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Author Topic: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships  (Read 10731 times)

kiwi

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2011, 09:37:44 am »

This just gets better all the time.
Keep up the good work
kiwi
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Greggy1964

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Re: Greggy Jib Making Class 101
« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2011, 03:58:03 pm »

Here I will go through making the jib with my new method blow by blow :-))

1st make the cardboard form, this time I've use cardboard ribs cut the match the shape Ive molded into the jib form. I fromed the shape in the jib by molding the cardboard in my fingers until I got an airfoil I was happy with and the cut the strengthening ribs to match.

It's rather like building a model air craft wing but in reverse order!  {-) Mark the sail panel seams on the form and cover it with a piece of polythene shopping bang and tape down smooth.



Cut your sail panels so that the weft of the cloth runs top to bottom of the resultant sail, this stretches less than the warp so in my book is better and hopefully we'll get that nice belly in the sail panels between the seams  O0



Start at the tack and lay your first panel, taping it down so that just the seam is exposed.

Tip! When laying down the tape make sure it is smooth with no wrinkles as this causes the cloth to pucker underneath and is to be avoided if possible.



Work across the sail heading for the clew smoothing down each panel so that it follows the curve of the form and lightly with a pencil draw the true shape of the panel as dictated by the form.

Cut out with sharp scissors and tape down the panel as before.



Its gluing time! :o Ive made a little cardboard doobly-flip to hold open the seams until I can get the superglue nozzle right in there.....



Run glue along the seam and follow immediately with finger so glue soaks through cloth and sets  O0



Remove panel from form



Tape down luff of sail on form  . . . .



and cut cloth strip to fit one side . . . .



and tape it down over waste only which is to be trimmed later . . .



and glue as before



remove sail from form and flip over . . .



and glue luff strip on as before . . .



and trim off waste with a sharp knife



tape foot of sail to form again and rinse repeat  {-) :-))

Do same for leech.

Cut and glue on corner patches to one side of sail.

To make instant cringles, mark their location along the desired edge of sail making them evenly spaced . . .



Take one blow torch and grasp panel pin firmly in jaws of molegrips and heat nail in flame until incandescent  :-))



and plunge through sail at cringle position.

Rinse repeat for all cringles  :-))

Only do one cringle per heating session and don't pause too long in cringle hole or you'll burn the sail, its a quick in out motion :o :embarrassed:



Job done  :} :-))

I think there may be some merit to building a light box with a white perspex top and a bunch of fluorescent tubes inside . . . . and making the sail form from clear plasticard.

I'm having trouble making the sail seams neat and even which is bugging me and this is because I can't see them clearly while laying down the panels.  >>:-(

 <*<  The light box would cure this.  O0 :-))

But this little forsail only has a 10" luff so maybe I'm nit-picking !  {-)

Time to bend on sails and go sailing! :D :-))

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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2011, 07:30:13 pm »

Would you believe it took longer to bend on the sails than it took to make both sails and write up my last post!  :o  

 {-)

I ran out of daylight before setting the sails and sailing by moonlight is no fun at all unless you have a beau to cuddle as well - sadly I'm laking in this department so you'll have to settle for the model clamped to my unit top and being blasted . . . . . . .



Wind 45 degrees off the starboard bow!  :} note set of the sails fully hardened home  :-))



Now we're swinging around her bow . . . . .



and she's crossing our bows on the port side . . .



And she's showing us her port side with the sails straining at the stiff breeze! {-)

The things I go through to entertain you lot!  :o and the lengths I go to to get the shots



 <*< <*< {-) {-) {-) O0 {-) {-)

Same again on a beam reach



You can see the airfoil shape I've built into the sail along the foot of the mainsail when compared to the boom  :-))







I'm no expert but the sails seem to set well to me! Its the best set of sails I've ever seen a beer can wearing! {-) O0

You watch it'll be either no wind at all or it'll be blowing a gale and raining next time I want a sail!  :((

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kiwi

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #28 on: February 24, 2011, 08:06:19 pm »

Give that man a medal.

or to quote  Chief Petty Officer Pertwee, " Left hand down a bit"

some great ideas in there Greggy

great work
kiwi
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #29 on: February 25, 2011, 01:36:49 am »

Tini-Titanic Mk III is ballasted and ready to rumble



The ballast again is a strip of lead flashing - 55 grams to be precise, all up weight of boat 133 grams.

Glues used Blue Spot 20 Gram superglue £1.00 from Boyes used on rigging, gluing the foresail horse to the hull and of course making the sails  :-))

I switched from JB Weld for the fin keel and ballast because it's a tad expensive and switched to 151 two part epoxy £1.49 bought at the cheapy shop.

