Origami steel yacht construction

Why can't you learn rather than taking away just the misinterpretations that suit you? You do this endlessly.


With a mylar ruler or strip, it illustrated visually the stress transfer under a very small external load and why curves are nor arches.
I was using this to help you and others understand why your longitudinal as an arch argument was a fallacy.

On a hull with the ends restrained it still experiences the stress transfer and inflection, going into tension and not staying in compression.


Re-read post 103 to 113 here: click...http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/classification/transverse-frame-calculation-32584-7.html#post367185 this is where you told me to make a model so I modeled an arc in compression for you under load. This was with the longitudinals attached to the hull plate and all in steel. It's showing clearly the stress in the longitudinals.

Are you saying you still don't comprehend what I was trying to show you? You have abandoned that assumption by now I hope.

you are keen on the message that If people don't believe what you do that they are dumb. Your understanding is flawed and you want it to remian so. It's a belief system that you are holding onto. You misunderstand why your small hulls are strong. It's important that others understand why or they will try ( and they are trying to) and build larger boats on the same principle.

All you have left now is anecdotal tales which imply great strength, and mud throwing at people who have exposed you.

Like judging the strength of welds visually.
It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that most welds are visually inspected and there are clear rules and guides on what constitutes a poor weld and why it's poor. You must learn some decent welding and fabrication.

For the anecdotes I think that either the boats were lucky and the tales are exaggerated considerably, or they are just tall tales.

I suggest that you couldn't drop ram or drag any of those hulls in a repeatable empirical manner in ways similar to the 'torture tests' you imply they endured. Take up the suggestions posted by Lyndon and come up with some real examples .
For example if that hull fell out of slings 10 feet above hard packed sand or concrete it would be scrap metal. Nobody would deny that , not even you. Lets start putting some limits on the tall tales.

There's also no way you can 'bash through' 5 inches of ice as you claimed. Bashed over 300m of reef, mmmmm. Lets try dragging it over just one boulder... .

 

Hello, thank you Welder Fitter for your reply, your answer is what I had in mind. Random places along the hull about 12" long, keel, stem and chine on both sides. Being an Ironworker Welder I am very familiar with the testing procedures and what a quality weld looks like. What I am lacking in knowledge is the structural integrity of a vessel, bridges and buildings are not the same as a boat This site and its many contributors is making me understand that part better. Thank you
Fred

 

"Welders like to put themselves on a pedestal, by making welding seem a lot more difficult and tricky than it really is. That is snake oil salesmanship."

A little bitter that you cannot go out and make the big dollars, due to the lack of any kind of certification. No it is not tricky or hard, all it takes, is pride in what you do, dedication and strong desire to keep on learning. That part is an going thing in any craft. Never stop learning no matter what age you are.
Fred

 

Welding 101 - origami construction

I am going to try to demonstrate, with the use of photos & diagrams, the difference between what is an acceptable vertical weld and what is not. It is my hope that those whom have bought into Brent's assertions will recognize the difference.

Photo 1 is of a 3G(vertical-up) SMAW("stick") weaved-cap weld. Though this weld is far from perfect, it is the minimum of what one should expect in a professionally built boat. One of the mistakes that some welders make when welding vertical-up is the incline angle of the rod, using exaggerated incline angles. There is no need to have an angle of less than 85-90 degrees, provided one uses proper rod manipulation techniques. A consistently tight arc, holding in each corner, and utilizing a zig-zag pattern. It takes a lot of "balls" to make a perfect pass, as it is a natural tendency to run from the puddle. Fwiw, the cap is too proud(high).

Photo 2 is the root pass, presumably, by the same welder. Once again, it is acceptable for non-commercial boatbuilding, though there are inconsistencies.

The next three photos were from the origamiboats video, with some areas of concern marked. I should have marked the area where the vertical & horizontal welds meet, but the many flaws become overwhelming.
Mike

 

Ok, first post here. I’ve been lurking for a while here and on the origamiboats group and feel compelled by recent posts to chime in. I’m interested in building in steel because I have some welding background. I took welding classes in high school and after graduating I worked for a few years building end-dump truck bodies. I didn't pursue welding as a career but I live in farm country and I still do small jobs for family and friends. So I’m not a professional by any means but I’m fairly competent as far as technique goes. Anyway my experience mirrors that of pdwiley (and probably many others); I was all gung-ho to build an origami hull…until I saw the video. I thought long and hard before writing this because I don’t want to seem like I’m trolling or piling on but Brent’s continued insults and assaults on reason as bearflag put it, have prompted this critical review.

