Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length.
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6   Go Down

Author Topic: Racundra  (Read 60449 times)

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #75 on: February 16, 2012, 10:06:12 pm »

Those genii at Giant Cod delivered (within 20 hours! How do they do that?! Do they send stuff out before the order's received, let alone processed?) the 2.4 GHz radio for Racundra today. "Receiver binding is simple" they said. And in a house full of wifi, from Xboxes to Internet to neighbours up and down the street, it took under a minute: utterly painless - unless you're the cocktail stick used to depress the binding switch, which had a point cut off to perform this neccesary operation.

My new radio, I'm delighted to report (green LED glowing solidly this evening) works on all functions, and glueing/nailing/organising has commenced on the boards, bits and wires.

Only one question - I thought 2.4GHz inferred two rx aerials. This wee box has one, it's short, and works parked right next to the ESCs, battery and any other sources of radio interference. Is this A Bad Thing?

I dunno - but I am a happy bunny.  :-))

Photos of the mechanical side of the jb winch arrangement are to follow.

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #76 on: February 17, 2012, 08:37:00 pm »

The invention of the transistor, Japanese electronic skills, and a mass market eager for small, battery-powered, pocketable devices turned the world around some fifty or so years ago.

But fear not! For - in the true spirit of British bodging ingenuity - the heady days of Dan Dare, valves, and rooms full of electro-mechanics are back. With a vengeance. Lacking only the heady smell of warm bakelite and the crackle of ozone, the Racundra Mark III jib winch is complete.

Mark III? Well, yes.

The Mark I, using a linear track drawing on 40 years of dubious devastating Meccano skills (and, of course, the tracks from the Meccano Army Multikit of the late 70s), was deemed too big to fit even in the cavernous interior of the boat. Plus there was a bit of slop in the movement. Not good. Not good at all. And I didn't fancy sawing the battery in half.

The diminutive Mark II, all gears and winch drums, followed. This homage to Frank Hornby was cute, did the job, but ... lacked a certain flair. A bit like your Dad saying he'd just bought a new car, and as you eagerly ran to the window, ready to brag to your mate Phillips in class the following day, you caught a glimpse of a second-hand beige Hillman Avenger, leaking oil, on the road outside your house.

And so the Mark III was born ...



Drive belts, worm gears and another set of gearing result in a lever arm that could easily beat The Terminator in an arm-wrestling contest. Full throw, end to end takes about 8 seconds. And those cunning microswitches are ready to prevent the out-of-limit arm continuing on to slice its way effortlessly through the bottom of the boat. Which would be a little embarrassing.  :embarrassed:

Here the black tyre of safety <tm> says "enough" once the right limit has been hit ...



So, this thing fits the space available. Yes, it's basically a home-brewed sail arm servo, but it weighs the best part of a pound and a half, is over eight inches long and cost a fortune. Who needs miniaturisation? British industry is alive and well!

Next time - back to building in wood.

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

Norseman

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,466
  • Location: Huyton, Liverpool
Re: Racundra
« Reply #77 on: February 17, 2012, 09:05:57 pm »

Hi Andy

Whilst I fully applaud the ingenuity and function of your Heath Robinson Affair
I have to say ............
Don't knock my old Avenger Estate - did me really good service that old car.

Dave ......... on my third Punto now  {-) I know nothing about cars obviously  %%
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #78 on: February 18, 2012, 12:37:43 pm »

Hi Dave - I ought admit that I have some fond memories of the Avenger ... my early years as a cameraman in the mid/late 80s saw me catching a lift to OBs all over the country in a mate's beige "Toxic" Avenger: FDB289V.

In the years before technological advances such as satnav we'd draw maps in the copious dust that covered the dashboard in order to plot routes to events. ... I wonder where the old girl is now?  %)

  {-)
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

roycv

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,388
  • Location: S.W. Herts
Re: Racundra
« Reply #79 on: February 19, 2012, 09:26:27 am »

Hello, my experience of Meccano in sailing boats is that it goes rusty very quickly.  The worm reduction drive is not very efficient and may grind to a halt, on the other hand the elastic band may snap.
Always applaud other solutions though.

