Sanding tool

A nice sanding tool for curved surfaces where you want reasonable surface finish after sanding - but the surface is to big to sand it by hand all the way.

1969 model Grombas articulated tractor

1969 model Grombas articulated tractor.

CNC mill - X and Y axis ready..

With the X and Y axis of the CNC mill ready, I could finally do the first CNC cut.

First cut was an easy circle with manual Z feed. I am pretty pleased to see that the contraption actually seems to work!

I need to do some calibration and finish the Z axis, but this looks promising!

Underside of beams

Underside of beam seats with reinforcements and waterproofing.

Underside of beams

Underside of beam seats with reinforcements and waterproofing.

After gluing

Nice glue lines along deck beams and gunwhales.

Main deck in place

Done, all glued and strapped in its proper place.

Main deck

Main deck ready to go on.

Glassing foredeck

Glass goimg on to the foredeck on our second hull. Next is waterproofing the beam bolts!

Pics showing before and after putting on the glass.

The best tools..

Frode working with our favourite tools. The variable speed angle grinder with a soft backing plate and the mass remover, aka. belt sander.

Under beamseat spreaders

A pic showing our custom alu pieces that will spread the load from the bolts under the whole beamseat.

Gudgeon blanks

Just a smalt post showing the mould and gudgeon blank we pulled off it. All carbon which will be cut and finalized before it is mounted on the transoms.

80gsm glass arrived

Finally the glass for the decks arrived. Had to order this from Germany.. HP Textiles is a very good supplier. Ships quickly and I had a hard time sourcing 80gsm glass in Norway. Customs delayed my glass for days and days though.

Now it is here so some glassing is in the schedule.

In between boatbuilding - CNC mill!

In between the boatbuilding I also work on converting a table top mill to CNC control. Great fun as metalworking is an almost unknown skill to me.

Picture of the first motor mount with stepper.

Homemade carbon chainplates.. Experimental

Just two quick photos showing our carbon chainplates installed and the blank they were made from. Chainplates are glued into the hulls.

Inside the hole in the chainplate is a stainless steel tube to take any abrasion. This steel is isolated from the carbon by two layers of 200gsm glass.

You can read about the stress test we did here: http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=247737#Post247737

Here are some pics from the stress test:

Getting the test rig ready:

 Test rig in operation:

 End result was a bent 5mm 316SS bolt and our last reading was 3.8 tons of load sustained. I think we have a good margin of strength to work with here.

Been a while..

We have been working on repetitive tasks for a while now. But finally something more interesting to show!

Hulls are now mostly complete. Still some details to do under the beamseats to make it all waterproof and the rear plywood deck to install. But major work is now done. Well, at least all major work except fairing and painting..

The picture shows the geometry of the finished platform. This was before drilling the beams and beam seats.

Currently the mainbeam have been seated with epoxy and is now hardening in my workshop. Pictures later :-)


We are now going to work on more interesting stuff and new stuff, so updates will be more frequent.

Insurance..

Due to differences between the plywood building plans and the implementation in strip plank, we decided to add a little bit to the beam seat structure. Aft of the beam seats we have added a bit of ply which we will tape the beam seat to. Then tape the ply to the hull sides.. In theory, this should make the structure strong enough for our 85kg and 98kg dry weight.

All the mistakes..

Ok, we have had our share of mess ups, and a few "quick" solutions..

First, the carbon trick to transfer loads from the bows to the mainbeam and main bulkhead..


Then we re-read the building instructions, and realised that we had a bulkhead in the wrong place. Were we going to tear the bulkhead out and re-install? Nope, we created this beauty instead.. Note to next hull, install bulkhead in right place! There are supports in the bottom and top for the daggerboard well.

Shaping deck supports..

We are busy shaping deck supports and gunwhales..