Realistic scantilings

[welder/fitter]

Mike Johns,
Brent seems to have confused us. It was I to whom he was referring on origamiboats. That's why I joined this group. I wanted to see if he was talking sh*t behind my back on this group, as well.

All,
Please forgive me for momentarily highjacking the discussion as Tom wants to rehash last year's discussion concerning Alex Christie's boat, which Brent partially built & which was the subject of Alex's video. For those of you whom wish to follow this soap opera, my posts were made on: 20May07, 2June07, two on 3June07, and 4June07, under the handle "intiaboats". The 3June post at 2:43pm is where I was responding to Brent's "Bullsh*t..." post which took me by surprise, due to our earlier chat in Comox. As you'll note, I'm a little miffed at that point.

Tom,
If you take the time to re-read the posts, you'll find that I began by asking another member if he had seen Alex's boat, recently, as that same member was pushing a new member to purchase it and, having had a good look at it a week or two before the discussion, I thought that if he'd seen it, we wouldn't push it so hard. I didn't say any more than that viewing the boat was not a positive experience. After Brent made his "Bullsh*t..." post, I was, naturally angry & asked if he wasn't trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I went on too record, as accurately as I could, what I saw. If you read my posts on the topic, I did not refer to the boat as a POS, at any time, nor did I suggest that I thought it was only worth scrap value - I believe that Peter Wiley used that term - However, I did mention that others were with me when I viewed the boat and that they thought that my own valuation ($7,000), what I was willing to offer Alex, was about $2,000 too high. What you don't know, is that Brent & I had discussed Alex's boat, while I was in Comox & Brent was pretty non-plussed at the fact that Alex had left it in it's unfinished, unprotected state, citing lack of money, as he travelled around South America. As well, you were not privy to the fact that I offered to give Alex the money to finish the damn thing.

The other topic to which you are referring, was the use of 6010 below the waterline, which I felt was not as sound as 7018, in the hands of a member who was new to welding, my reasoning being that most self-taught or weekend-course new welders do not manipulate 6010/11 correctly. That was when you developed diarrhea of the mouth, trying to impress us all with your great prowess as a pipe welder. As I've been welding for a few years more than yourself, forgive me if I was not in awe of your greatness. Your ego aside, the discussion was about rookie welders, not veterans.

You didn't see the boat, did you, Tom? Would you like to? My wife was videotaping us as we viewed the boat & I still have the video, as it has some nice "Swain" boats on it. You can judge for yourself. I don't want to air it publicly, because I don't want to cause any embarassment for those who tacked it together, then dragged it across the field with a tractor, where it sat for 2 1/2 years, unprimed, not fully welded, not covered. If I were you, I'd be more embarrassed about defending someone who painted over the hull & sold it to some poor unsuspecting sucker. Then again, maybe half-ass is good enough for you. Send me a PM with your e-mail address & I'll get my wife to show me how to send it to you.
Mike Graham ( not to be confused with the designer, Mike Johns)

[Landlubber]

Muriel,
"Land lubber states "Origami boats would not pass any class survey!" Which in my opinion is foolish to say if he doesn't have details about the boat the origami boat could well be framed or even meet proper sections modulus for its size. (I say that but I could well have made the exact same comment as a reaction to Brents on going rants)"

With respect, may I make a fool of myself again, please advise any class society that would allow frameless scantlings............it would be in my greatest interests to hear of such....

[M&M Ovenden]

Please LandLubber don't take my comment as a personal offense, as I said, I may have made the exact same comment at the same moment. "Foolish" may be the wrong word, excuse my limited vocabulary ( I still often make friends, family and mostly my husband laugh by using misplaced words in english). You also not have expressed your exact idea by saying "Origami boats would not pass any class survey!". You now point out "frameless" boats which is different (but not exclusive) from origami. An example would be the Yago boats, which are origami and framed. So as far as I know, no origami boat has passed any class survey, but it is not said that no properly engineered origami hull couldn't.