The only thing to watch with the epoxy is the areas to be glued must be abraded with really coarse glass paper to form a good key.

If Dad or Grandad is helping with the build these glues are okay but if the young ones want to tackle this themselves I would go for something like Bostick or Evo Stick just as I used as a kid  O0

Two bowsies are used to lengthen and shorten the sheets as they used to in the good ole days and are made from the side of a plastic Jacobs Crackers Selection box, the horse and all the other fittings are made from brightly striped paper clips robbed from my daughters college pencil case! (don't tell her she'll kill me! :o  ;) )

Sheets and standing rigging are the centre cords of parachute cord given to me by my brother who used to be in the RAF and the hanks holding the mainsail to its mast boom and gaff and also the foresail to the forestay are the strands pulled from the outer casing of same parachute cord.

The hull and the fin are of course our two trusty beer cans.

The lead ballast is encapsulated in epoxy resin cast in a makeshift box built out of card board around the fin and lead which was epoxied to the bottom of the fin first. The resulting 'bulb' was then sanded to smooth the flow of water over its surface  - hydrodynamic?

Sum cost for the whole project £2.49 in exchange for a whole bundle of fun  :-)

Here's some close-up-and-ugly shots of all the important bits



Base of mast showing gooseneck and eye for mainsail sheet. The bowsprit comes through bow and forecastle, a panel pin is set in the top face and the mast sits on the sharp end.



Forward face of mast showing cleats for main halyards and peak halyards, horse and foresail traveller.



Here is the mainsheet horse detail and rudder stock and mainsheet bowsie in back ground.



Top of mainmast showing shrouds, heel of topmast and gaff jaws with main halyards passing through mast to hoist gaff jaws.



top mast truck, top of forestay and head of foresail, also the peak halyard passing through mast to peak of gaff.



Bowsprit, tack of foresail, top of bobstay, eye for foresail sheet and lacing of foresail to forestay.



Continuing the keeping it simple theme here is the base of the starboard shroud and the base of the bobstay which are bonded straight to the hull surface with superglue. The leading edge of the fin can also be seen.



And last but no means least the epoxy encapsulated lead ballast  :-))

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Lord Bungle

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #30 on: February 25, 2011, 10:09:27 am »

Brilliant  :-))
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dreadnought72

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #31 on: February 25, 2011, 11:38:38 am »

Casts a critical eye over the boat...

Can it have a burgee stuck to a match at mast top, please?  :-))

Lovin' it!

Andy
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #32 on: February 25, 2011, 12:40:39 pm »

What? . . . . . .   :-)

Like this? ;)



Great idea!  :D

I can readily see which course she's setting with respect to sail trim and the wind  :-)) :} Wind supplied for photo courtesy of daughters hair dryer!  {-)

I had a burgee just like this  on the enterprise dinghy I once owned as a kid at the top of her mast  :-))



It can swivel freely about its support post  O0 and is 6 1/2" long nose to tail and tapers to a point so at least I'll still be able to see the burgee if she decides to sail off into the sunset!

Incidentally I forgot to add the ripstop nylon in 1600mm x 1000mm rectangles can be bought on Ebay in lots of pretty colours for £2.50 all in so boat cost is actually £4.99, but that's enough cloth to do 20 sets of sails on a boat this size. It is used by the kite boys for building their machines O0

But if that's too much of a stretch for your lads pocket money, the sails on my sailing canoe were made from a woman's white nylon underskirt I bought in charity shop for 50p, I got some funny looks from the old lady behind the counter  :o but it'll have kept her busy all day with gossip so it was a win-win situation! {-) %)

I'm going the build Master Hands huge sails in exactly the same manner, once the superglue sets the seams are immensely strong and the fabric either side of the seam tears before the joint fails. She will have 14 vertical panels 33mm wide which are slightly wider than the panels in Tini-Titanic Mk III's sails coincidently!

But for that job I'm going to have to build that light box I mentioned. O0

Ripstop Nylon here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RIPSTOP-NYLON-FABRIC-ROYAL-BLUE-160cm-x-1-MT-KITES-ETC-/320653736015?pt=UK_Crafts_Fabric_Textiles_SM&hash=item4aa873b84f#

Also I forgot to show how I got that neat tapered airfoil fin keel . . . instructions to follow soon.

Done the photos, just got to write it up . . . .