There are some motors with high built in reduction gears, I assume recovered from an earlier life, that are not too expensive.  just need limit switches fitted and you have a sail servo.
If you do this, then use a drive circuit that puts a dead short across the motor when the power is off.  This will stop the motor very quickly, it is necessary if you use a coreless motor (I think that is the type with the armature revolving around the magnet).  I have several of this type, not man enough for your requirements though.

Look forward to future posts.
regards Roy
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #80 on: February 19, 2012, 04:02:19 pm »

Thanks for your input, Roy!

The rustiest part so far in the Meccano tale is ... my brain. It'd been the best part of thirty years since I set-to with a vengeance with this product of Edwardian engineering. I found, interestingly - and not a little disturbingly - that my adult Fat Fingers are not as nimble, nor, indeed as flexible as they were when I was ten. But this paled into near-insignificance as I realised that reading glasses are utterly essential with regards to finding and fitting the fiddly bits together.  <:( I'll recover the nuts and bolts that surround my working area in piles inches deep with the vacuum later.  :-))

The benefit of the worm drive in this instance is that it can't be driven the wrong way. Thinking about this, the direct-drive Long Threaded Rod With No Gears might be the best way to go for Mark IV. Loads of torque, accurate movement, easy to securely position the end-stops.

The "elastic band" as you call my "drive belt" was chosen to snap or slip IF (when?) the rest of the winch seizes up. I see it more as a rubber-based mechanical fuse for my peace of mind. This is a "feature", not a "bug".  %%

That said, a quick splash of grease and WD40 should keep things moving until I replace this contraption at some point in the future. I think this probably will happen, once I get an answer for "How much force is on the jib sheets?" and, of course, "How the dickens do I sail a model yacht?"

Meanwhile, in breaking news - Racundra hit the bath last night with her motor, prop and 'lectrics fully wired up for the first time. At this stage of the build, I needed over 5kg of lead to bring her down to her waterline (result!), and she (apparently, as it's hard to tell when she's only 8" shorter than the bath) has the umph to motor at a reasonable lick. That said, steering in reverse would appear to be near-impossible - her back-end wandered all over the place. (I should admit that steering going forward is pretty poor at the moment, too, not least because she doesn't have a rudder...)

Tonight's build?

A rudder.
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

roycv

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,388
  • Location: S.W. Herts
Re: Racundra
« Reply #81 on: February 19, 2012, 04:16:44 pm »

Hi might be able to answer the 'force' question.
I think in a F4 (20mph?) wind the pressure is 1 pound per square foot of area.  This would be on a sail at right angles to the wind.
So adjust for angles.
regards Roy
Logged

Norseman

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,466
  • Location: Huyton, Liverpool
Re: Racundra
« Reply #82 on: February 19, 2012, 05:34:36 pm »

You had me worried there Ian

I thought you really did mean 'breaking news' when I read the words 'hit the bath'  :-)

Dave
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #83 on: February 23, 2012, 06:04:59 pm »

The rudder. Part one.

And for free I'll chuck in the SIX most important rules of scratchbuilding.

Off we go:



Rule one: good source materials. Here are a copy of the builders' plans for the boat, used to scale up the rudder for the model.



Rule two: the correct tools. Ten minutes' work with the Proxxon fret saw (which has already paid for itself in terms of time, giggles and fun, many times over) and we have two ply blanks. One blank is liberally daubed with good old PVA.



Rule three: daubing is not as good as smearing. Get that finger in there! And don't forget to wipe the excess off on blank #2!