My point was certainly not to make a fool of you and not aimed against you. Brent has been harped enough threw this thread over the precision of his assertions. To be credible on my summary of the start of the thread I couldn't ignore a comment that could be argued.

If we ever cross on the water I'll buy you a drink, if you refuse, then you are a fool.

Cheers,
Murielle

[tazmann]

Thankyou Welder/fitter
Alex hadnt painted the hull at the time so I didnt and will not defend him on that. My point is and was your buisness dealings with Alex should have been just that and not on an open forum. No I didnt see his boat in person, just the video of it being draged across feild on skids.
I have diarrea of the mouth and try to impress my great powers and a big ego now because I wont promote the use of 7018 to a newbe welder building his first boat in the backyard and more than likely using a AC buzbox welder and no rod oven and only working with materials 12g,10g, and 3/16". WOW
Interesting you state that you offerd Alex money to finish the damn thing but then you said I don't want to air it publicly, because I don't want to cause any embarassment for those who tacked it together, then dragged it across the field with a tractor. Why on earth would you offer someone that did such por workmanship money to finish it?
You still didnt awnser my question of how long it would have taken you to finish the welding on Alex's hull? Can you awnser that without slamming me?
Tom

[Tad]

No one, that I'm aware of, stated no boats of Brent's design have been built. This is purely a fabrication by Mr. Swain.

I am happy to testify that I have been aboard boats of Brent's design and sailed aboard one. I have personally seen at least a half-dozen of them floating. I have seen a number in various back yards and fields on Vancouver Island.

I don't think there are 200 Swain boats built. (Of course it depends on your definition of built!) In a post above Echo6 links to a site where some folks (who also built a Swain design) made a search of Vancouver Island and found 25 Swain designs that have been built, 20 of which are floating. This is entirely believable.

[kmorin]

All,

Some confusion runs through this thread, it seems to me, based on two separate points of view about a commonly known fact. By not acknowledging that fact, or attempting to dismiss the importance of this fact’s influence on home boat building and owner builders, we have a series of posts that discuss two different sides of this fact without stating it.

At the risk of showing how poor my reading comprehension really is, the fact is: SOME boats are financed and built by the owner and other boats are financed by financial institutions and built by fulltime tradesmen to design by fulltime designers. This fact does not seem weighed here for its true impact on the discussion.

Anyone can build their own house on (un-zoned) their own land, and if there is no adhesive contract (covenants on the land sale) forcing them to conform to the National or International Building Code(s) they may use any material and any method they choose.

In this home building instance the only time there might be a question of the individual’s choices of material or method is when the house were offered for sale and a financial institution were asked by the potential buyer to lend the money for this sale. The home and land are usually considered collateral as surety for the loan so the financial institution asks for a disinterested 3rd party to review the home for conformance to their standards prior to purchase.

These folks, the banks, are not expert in housing, framing, wiring, plumbing, foundations or other matters structural so they simply charge an appraiser with upholding an independent published standard. As mentioned above, that usually translates into required conformance to the NBC or IBC, along with all the many details of evidence required by those Codes.

In retrospect, would the homeowner have preferred they’d conformed to the NBC while building? Not the homeowner who will keep that home for his/her/their lifetime, and not the home owner who will owner finance the home. However, the homeowner that wants to ‘cash-out’ or have a lump sum sale will usually need their buyer to borrow the money and that usually brings in the regulations and the Building Code.

At the beginning of this thread, Arvy asked about scantlings so he could be confident that his final work would conform to a Marine Survey that would qualify his construction for a Marine Class Society. In other words, Arvy wanted to make sure that his ‘home’ was built to the Code so he would have the best possible market share available to him when, and if, he chose to sell. By building to a Class Society standard (a marine “Building Code”) he was planning ahead.