But I'm too busy sailing at the moment! O0 ;D
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #33 on: February 25, 2011, 01:18:28 pm »

But here's a teaser to keep you on the edge of your seat! :-))



I'm cruel I know!  :((

But you love me for it! {-)

Be honest! :-)
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #34 on: February 26, 2011, 01:01:24 pm »

I took Mk III for a sail yesterday evening and shot a video or two, on the whole she sails quite well  . . . . . . . . . . . . for a beer can %)

But I noticed as she crossed the pond she would bear away which suggested lee helm. I could correct it to some extent by pulling on the rudder and setting it farther aft with respect to the fin keel.

Also this model has a longer bowsprit and a slightly larger foresail than MK II which does not help >>:-( but there is only so much you can do with the water line length of 1 beer can . . . . . . .

Hmmmmm . . . . . . . how about cutting the bottom out of one beer can and the top of another and joining them to make a hull with a waterline length twice as long . . . . .

She'd be faster and be able to carry more sail :-))

A Dandy rig like Master Hand for instance?

Hmmmmmm  {-)

Here are a couple of sort videos of Mk III sailing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P42Eknpi4C0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P42Eknpi4C0

There are a whole bunch of videos if you search for 'Beer Can Sailing Ship'  :-))

When I returned home I compared Tini-Titanic Mk II with Mk III and I realised Mk III's fin is set quite a bit father back from the bow so I've made some modifications . . . . <*<

First I took off the fin carefully and re bonded to the hull in the same position as Mk III's fin, second I shortened the bowsprit by 1/2" and re-cut the foot of the foresail reducing it's area slightly so now I should get a better 'slot effect' between the foresail and mainsail because the foot of the foresail is now horizontal and close to the top of the bowsprit.

We shall see how these changes effects the performance  :-))

One minor change is the orientation of the horse for the mainsail sheet, with the old setup when sheeting fully home the horse would pull forwards under tension. Now its a similar arrangement the the foresail horse :-))
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #35 on: February 26, 2011, 02:10:57 pm »

This building sails they way I do works as can be seen for the video's of Tini-Titanic III but could the method stand up to the pressure on larger sails? :o

Master Hand's mainsail is 555 square inches in area, her main boom is 25" long and her gaff is 22 1/2" long so we're talking quite a big area so I dreamed up a simple test . . . .

I've made up a test rig with a scrap strip of sailcloth which is 3/4" wide and I cut it into two pieces and re bonded it forming a seam like the ones in Tini-Titanic III's sails.

The seam is 3/4" x 1/8" in area, next I bonded the top half to a 3/4" x 3/4" section stick of wood which I clamped to my worktop . . .



At the bottom of the cloth strip I bonded a small stick of wood to carry a wire harness on which I hung two steel weights  :o



As you can see the first weight weighs 2.496 Kg's and the second  . . . .



weighs 2. 526 Kg, thats 5.022 Kg's total



As you can clearly see, the seam is stronger than the sailcloth and the cloth is beginning to tear on the lower panel.

So we can say that my little sails can take a pulling force of 5 Kg per 1" of seam . . . . . . I think this means Master Hands sails will be strong enough and they will set well and look great with the sun shining through them as she sails by!  :-))

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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #36 on: February 26, 2011, 08:05:45 pm »

Might have to write to the makers of Carling!

See if I can't talk em into selling beer in cans this big!  O0



I'd be a hero! {-) {-) O0
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #37 on: February 28, 2011, 03:24:09 pm »

The ring pull on Tini-Titanic's stern is a great way of forming the lower gudgeon for hanging the rudder and for all intents and purposes works just fine . . . . .

But when you've become the veteran of some sixty voyages across the pond, like everything else in life - things inevitably fade . . . . {:-{

And our poor ringpull gudgeon is no exception.  >>:-(

You see it was only ever designed to be used just once to pop open the can so the owner could chugg the beer {-) and it's tiny little tab holding it to the can  . . will only cope with rudder adjustments (to get the ship to sail a straight course) so many times . . . .

And it always goes 'ping'  halfway through another voyage allowing the rudder gently slip its hold and becomes another trinket in Davey Jones's locker!  >:-o >>:-(

But as with every dark cloud, there lurks a silver lining because this conundrum forced me to improve things. We now have a proper rudder with a tiller to steer it by! :} and everything!



Here is a photo of Mk III in the boat yard along side Mk II,



She has suffered the same ring pull fate and is awaiting refit.



Mk III has been fitted with the rudder upgrade which consists of three gudgeon's, one at the deck, and one at the water line  . . . .



And one at the bottom of her new improved skeg  :-)) The gudgeon this time is on the rudder and the pintle is a projection of the lower end of the skeg (another bit of paper clip sandwiched between the two halves of the skeg.



The rudder is smaller than on Mk II but is compensated for by the skeg between the fin and rudder to try and reduce leeway  O0



And a tiller gives us rudder control.