Extra points if you do it on the correct side of blank #2!!  %%



Rule four: it is physically impossible to have enough clamps. Everytime I "get dragged" into a pound store by my wife, after whatever it is that normal people buy in such places, I secretly laugh under my breath and get more. Upon returning home, I stash them in the clamp room for future use. O0

This, dear reader, is just the merest, most pathetic selection of All The Clamps that I have the ability to draw on. Oh yes.  :-))



Rule five: Squeeze out is your friend. We know the glue is smeared over everything it ought to be, and this shows that there's enough for the job, 'cos the excess is trying to escape. Just a bit, mind. We don't want to squeeze ALL the glue out!

And rule six.

This is the tough one. Wait until it's dry.

The glue will be set in an hour or so, and fully cured sometime tomorrow.

So I'm off to make tea and will not touch this until much later:((

Next up, sanding and shaping the blade, and applying the pintles and gudgeons.

Both great words, though particularly hard to use in Scrabble.

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

rmaddock

  • Guest
Re: Racundra
« Reply #84 on: February 23, 2012, 09:06:47 pm »

Andy,

"I stash them in the clamp room for future use."  :o

You must live in ever such a posh house. Is the clamp room near the gun room and the games room or the pantry and the footmen's parlour?  {-)

I think the Meccano's fantastic, by the way. It's the sort of thing we once built an empire on!  :-))

Robert.
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #85 on: March 01, 2012, 10:54:50 pm »

Taking a break from polishing the clamps in the aforementioned clamp room (if I were really rich, Robert, I'd someone to do that onerous task for me!) some work has been done on the sails:



I've hand-stitched the bolt rope and added cringles to all the edges. Pretty neat, though I say so myself! The secret here is to stretch the hem-edge and gently stretch the bolt rope at the same time (I used - umm - three clamps on a small piece of ply.) One of those jobs that seems to take a while - there was loads to do - but if you bung on the radio and Set To, you're done before you know it. Boltrope is cotton. Cringles are toughened up with PVA - will be superglue-smeared before water gets a chance of soaking 'em.

Then:



Out with the sewing machine. The mainsail had three battens. And here are their pockets with battens in place. I'm using thin ply at the moment. For more bendiness, plasticard might be more suitable. We'll find out when sailing trials start.

Incidentally, the sails for Racundra have a tale of their own. The original sails had batten pockets but no battens - these hadn't been made when Ransome took her, unfinished, from the boatyard, in order to fit in his first cruise. He says, almost in between chucking wood shavings overboard, that "they set dreadfully" without them. The plans (back a page on this build) show no battens, but do detail reef points. Meanwhile the photos for the third cruise, a couple of years later, clearly show battens but no reef points.

All very bizarre. But Racundra was undercanvassed (so perhaps she never got reef points?) and then there's this letter, which predates the third cruise (which is the time I'm picking to portray the Racundra on this build):

Quote
15, Stralsunder Strasse, Kaiserwald, Riga. Feb 24th 1923.

My dearest Mother,

Please observe number of street. 23 Stralsunder Strasse no longer exists. Nothing is left but charred logs, and a chimney with bits of the lower storey.

I have lost almost everything: my sextant, and every single thing belonging to the boat, all the sails, all the ropes, all the wire rigging, all the lamps, every single thing, even the tiller, which for safety I had taken home. Nothing is left of the boat but the bare hull at the Yacht Club. About two hundred pounds worth of stuff gone. I suppose it would cost at least a hundred pounds to get again all the boat things, and even if I were to order the sails and ropes at once, I doubt I could get them in time for the summer.

Generally the disaster is pretty complete.

Walking about the frozen ruins I have picked up two shackles, and the twisted bottom of my beloved cabin lamp, and a small bit of iron rigging. That is all.

What was not burnt was stolen by the fire brigade, who even saved camera cases, from which the cameras had miraculously disappeared, and were actually seen by a neighbour smashing open the sextant box with a hatchet and breaking the sextant in doing so after it had been saved undamaged from the wreck.

I am too gloomy to write more for the moment.