The Brent has repeated mentioned he has the same boat he built some time back so it should be obvious, but hasn’t been mentioned clearly that the Brent is not someone who cares about the financial institutions’ survey of his boat. Once that is clearly stated, Arvy’s original post becomes one in which the Brent’s comments are totally irrelevant because Arvy posted to get advice on qualifying his build for a Society that the Brent has not interest in joining/meeting/satisfying.

‘Boat Bankers’, if such a term can be used without implying any disrespect for this group of institutions, aren’t (necessarily) marine engineers which is why they want outside standards, Class Societies Standards of Construction, upheld by surveyors. If the amount of money involved is more than low five figures, not only will the bank want to “know” what it will receive for collateral but the bankers will require insurance to reduce their risk in loaning the money in the event of a loss. The insurance company has been making ‘bets on boats’ for a very long time [Lloyds of London] and will ask for compliance to the Class Societies too.

To further these ‘burdensome’ requirements, both the Boat Bankers and the Marine Insurance groups typically ask for the plans to be drawn and verified by someone who has followed an accepted course of study. There are whole institutions whose sole purpose is to train people to do this work, who’d have thought?

To get to my longwinded point here- a person doesn’t HAVE to conform to the ‘boating establishment’ unless they want to enjoy the benefits of that conformity. If you choose to build your own boat, or house, then you should know going in that only by conformance to an existing standard can you expect to enjoy the cash-out accumulating all your labor value along with a recovery of the materials costs; you’d need to comply, not complain.

All of these “outside influences” are not present in the typical origami world of boatbuilding; until the origami builder/owner wants to take advantage of the benefits of the ‘Boat Bankers’. If the origami owner, like the Brent, stays with his/her/their boat for life, and doesn’t have insurance- then there is no need to conform to the outside standards. OK fine, but what we’re seeing here is an adherent of the one camp trying to say the other camp has no validity!

The overall purpose of my post here is to notice that Arvy declared his intention to conform to at least one standard/class as the basis for his question. From that preface to his question, I imply that Arvy had already made the decision to qualify and only wanted guidance about some details to accomplish that.

Notice that the Brent failed to take into the least account Arvy’s decisions? This disrespect seems typical of a ‘monarch’ in regard the opinions and decisions of others. The Brent’s first post resulted in this topic’s wanderings without much regard to Scantlings but instead were an exploration of the two camps of metal boats: undocumented, no-conformance home-built origami Versus the more established (professionally designed, using the dreaded math, documented trade skills work force, and financed by a bank with insurance) methods.

I agree with the recent post by tom/tazmann “Personaly I beleave anyone wanting to build a boat should build what they want and out of what ever material they are confortable using.” That is fine for one side of the arguments we’re holding- no banks or insurance, and no problems- do what you want, when you want, with whatever you want. Not one of the pro’s here has said any different- their point has been over and over, but even repeated several times ignored by the Brent; without conforming to the standards of the commercial world you can’t expect the commercial world to accept your products. All the stories you can tell won’t make this fact change.

All of the Brent’s poorly written, illogical ranting about officialdom this, regulation that, and his opinions’ alleged superiority even viewed in context of his various tales of valor of the origami boat are meaningless in front of a bank loan committee or an insurance surveyor bound to uphold a class society standards.

In closing I’d remark about an example of why such external standards exist by using the exchange between welder/fitter and tazmann. Both men are probably able to weld but unless they both submit to a uniform trade weld test of the exact same material, weld method, position and procedure- their discussion is ‘apples and oranges’. The Brent’s claims for the origami boat of his design will either have to be analyzed by the external standards the world uses to measure boats’ structural integrity or they will remain littered about the Canadian North Pacific in the weeds for want of buyers.

These same buyers will continue to buy boats and sail them over the horizon and they may be buying and sailing lesser quality boats than the origami methods produce, but we’ll never know if the adherents don’t join the accepted institutions of commerce used by those buyers. Only by fulfilling accepted methods of analysis will the origami boat be qualified as 'seaworthy' by the conservative, old fashioned, perhaps ill-informed but always present banks and insurance companies.