What struck me the most was the incredible lack of care and craftsmanship Brent showed in building Alex’s hull and the utter illogicality of it. It was stunning. I mean, he’s been hired to build someone’s dream boat, presumably because they don’t have the knowledge and experience to do it themselves which means they’re putting their faith in his abilities. He’s the “professional“ in this equation and his customers are hanging their hopes and dreams on him. In this case he was hired to build ON VIDEO; there’s $10k worth of material sitting on the ground… and he set about butchering it in a slapdash fashion that would get him fired from any jobsite in the world. I was amazed. I wouldn’t put together a barnyard gate without grinding the torch cut edges but Brent apparently builds entire hulls that way. It’s incredibly bad practice and there’s absolutely no reason for it. Brent, your “cost of labour" excuse doesn't fly because if money was an issue you could have simply had Alex grind the plate edges himself and call you when he was done, it would’ve taken a day; but of course you didn’t and he didn’t know any better. Your “6011 burns through slag” excuse is baloney, yeah it does but the likelihood of slag inclusions is far greater than with clean edges and since below the waterline welds are pretty damn critical what on earth is wrong with doing the safest, soundest job possible? Are you seriously going to argue that spending an extra day grinding is going to “cost someone their cruising dreams”? What a tired meme.

When you drew the plate shapes it looks like you mostly eyeballed it with with a batten which explains why the edges didn’t match up when you pulled them together to create the half-hulls, and why you had to cut an oblong piece out on each side to get the edges to match up. Assuming your drawings are accurate Alex could have lofted the plate shapes himself and done a perfect job of it but he apparently didn’t know any better and you’re on video telling him it’s totally normal, nothing to worry about. Who knows what that did to the lines of that boat compared to “as designed”, again assuming your drawings are accurate.

When you joined the half-hulls you apparently didn’t join them at the same relative point at the stem because once the centerline was welded up one half-hull had a noticeable overhang at the stern which you simply cut off. You also had to warp the bow over to one side with a come-a-long to get the stem to match up. In your book you write “If the plate for one side of the hull matches perfectly the plate for the other side of the hull – and they all attach to one another at the same relative points, it’s geometrically impossible for the hull to be anything but symmetrical” Well, by the same principle that hull is permanently warped, for no good reason. How much effort would it have been to take a piece of string and measure down each half-hull at the stem and scribe an accurate mark for joining them? Apparently too much. I’m running out of adjectives to describe how bad your work is here but suffice it to say; if I had welded a truck body that was 2” out of square when I was working that job I’d have had to fix it. If I’d tried to argue that it didn’t matter because it’s “just a truck box” I would have been fired and rightly so. You only get away with this appalling standard of work because you prey on people who don’t know any better.

That brings me to the worst part of this whole thing. Throughout the whole video you can feel Alex’s enthusiasm about getting his boat built and thinking he’s getting a good deal. I feel sorry for him because he seems like a nice guy who deserved a lot better. It’s sad that he’s tied his name to your “work”. You’re constantly going around accusing people of taking advantage of other people’s ignorance to make a buck but it is you who does this very thing constantly! It’s your entire business model! Your economics are provably false. What sound money saving advice you give (building your own deck hardware, used engines, etc.) is hardly exclusive to origami building. Your wacky class warfare narrative is illogical and I think it’s only an excuse to feed your messiah complex. I feel bad for anyone who has fallen under your spell, I would have if I wasn’t lucky enough to have some fabrication background. It was the video that gave me pause, I couldn’t trust someone who did work like that, I wasn’t even aware of the structural issues until I started reading these threads. Like most people who read your book I have no engineering background at all so your structural approach sounded logical. But even I can easily follow the thought experiments that the professionals on here have posted (thank you!) and see where you are in error; which makes your profound incuriosity all the more troubling. And it’s all so senseless because none of the people who know are saying origami in itself is a bad idea but you’re wedded to your narrative and apparently determined to stay out there on your branch; sawing away…

 

My problem that there are even NAs here so carried away by hating Brent that they actually state that origami itself is a bad idea. However I am yet to cross a serious argument supporting it.

I understand the argument about framelessnes vs big boats, and it looks like you are right about bad workmanship, but I think it is important to differentiate between bad idea and bad implementation.

I would better like to hear about to what extent chines are actually give longitudinal stiffnes, what approach would be best aligned to the building technique to add transverse support, and how that thing scale.

As I understand no one denies that to say 30ft the frameless approach does work. I guess that additional framing (which would maybe lighter and/or easier to build than with traditional hulls) could extend the applicability. But sound engineering should have been applied, which one party can't, the other won't provide.

 

Your belief that anyone "hates Brent" is incorrect. That some, myself included, have responded to Brent's insults with insults of their own, is a more correct assessment. I/We try to hold rational discussions with Brent, but he prefers to get down & dirty. I don't believe that anyone suggests that people should not build to a similar method, PROVIDING, the designer is qualified to design a safe boat. It's simple to understand; Brent is not qualified to design boats, nor build them. If you are familiar with qualified designers of this method of construction, please, introduce these people & their designs to us. In fact, I said this in a previous post. By all means, let's move on to discuss real designs and appreciated construction methods! What have you got to offer in this regard?
Mike

 

As I am not qualified to design a boat, so all I can offer is to ask questions and draw up boats to have a common object to talk about (as I have previously offered).

