Boredom fix

The virus has kept me close to home, cloistered actually. To relieve some of the boredom I have messed around in my garage workshop. It is too small to build a full sized dinghy so I am building a one meter model. It is made mostly of 4mm ocumee that I had on hand. The model is an original design that presumes to be a planing dinghy under sail. The fiddly bits that hold the servos, receiver, and batteries took almost as long to build as the boat itself.

I have been at that for a while and became distracted with a notion that I might make a compass rose. That one needed some trig to figure the angles of all the intersections. Another exercise to occupy my mind. I made some inserts for the table saw sled, hopefully to get the angles of the parts somewhere near what I had in mind. That method seems to have worked.

Have any of you done some "at home build it" projects in order to keep your sanity? In any case, I wish all of you well.

 

I have so much to do that there is no danger of me becoming bored!
If boredom ever set in, I have two small 7' 6" nesting dinghies to refurbish, and a 14' nesting dinghy to finish building.
And a 35' yacht which is clamouring for her re-fit started 8 years ago to be finished as well....

Messabout, could you post some photos please of your one metre model? And of your compass rose as well?

 

The idea for the model dinghy was because of a speculative discussion with a friend in Lithuania. He is a really bright young fellow only one third my age. We have become close friends and delight in arguing design concepts. He posts on the forum occasionally. The model was to be quarter scale of a lightweight poor mans racer. Hard to beat those RS boats and Melges 14s. Could we even hope to compete with them? Well power to weight ratio and all that kind of reality Our full sized dink had to weigh no more than 300 pounds including all rigging and the solo skipper too. At quarter scale, the model had to weigh no more than five pounds. Cube of the scale etc.

I have fought the weight of the model as best I could. It will almost surely go over the scale displacement weight. Not by much but over the mark anyway. If it is to sail then there is a necessity to have some limited heeling moment that works with the righting moment of the basic hull. No way! It would need to have a pound or two of fin and bulb. I can do that but the weight scale will have become unrealistic. OK so I cannot hope to have the boat plane with all that weight. SO I have incorporated an electric motor to drive the boat when the scale weight is nearer the targeted weight. The boat will have interchangeable propulsion. Remove the motor and such and install the sail and controls.

It is clear enough that a model used in the local pond is not likely to have anything close to the dynamic similitude that we would hope for. OK so lets do the model for fun and giggles. We have a model with a near flat quarter beam run that is at about four degrees to the static waterline. A bit larger angle than I wanted but for a four meter 300 pound dink that is about the best I could contrive. The bottom is flat and has a max beam of about one meter. The chines are sloped at a varying 45 degrees front to back. The sides above the chines are vertical. Wetted surface in the displacement mode is favorable with that configuration. I am fully aware that this is a project born of boredom and of course my incomprehensible compulsion to build things.

That last picture is evidence of the stupid mistake I made. I am an experienced woodworker and a journeyman machinist. I'd ought to know better, and I do.
I was cutting a large square of oaken 4mm ply on which to mount the compass rose. I have done that sort of things countless times, no problem. WHat happened is that I had not pushed the ply panel fully out the exit end of the blade. I then released the pressure on the rip fence. Bad *** mistake!!!! the blade grabbed the ply sheet and propelled it at warp speed toward me. It hit my hand and lifted a 25 mm flap of flesh that became pretty bloody. Seven stitches later I will live with the injury and damned well remember the stupid mistake that even a skilled craftsman can make. To this I admonish my forum friends to never trust a table saw or any other mindless machine that is capable of inflicting injury.

You can see that I had contrived a hold down clamp for the small pieces of the compass rose. I was trying to be careful of potential finger injuries from the close proximity of the blade if I had hand held the little pieces. So I was careful with the small cuts and stupidly careless of one large cut. I do hope that my forum friends will take note of the caution they must make when building or repairing their boats.

 

I usually stand to the side of whatever I'm pushing through a table saw, and I would never adjust the fence with the blade running. On the other hand, just a few months ago I was angle grinding some plastic without safety glasses "to save time".... the little specs that got into my eye was agony and I was almost panicking with the pain; the local urgent care centre gave me an anaesthetic and sent me to another hospital with better eye facilities the next day. So I wasted two days, but saved five minutes. I've been turning, cnc and manual milling, tig welding etc. for decades, so should know better!

EDIT forgot to mention your model; I like the shape.

 

Messabout, Alan, thanks both for sharing your cautionary tales without embarassment! We can all let our careful guard lapse for a moment, and that's all it takes. A much appreciated reminder.

 

I am currently fixing some camping chairs with crabbing line, stixall, the pretend canvas bags the chairs came in, nuts and bolts, and thermoplastic. My lad is resoling shoes with car tyre.
Speaking of cautionary tales, we were working outside to enjoy the sun, so I got one of my 30 metre extension cables out to find it didn't work, replaced the fuse, still no, butchered a screwdriver with a dremel to undo the tamper proof screws and get into the socket panel on the cable drum, seemed to be fine but cleaned it all up anyway, still no, unrolled the cable to check for damage and shorting along its length, and found the last 5 or 6 metres on the drum welded together solid from the last time, when presumably I couldn't be bothered to unroll it all to do some 'little 5 minute job'. I should know better indeed!

Good to see some fine looking craft, Messabout, especially after I've spent a couple of days doing high level ugly bodges!

 

Working on my website. Writing a mobile device version. 25% of my visitors use mobile devices, so its about time. Not easy to take a full size web page and shrink it down to fit and work on a cell phone or tablet, and still be readable. And then repeat for 112 pages. I am also working on my 1972, 18 ft Sea Ray. Installed a new cable assembly for the trim and tilt. It still doesn't work. Put in new seats. Preparing the sterndrive to be repainted. Cleaned up the dash. It had some old fake wood vinyl stuff on it that had turned grey and most of it was gone anyway. Sternlight doesn't work, Tracing out the electrical to find out why. Probably needs to be rewired since the wires are the original and 48 years old. In other words plenty to keep me busy.

 

I too have had run ins with power tools. Drilled into my finger when a screwdriver bit slipped off a screw head. Ran a holesaw up my arm by not clamping the workpiece down. Ugly scar serves to warn off stupidity.