By the way, if you were betting your 50-250k$ (US) on a boat loan, would you ask questions about the designer, builder and welders? I would, in fact it seems unimaginable that anyone wouldn't ask to see the qualifications of these people for their jobs.

cheers,

[tazmann]

Kmorin
I agree with a lot of what your saying here, One of the problems is a home built boat automaticly throws up a red flag when trying to get insurance, doesnt mater who desighned it or the fact that your a certified welder, then it's up to the surveyor and if dont like what he see's your done.
You are a welder with some boats under your belt allong with a lot of others here, isn't 6011 and 7018 rods, 70S6 mig wire aproved for ship building on mild steel?
Not sure about 6010,6013,or 7024 that Ive heard some people use.
From what I know 6011 is good up to about A45 grade steel, above that 7018 should be used, please correct me if Im wrong.
Tom

[Brent Swain]

When I questioned the need for transverse frames, my suggestion was pounced upon, leaving me no alternative but to to reply, or let the sarcastic remark be accepted as fact.
When Costa Vida was built using origami techniques in Cowichan Bay in 1998 ,the owner wanted a good survey, so he hired the well respected surveyor Tony Skidmore to check the building regularly thruout the building proccess. Tony greatly approved the boat's construction, at every stage.
None of my boats hasd ever had any trouble passing surveys with flying colours.
Mike was talking down the price of Alex's boat in order to try force Alex to sell it to him at a giveaway price.
The boat has found a good owner who is making progress on it, and will probably launch this summer. He paid Alex the $17,000 that it was worth and considers it a great deal. It would cost him more than that to get a boat built from scratch to that stage, not counting his own time. The kid is resourcefull and will get her sailing quickly on a shoestring.Wish I had that boat at his ripe old age of 23
Most of my boats have been built without the owner having to get a bank loan of any kind. I work with the owner to pull the shell together ,then the owner continues as money and time allows, eliminating the expense of bank interest, which can easily double the price.
Those buying finished boats have never had any trouble getting loans or passing the necessary surveys. Their reputation for seaworthines and safety is well established here in BC and elsewhere.
Alex has bought one of my 31 footers and is now free to go cruising.

[welder/fitter]

I withdrew from the origamiboats group last summer, somewhat fatigued by the way most discussions meandered from the topic at hand, to ridiculous personal attacks. I have continued to monitor the discussions on that group -as earlier mentioned - and ended up here when I read Brent's post, wherein, he suggested that I had stated that he had not been involved in the building of 200 boats of his design. As can be verified, I was not a member of this group at the time of his post, and Mike Johns made no such assertion.

Brent is the "boat guru" of the origamiboats group and dissention from his way of thinking is rarely tolerated. As I purchased patterns/plans for one of Ken Hankinson's designs, in Dec/06, it matters little to me what Brent's minions build. As there are no standards associated with the construction of Brent's designs, there are nice(see Evan Shaler's work) and poor examples of construction. As a result, one is buying a "pig in a poke" if purchasing a "Swain" second hand. If one wishes to build one, I highly recommend 7018(DCRP) or FCAW for the centreline seam, as, in marine conditions, 6010/11 are susceptible to cold cracking, moreso, when not correctly manipulated. I have had the opportunity to work on an origami boat designed by Jack Carson, wherein, there are two chines per hull side, the result being a much more "pleasing-to-the-eye" appearance. As a monohull sailboat heels when underway, the less than attractive aspect of the single chine is presented for the majority of time the boat is at sea. To each, his/her own.