The rudder blade is two sheets of 1mm birch ply, the rudder stock is our trusty gaudy paperclip which is formed at its lower end into a sort of 'e' shape and sandwiched between the two rudder blade halves. The top part fits into a tiny hole bored for it in the tail end of the tiller.

Tiller control for now anyway (there hangs another tale) takes the form of a straight forward strip of rubber tape glued to the gunwales and spanning the deck.

This traps forward end of the tiller underneath it.

This simple arrangement allows for micro adjustment of the rudder :-))

And we can go sailing again . . . . .

Well  . . . . . . .

 >>:-( when the north wind stops blowing icicles horizontally that is   >>:-( . . .  {-) {:-{

The oak shavings on the boatyard floor give a clue to upcomming events at the other end of the yard . . . .

More planking is taking place on Master Hand :-))
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #38 on: February 28, 2011, 08:57:46 pm »

On Sunday the sun was shining and we had a blue sky (amazing I know I know! :o) so I though I'd go down to the seafront for a little sail.

I knew there would be lots of people about and I wanted to get some reactions to my creation  O0

The water was brilliant with sunlight and I could see wave patterns reflected of the pond floor  . . . . .

There was a brisk but cold northerly wind - almost perfect!  :} The wind is blowing from top left of your screen . . .

Also if you watch rubbish in the water it shows an anti clockwise circulation caused by water jets in the pond walls (you can see one to the left of the white flag mast beyond the pool on the opposite side). The gurgling is not me getting excited . . . . it another water jet under my feet! {-)

I thought 'I know!' I'll shoot a long video of Tini-Titanic sailing up and down the pond! What a great idea! O0

I'd also discovered how to get better clarity of video from my camera - the moral of this tale is ''when all else fails . . . . . read the destructions!''  {-) {-)

The resultant video is 7 minutes and 14 seconds long . . . .

All I had to do Sunday night was to upload to YouTube - no problem . . . . .  :-)

Nope!  >>:-( none of that simple stuff  >>:-(

You would not believe the trouble I've had trying to upload this file!  <*<

Because it is high quality the file is huge and although YouTube says you can upload large files  . . . . . I beg to differ.  <:(

So I've had to learn to become a video producer as well as boat builder and compress the file so that it will upload

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2XbuPbg4I

Enjoy!

It's cost blood sweat and some tears too  {-) O0

Incidentally I got some amusing reactions . . . something along the lines of ''Oh look! What a lovely little sailboat!  . . . . Oh my God - it's a beer can!''  {-) %% {-)

P.S.

I'm not sure if you can see but when she gets to the other side her bowsprit hits the pond wall .....the wind swings her around and a back draft off the pond wall backwinds the foresail and brings the bow around and she sets sail again.

Saves me running around the pond  O0
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #39 on: March 01, 2011, 10:09:08 am »

Here are a couple of stills from the last voyage  :-)





 :-))
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dreadnought72

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #40 on: March 01, 2011, 12:03:31 pm »

Crikey! I do believe she's making headway!  :o

...Not bad for a tin can.  :-))

Andy
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Greggy1964

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #41 on: March 01, 2011, 01:45:22 pm »

Hi Andy

Yup! :-)) She's going uphill O0

You can see this clearly in my last YouTube vid

In fact your idea of a burgee was is what made me decide to try and get her to sail upwind  O0

So I have you to blame! {-)

This afternoon I'm planning on sailing again to try out the new rudder/skeg configuration.

On Sunday I was chatting at the pond side with member of the local model boat club who was initially surprised to see a beer can sailing by :o  but his remarks, and those of passers by were encouragingly positive.

There's more to this lark that just sinking beer! {-)
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Diegan

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #42 on: March 25, 2011, 11:46:14 pm »

HI ! Greggy ok2
I send photograph to you of my sailboat, as well as the Link of the video in youtube, where she is sailing


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1AlZHnSQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1AlZHnSQY
Soon I will make a tutorial of I constructed how it
 Greetings[/b
DIEGAN :-))
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Tutssy

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #43 on: March 26, 2011, 12:53:37 am »

Has anyone thought of doing this with a 45 gallon drum?  :D O0 %% :-))

Regards Al
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ppsailor

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Re: A Nostalgic look back at Beer Can Sailing Ships
« Reply #44 on: April 08, 2011, 08:27:05 am »

Hola Hola  Diegan............me gusta.....me gusta. %%
Yes , really really nice.

.......you can baptize it like "diegantiki "
You remember the song.??..En el mar la vida es mas sabrosa ? " In the sea the life is but flavorful........
PP :-))
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