Oh dear! But we can't stop a post in a fit of gloom and despondancy!

Here's the rudder, carved and sanded and ready for some serious pintling and gudgeoning tomorrow:



Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

Norseman

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,466
  • Location: Huyton, Liverpool
Re: Racundra
« Reply #86 on: March 02, 2012, 05:32:06 am »

Loved the research - encore!!!
Dave
Logged

rmaddock

  • Guest
Re: Racundra
« Reply #87 on: March 02, 2012, 09:47:50 am »

Andy,
It's great to see the sails being made. It's a process that I shall have to confront...eventually.
I suppose, on the design front, I have it easy as I long ago decided to model the boat as she is now rather than in some historical state. So there's no problem with research.
And you're right, your stitching looks lovely.
Robert.
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #88 on: March 03, 2012, 09:57:45 pm »

The sails were fun Robert.

Of course, the closer you leave 'em to the end, the more eager you'll be to get them done and thereby go sailing. So maybe don't start them just yet!  O0

Meanwhile, back at this boat.

There are moments (crash of thunder, flash of lightning) when this building lark starts to look like a horror story!



That's the tiller (21cm long) mid sanding, and the hand from earlier.

And, of course, if I'm doing the tiller, the rudder must be underway too!

Here she is: the thing is, how do you align three pintles & gudgeons to ensure that they work properly? (This had me awake for some time, I can tell you!)



It seems to me that the best way is to start off with a known straight edge. This edge was cut into the lower piece of ply. Three pieces of brass tube were araldited to it, with a long axle passing through each one while the glue set. This ensures the three bits of brass are co-linear.

Once set, the pintles were glued into the three bits of brass. I now know that the pintles are in a line. Good stuff!

Like casting moulds in gf, my next job is to glue gudgeons onto the rudder using these known pintles, and - once they're all set on the rudder - transfer these pintles to the boat, and glue 'em on using the rudder's gudgeons as a guide.

Ummm...Does any of that make sense?

Andy

Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

rmaddock

  • Guest
Re: Racundra
« Reply #89 on: March 04, 2012, 11:53:38 am »

This ensures the three bits of brass are co-linear.

Nice word!
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #90 on: March 04, 2012, 12:55:24 pm »

 :embarrassed: It would have been even better if I'd got it right: collinear.

(Blame it on being 10pm last night - and after a whisky or three.)

And at times like that, do you ever wonder how they cut the cutting mats to shape at the cutting mat factory? I do!  %%

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

Netleyned

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9,051
  • Location: Meridian Line, Mouth of the Humber
    • cleethorpes mba
Re: Racundra
« Reply #91 on: March 04, 2012, 01:06:11 pm »

Talking of cutting mats
Does everyone on Mayhem apart from me have a pristine cutting mat for use when photographing parts they have made?
Mine are covered in glue and paint and look terrible if they are photographed.

Ned
Logged
Smooth seas never made skilful sailors
Up Spirits  Stand fast the Holy Ghost.
http://www.cleethorpesmba.co.uk/

Norseman

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,466
  • Location: Huyton, Liverpool
Re: Racundra
« Reply #92 on: March 04, 2012, 01:56:53 pm »

Neat word that - collinearity
When say 2% wear develops will you have multicollinearity because you have some known variables?
I know nothing about math - but looking up one term just leads to thinking about the others you see.

Andy - Your sewing skill are fantastic - I can't believe how neat and good that all looks, I can't wait to see
the sails set up and full. Keep up the stirling work. :-))

Ned - just photoshop your mat until it looks perfect %%

Dave
Logged

Netleyned

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9,051
  • Location: Meridian Line, Mouth of the Humber
    • cleethorpes mba
Re: Racundra
« Reply #93 on: March 04, 2012, 02:01:58 pm »

Ned - just photoshop your mat until it looks perfect


That's how my models look good  {-) {-) {-)

Anyway  back to the Racundra build thread which is great.