Tom, as I work on commercial vessels, including the public ferries in B.C., I am required to have SMAW & FCAW tickets, for which I perform check tests, every 2 years. As I often work with pipefitters, I am also required to hold pressure tickets. Personally, I don't care how you weld your boat. As you know, my comments were for the amateur builder, not experienced with welding. Any differing opinion on the welding of the "Swain" boats means nought to me. The time that it would have taken to finish the welding on Alex Christie's boat depends on a lot of variables, to give you some idea however, there was little in the way of completed welds and, prior to beginning, the shell would have had to been blasted. As you have pointed out, you did not see the shell, so how can you argue about that which you say you didn't see? The reason I commented on the hull was that members of the group were not being told about the true condition of the boat. While you or I would be able to accurately assess the condition of the hull, the members whom were interested in the shell were embarking on - in each case - their first build & their first steelwork project. I felt that they were being "hoodwinked". If you want to see the video, Tom, I'll send it to you; not to "win" a point, simply to let you see things from my perspective.

As the topic of this discussion has wandered far from it's original subject, and as I am as much to blame for this as any other, I once again apologize most profusely and promise in the future, to avoid the keyboard & stick to the mouse, unless I can offer an educated opinion on the root subject or enjoin a discussion of the subject itself. In other words, if one wishes to argue with me on unrelated subjects or have a "dick measuring" contest, it will have to be through another path, as I will no longer respond in this forum.
Mike

PS: Brent, you're not the only one who has had difficulties in posting. It is not, however, the nefarious workings of any member, rather, a glitch in the system, I think.

[welder/fitter]

[quote=Brent Swain;210360] "...Mike was talking down the price of Alex's boat in order to try force Alex to sell it to him at a giveaway price..."

Liar!

[Landlubber]

Muriel,

Quoted by Brent :"Scantlings
I have been building origami steel boats with no transverse frames since 1980 with no problems.".....just before my comment was written....

It was this comment that I made my response to, and you will also note that I did quote your statement in full, not selectively.

Maybe it was done too rapidly, but in its original context, and at the very beginning of all this nonsense, so be it.

Please do not get me wrong about any boat construction method, I have no problems with any method of construction, it is just that some people do things better than others, and if we expect a vessel to be seaworthy, maybe it is a good idea for the less experienced builder to be guided by acceptable standards of construction methods, the original posting was for a class surveyed vessel, not some backyard "surveyor" doing an inspection.
Class surveyed vessels, as you no doubt know, are entirely different from backyard bliss jobs. (Now please do not jump on me all you backyard builders, as stated above, we all do things differently, and there are some superbly built "backyard" boats. In fact, they backyard builder can, if he so chooses, because time is not of the essence, create a masterpiece, the commercial yard cannot, because time is of the essemce in 99.99% of all commercial enterprises, and the remaining 0.1% is financially restricted anyhow).

Oh, and Cheers.

[Brent Swain]

For a boat under a high tension powerline that neither crane operators nor boat movers would touch, dragging her across a field was a brilliant and inovative solution by Alex. Lack of such inovations have forced the price of boatbuilding far beyond the reach of many would be cruisers and killed many a cruisers dreams. I'd be interested in any other solutions you have to offer under those conditions, and at what cost.
It definitely proves the strength and rigidity of origami boats. They are definitely not flimsey and floppy as McNaughton claims.We are not dealing with strip planked red cedar here( and Lloyds approves of red cedar boats for offshore cruising) Imagine one of their approved wooden boats taking that tow and then consider the value of their judgement on structural strength.
One of the big advantages of origami construction is it lets you build a boat almost anywhere with minimal tools.Alex's "Origami Boatbulding"video shows that clearly.
I let the owners do the cutting if he is short of funds. That leaves the edges a little ragged , but has no effect on the finished product . Grinding is also their responsibility. Picaso said " Fools and Children should never be allowed to see a work of art incomplete."
People who waste a lot of time vainly trying to make a boat look pretty while building her, rather than concentrating on the finished product ,take a lot longer and far more money than more practical boatbuilders.
I have never seen the advantage of using 7018 on mild steel. It has to be bone dry and hot, and the steel has to be very clean. It is very unforgiving . The ods of screwing up with 7018 are exponentialy greater, especially with a beginner.The slag is like concrete to try get off. It burns very slowly. For a beginner it is a pain in the ass with no advantage over 6011, or 7024 for horizontals. 6011 is much more forgiving. 6011 is an ac rod ,6010 dc.
The blinders are so effective in the 7018 cult , that when I worked for Great West Steel they gave me cold wet 7018 DC rods to use on an AC welder. I complained , but that was what they insisted on. When I cut the welds open it looked like an aero bar inside, but as long as the numbers were 7018 on the rod , they were happy.I could have done far better 7024 welds , it was mild steel and the tensile strength would be much greater, but numbers were all they cared about.