What I am thinking about wrt transverse framing is whether it would be meaningful to "beef it up" - much like to what you do with composites - in the correct places to have a frame. I am thinking about laying a say 5mmx100mm cross area plate on top of the 3mm plate of which the boat is originally built, and do the bending. I reckon the bending forces then should be applied to the beefed up section to have a correct shape.
But of course I have no idea of what the position, size and spacing of these frames should be, and I guess it could not be answered without an actual boat shape.

 

No they haven't, I reckon you've misunderstood something there, could you point to a quote?

It's a case of the BS origami scam is a really bad idea not origami overall.

Origami is the plate first frame later method, if you want to get a shelter up quickly to build in it's a good idea, but don't expect it to be lots quicker if its of a size that needs frames. Its just a method. It's not Brents it predates him by decades. What is Brents as far as I know is the pullup bend to shape from completely flat with curved bits.

Nobody hates Brent they just hate his continual BS and abrasiveness. The only way to actually get BS to address anything is to be very direct.
Tiptoeing around politely and he just pushed you into his swamp.

Try it, try and get him to talk about anything, I bet Bearflag he couldn't get a sensible discussion out of Brent. No one can becasue Brent covers his almost total ignorance with rudeness and distortion of others statements.

If you read back you'll find people offering to assess the strength of the curvature and the chines, it's also in some of the class soc. scantlings.

Important to realize the chines are just longitudinal stiffeners.

 

Great effort. And the rest of the welding is dodgy too.

 

I agree, Lyndon. I searched for a decent example of a 3G(vertical-up groove) weld done w/SMAW, but that's the best I found. Mind you, I gave up after about five pages worth of searching. Still, if one accepts the first two photos as a minimal standard, that person should also accept why we say that the welds in the last 3 photos are garbage.

As for the "pulling the hulls together" method of construction, can you point toward other designs that make better use of the concept, or are you suggesting, "don't even go there"? Obviously, I have "issues" with the entire concept, due to the forces acting on the centre-line tacks as the hulls are forced into position, in addition to the chine welds. Still, there are well-known designers who have designs which follow this concept.
Mike

 

Great to see a well written and accurate summary. I agree wholeheartedly.
Thanks for the great effort I couldn't have said it so well.

What the non engineer non-welder fabricator types don't get is the cringe factor when just seeing his plans details and construction methods.

His response to criticism is not normal for a 'designer' and every adjective and charge and insult laid at the critics describe himself so well.

He's made a marketing niche out of badmouthing others who do a better job and produce safer stronger more stable boats.

The very wost construction I've seen come out of cheap backyards in Asia is heaps better than the BS design and build.

I think it's clear there's no advantage in time or cost over any other reasonable design and the disadvantages are major.
Its really more like a a religion and Brent is the figurhead and people are gullible. It just needed some of us to say

"look the emperors got no clothes" and people can start to doubt.

His book is just the same as his posts, same arguments same errors same putdowns of proper work.

 

Gentleman, BS hassled me for years about ripping clients off and wanted to know what I asked for one of these "monstrosities" he called properly designed and built boats.
The answer was given and looking at the quote above, he questions my credibility on figures given. BS, Be careful what you wish for....as it seems to come an haunt you as in this case.

If BS care to read, he will see that the price was circa 1991. To make it easier for him since he has some problems with numbers, the following;

Steel went up by factor 3.9 since 1991 in my country.
Labour went up by factor 2.8 over same period.

Steel used in said boat INCLUDING off cuts and building jig: about 3100kg or the difference in money between current and 1991 = about US$3151...
Safe to say that everything went up within this ratios and that vd Stadt boat would cost the client today (2010) to same completion about US$27300, that is with bulkheads, tanks, rudder fitted, shotblasted and epoxy prime painted. How does that compare with BS boats and not to mention the substandard work that goes into them most of the time and endorsed by BS.
BTW, I am a qualified boilermaker and know how to develop and cut plates accurately. I personally disapprove of pre-cut plating for reasons I mentioned in previous threads in this forum.

His mention to apartheid, which he and everyone that had not stayed in SA really knows fu*k-all about, is in sick taste and really shows his class. But for his information, we have trade councils and unions prescribing labour rates - so much for his mental disorder.
He need a psychologist really bad, in fact, I would pick up the tab if he can be sorted out, which is to say my money is safe

 

again canada

why talk against other countries if you have to "imagine"?
apartheid was a serious problem, and south africa tackle this problem with courage and openness. canada has its own skeletons, like every other country.
keep the ladies busy, don't insult other countries
i am very sensitive about that.

 

I would 'imagine' sprained arms are a common injury in Canada; they get them by patting themselves on the back for not being the US, South Africa, or any of a host of other countries they're morally superior to. .