Ned
Logged
Smooth seas never made skilful sailors
Up Spirits  Stand fast the Holy Ghost.
http://www.cleethorpesmba.co.uk/

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #94 on: March 04, 2012, 03:49:55 pm »

My cutting mat looks truly awful. Years of abuse and a heavy hand on the Stanley knife. {-) Not sure I'd paint on it, though. It's too dusty and horrible.

Psst! Want to see a gudgeon? Here's the middle one:



The brass strip is about 50mm long. It was glued on (and around) the socket once the socket was completely set.

Hmmm...the ply needs a major smoothing before any splashes of paint. I'm not looking forward to hanging the pintles on the aft end of the boat - it's going to be a fiddly job, I just know it.

And now upwards - the cabin was last seen with a laminated ply insert, made to fit it. This is the curvy bit in the photo below.



Bracing was added to the lamination, in situ, before a thin ply shelf was glued on, not in situ! This forms the basis for the removable cabin roof, seen upside down here. The ply shelf neatly rests on the cabin walls, and that bar at the back wedges tightly into the front end of the companion way. Should be "dry" in use, I think. It's a good fit, but it'll get magnets and catches later.

The gusset of ply (to the right, aft end) helps keep it all square, while the gaps mean:



...that the eight round windows which were mounted on the cabin roof, shown here in my much-scribbled on "plan" (as I laughingly call it) will let (LED) light out of the cabin once that wiring's done. In the original Racundra, the six central windows allowed a pile of light onto the cabin's table. The ones offset port and starboard nearer the front illuminated Ransome's writing desk and the stove. A cosy wee boat. The frames for the curvy roof have been added at the original frame locations - a wise move, really, since they now cunningly don't interfere with the location of the portholes. Forward planning strikes again!

Sticking the roof onto these formers is going to be a bit of a nightmare though, since there are curves in two directions. I shall take my time and proceed with caution! I do NOT want to warp this structure.

Other tasks that lie ahead in the not-too-distant future include finishing the spars, planking the decks (I'm looking forward to that one - I cut some tight-grained pine into thin strips that looks the business) and - of course - the much-promised comfy chairs.

Who knows what will be posted next time: I don't have a clue!  %%

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #95 on: March 08, 2012, 05:20:57 pm »

Lead. Pb82. Melting Point: 330oC

The story so far: there are gaps between frames in the model about 56mm apart, and there's a slot each side of the pine keel ideally suited to slurp up the ballast.

The headlines today: I've cast a few lead ingots to do the job:



There are twenty of these fellas, each massing about 300g. Each block is 53mm by 45mm by 10mm. I will need most of them to level the boat, but there are a few spares.

They were cast in this:



A now-charred ingot-casting-thing that I made earlier today. Glued with PVA and made out of (dry) pine, it performed admirably, and smelt lovely as it smoked away following each pour. Burns on the top were from a couple of slightly over-filled ingots, which (with a manic laugh, 'cos I did enjoy this) got chucked back into the bubbling cauldron of Terminator-2-like doom.

What is interesting is that some of the ingots have these in them:



Little dimples on the lower side. I noticed that the hot metal caused the wood some steamy out-gassing, which has been preserved as bubbles in the lead block as it cooled off. It never bubbled and splattered dangerously at the surface, however.

Tools: an old, small saucepan, a propane camping gas cooker, a stick.
Safety gear: an oven glove. With a slight hole where the thumb goes.

Take care with lead. I've not burnt myself today, but it is pretty toasty stuff when liquid.  :police:

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #96 on: March 08, 2012, 07:32:50 pm »

News Just In!

Back in the bath tub, Racundra got batteried & lead-ingoted up.

She's not finished - I see "maybe almost 1kg" of stuff still to add to her - but it was a good guide to answering the age-old ballast questions: "how much?" and "where should it go?"

And she swallowed it up. All of it.