[kmorin]

Tazmann,

My understanding, or my reading, of Mike/welder/fitter's remarks about the choice of stick seemed that his point of concern was more about the rod's welding characteristics than as-welded metallurgy.

In other words I read him to be concerned about the type of bead and its quality as the most likely mode of failure or problems- not as much as the mixture and its strength in theory.

I would prefer to see all inexperienced welders use a drag rod over a whipped rod. By this I mean that more successful and more full strength welds will result if the more simplified technique of dragging the bead is employed. [I don't personally agree with AC welding of steel alloy. The reason is my bend break tests of AC welding compared to DC has shown me that the DC polarity is far better for strength.]

So, if I were recommending a welding rod for a newer welder I'd tend to suggest the 7018, there is one designed for AC also but the number or suffix escapes me. My reason for this suggestion is; simply dragging the arc, as the rod's lower (6:00 point) edge of the flux lays on the parent metal, will produce a very strong, clean bead on mild steel.

On the other hand, the minimum technique to use the 60series rods with high cellulose flux is much more active- I've described is a a "whipped rod". Not all welds for 6010/11 need to be whipped but the puddle is different from the 70series and I feel this difference could result in lower quality welds with the prior rod over the latter. If you have welded for a while as a trade, then whipping 5P is habit, and not challenging. But, and this seems to be Mike/fitter/welder's point in my view, if you're just coming to the practice of welding then it would be best if you used another less practice oriented rod.

As for MIG, there again the right alloy may be in the gun but the wrong mix of gas and gun set-up or joint and weld methods, will reduce the correct alloy choices to swiss cheese. So here again, if we were discussing a recommendation for the inexperienced welder working on his own boat while gaining experience???? I'd look for gas covered, flux core wires that has good wetting tendencies and slow chill to get the most gas out of the puddle as possible.

If a person has welding experience then they will explore the alloy of the parent metal and pick a filler that is compatible. If they are inexperienced it would be better to choose a rod that is compatible AND is easy to use. Here, the ease of use seems more important than the alloy, since the 70 series, or even 80 series, is potentially 'stronger' than the parent metal.

I agree that the alloys you've listed are common, regularly used in mild steel and may be called for in metal boat building. The underlying question seems more in the direction of; " which of these can the inexperienced welder use with the most effective welds resulting?" There I'd say 7018 is easy to learn and more forgiving while you do.

We've surely wandered away from realistic scantlings, tazmann, I hope this answers what you were asking?

Cheers,
kmorin

[tazmann]

Kmorin
Yes Thankyou. Years ago I had checked on it to see what was aproved, just wanted to double check that there hadnt been any changes.
Mabee the diferance for me is I primarily use 6011 DC+ in the field and on ocation DC- .
Well I will try to stay on topic
Tom

[MikeJohns]

Originally Posted by Brent Swain

"........talking down the price of Alex's boat in order to try force Alex to sell it to him at a giveaway price..."

Originally Posted by welder/fitter

Liar!

Direct name calling isn't good. However it is now very clear to everyone that Brent is more than free with the facts and doesn't hesitate to post outright falsehoods when it is to his advantage.

It's a shame because when you resort to these tactics Brent no one can trust what you say. Ironically calling in your group with those misleading statements has resulted in a very interesting and unexpected exposé, and for you an unexpected backlash, further highlighting your level of non-professionalism.

It has all been most illuminating