the rudder in the new rudder box. It now fits snugly, with no play. In the previous bos the first version was too loose, and second version was too narrow for the rudder blade to even fit. The battens that will carry the pintles are of saligna, but the tiller is meranti.

Here are the fresh materials for the new rudder box.

These two stainless steel strips are destined to become part of the pintles and gudgeons for the rudder.

Monday, December 27, 2010

This afternoon we made a tool to help make the pintles and gudgeons. There's a rather sharp U-bend that I need to put in stainless steel sheet, and it would be very difficult to do it by hand. So I'm planning to use a hydraulic press to make the bend. The angle bends I can do on the box bender. In the picture the trial U-bend lies in the foreground, the 12 mm rod behind it will become the pintles. The stuff in the background are the tools that go in the hydraulic press to shape the strips.

This the plan I have for making the gudgeons.

Here's a picture of the rudder box, with the front end of the tiller glued and clamped. It's a poorly done piece of work, but it should do the job.

Friday, December 24, 2010

No picture, but I've assembled the new rudder box. It's not a very pretty piece of work, but it will do the job well enough for long enough. The glue is now drying under pressure, and should be ready by tomorrow.

I'm building the rudder box. I've made a mistake long ago, in assembling the rudder box without the battens, so I had to open it up and I'm now rebuilding it with new material. In the process I discovered that I had never varnished the inside of the rudder box, so here I have an opportunity to do it over.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

After a lot of small pictures, here's a big picture: The dinghy with a trial fitting of the boom. It's starting to look like a sailing craft!

The plans says nothing about it, but I decided to also make a plug for the boom end. I'm sure it will help protect the boom from damage, prevent water from entering in case of a capsize and also prevent injury.

The gooseneck end of the boom. Don't be fooled by the nice-looking square hole in the wooden plug, the other end is a mess. But that will be hidden inside the boom, so nobody would notice.

The mast joint. One half fits tightly into the top section of the mast, the other half more loosely in the bottom section of the mast.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The finished gooseneck. It came out differently than I anticipated this morning, but bending the little boxes in 2 mm stainless steel would have been just about impossible. I will have to make a square hole in the boom end, but that's the job of a few minutes with a chisel.

I've completed the turning work on the mast head and foot plugs. They came out very nice. Now they need a coat of varnish before installation.

I've made progress on the gooseneck. This one is a prototype made of mild steel, which is cheaper and easier to work with than the stainless steel that the final one will be made of. It seems a bit small to me, but it's the same size as the model that's specified in the plans.