Almost at her marks, fore and aft, I needed the full 6kg. This can be sat right in the bowels of the boat, and makes her very stiff indeed. The turn of the bilge is barely in the water at this point and, once that's properly submerged (maybe 20 degrees of list?), it requires a huge effort to list her further.

The total all-up weight is around 13kg according to the bathroom scales. That's six and a half tonnes at full size, which is just about spot-on.

Were this thread Top Gear, of course, the following stuff would be read in a Jeremy Clarkson voice...  %%

"But what of the power tests?"

"From a standing start to a full 0.20 m/s took a little under three seconds. She was still accelerating when she reached the end of the tub, a whole eleven inches from her bow...<dramatic and unnecessary pause>...this thing's better than a Volvo!"


I've no idea what the ultimate hull speed will be, but it feels "stately" and not "power-boaty". Just as it oughta.  O0

Andy
Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

roycv

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,388
  • Location: S.W. Herts
Re: Racundra
« Reply #97 on: March 09, 2012, 05:49:05 pm »

Hi Dread 0 very much enjoying this build, looks very good and well thought out.
My 2 pennorth this time is you do not need a big motor as auxiliary in a yacht,
Best use is to get the stern round quickly and when it is time to come in for lunch.

I have a smaller craft, a Graupner Norderney sailing fishing boat.  The 380 motor through a gearbox will drive the boat as fast as she goes under sail, but you can go full astern in a breeze and it has very little effect.

I opted for a big pitch propeller(X series)  on the basis that it offers less resistance to the water passing by when under sail,

regards Roy
Logged

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #98 on: March 10, 2012, 12:51:06 pm »

Thanks for the comments Roy.

I've had my hand forced a little with regards to the prop: the 45mm four-bladed fella is an excellent match to Racundra's original. This, Ransome said, was ""rather like a little brass flower attached to the big hull of the Racundra". And on the model it looks it. It's a fairly steep pitch, but much of the rudder is behind it, so I'm not sure how "draggy" and interfering it might be when sailing. I'd sooner not increase the rudder size - the useful part of the foil is around 120cm2 as it is. Surely enough?

And I'm deeply curious to know what sort of hull speed I'll have. She's a beamy boat, heavy and under-canvassed. She should track all right with her long keel, but it might take "some time" before she gets up to speed.

We'll see, I suppose!

Jobs today - I've cut the discs for the main winch drums, glued in blocks to take the port and starboard shroud attachments. Next up? Well, there's still so much to do - but hanging the rudder and getting some steering has to be a priority, I think. Followed by rounding off my square stock for the other sticks aloft.

Andy

Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia

dreadnought72

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,892
  • Wood butcher with ten thumbs
  • Location: Airdrie, Scotland
Re: Racundra
« Reply #99 on: March 21, 2012, 01:38:04 pm »

"Other sticks aloft"?

Done! I'm now the proud owner of two gaffs and booms.



The stock for these spars came from some furniture which had been "retired". It's seasoned and dry pine, which I ripped into square sections using the Proxxon table saw. Choosing the most closely-grained and knot-free bits, I planed these to eight-sided sticks, then sixteen-sided, before hand-sanding them round. The work wasn't hard and was extremely enjoyable. Possibly because I could sit on the back step in the sunshine for the first time this year.  :}

I doubt I'll ever be buying dowels again. By hand-making these, I can reach any diameter that I need, and the stock is £0. The finish is perfect.

The plane, incidentally, is one I bought ages ago. It's tiny - under eight cm long - and is ideal for work like this.

Racundra now also sports a mizzen mast. I'll be making the hardware to connect all this woodwork together over the next couple of weeks. Adding the mizzen to the hull has fundamentally changed the look of the model. She's becoming more like the photos of the original, than a random collection of bits and pieces. This is good news!

There's still loads of work to be done, but I think I am getting there.  :-))

Andy

Logged
Enjoying every minute sailing W9465 Mertensia
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.094 seconds with 21 queries.