Archive for the 'ideas' Category
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Introducing: the FairMaster®
“Hi folks! Ever get tired from constantly having to sand your hull fair? Tired of those aching arms and blistered hands? What about that annoyingly constant ’swish-swish’ sound of that long board? Well not to worry, its days are numbered! Introducing the FairMaster®! Don’t be fooled by its ghetto construction and obvious use of second hand parts and recycled materials, the FairMaster® is a precision piece of fairing technology home-grown right here in the USA.”
“The FairMaster® is like someone else making 10 passes with a longboard for your every one! It’s orbital action also makes sure that you never sand out a gouge and feathering is a snap! With its small, old, rebuilt 1/3 sheet sander power source the only thing to tire out are the old-school felt and brass bushings! Read the rest of this entry »
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Meet the stem head fitting : part 2
Now that I think about it, I might want to thank the stem head for being so damn crappy (seriously, all stainless rigging, bronze chocks, all stainless hardware and stainless chainplates attached to a cast aluminum fitting…). reason? It probably gave me the boat. Ok, the fitting didn’t actually give it to me but it’s failure did. The bow mounted anchor chocks were made out of good high quality bronze and were bolted directly to the aluminum fitting… and thats it! The fitting corroded, the chock broke off, the anchor rope chaffed on the broken edge and Hobyn broke free of her mooring.
Since reading books by the Pardeys and Annie Hill and the essential boat building witicisms of Ferenc Maté, I began to realize just how important my anchoring system is and the epiphany of how I came to own Hobyn crystalized this. I’ve been looking for a reason to buy a TIG setup, a full stainless stemhead/anchoring platform sounds like a plan.
Something like this maybe, but not as ugly/chunky:
I think I’ll run this by Jack when I head back over to the boat to patch up the mess left by the fitting. The deck was never actually sealed here, just left *sort of* matched up and completely drowned in polysulfide sealant (which of course has shrunk considerably in its 40 years of service and is no longer worth a damn)
Monday, November 12th, 2007
Duh… craigslist
The title pretty much sums up the way I feel. Here I am wracking my brains looking all over the place for an engine and I’ve been neglecting one of the most scrounge worthy web sites ever made; CRAIGSLIST ! How someone who lived in NYC for years and practically used it as a way of surviving in the land of high rents and finding crazy people who throw away valuable stuff for free if completely inexcusable. Read the rest of this entry »
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
Plasterers rock!
Almost a century ago, when someone wanted fancy pants molding (or moulding as everyone outside of the US calls it) in their home they didn’t go to home depot and buy some extruded plastic rods and nail them up. They hired a plasterer to make a profile that they wanted and use plaster to literally mould up their fancy molding (get it, mould-ing).
Fast forward a 100 years later, boats are being made out of a moldable goo called resin, a guy with a big job wants to shave some time off his project; plasterer techniques to the rescue! It took a day of trial and error to get it down, but now that I have, there is almost zero fairing to do. Using the profile makes the entire surface uniform so there is no need to use a long board. I let the goo cure, and go at it with the half sheet. I’ll hopefully get both of the joints done before it gets too cold.
Monday, August 27th, 2007
Deck joint repair
Oh hull to deck joint, why were you so well made? Couldn’t you have been made with only a couple of bolts? 3″ on center sounds great and hold wonderfully, but when you are doing a rebuild, its a lot of work. And what about that inside tabbing? It was a great idea at the time and I’m sure it served for 2 or 3 decades, but eventually ice expansion rendered it useless. Now I have to pull it off with pliers and a chisel so I can service the bolts underneath. Oh cruelly well designed deck joint!
Sadly the joint has pretty much completely failed due to the death of the sealing mastic that Tartan used between the hull and deck segments. It was some sort of oi-based caulking so I’m going to have to remove it to fix the joint. What I really want to do though is to just seal the whole thing inside and out with fiberglass. My only issue is if I have to remove the bolts before glassing or if I could just do a rough grinding right over the bolts and gel coat and then just glass it all together. A big new wooden (ipe?) rub rail is going to cover the joint after it’s all glassed up so I doubt that it will have too much exposure. One the inside I’d do a tabbing job like Tartan’s original only with some heavy epoxy compatible matt or some biax. Any ideas?
Monday, August 27th, 2007
T30: version 2
Back in 1972, a prospective buyer would have looked at the T30 and thought
“wow, nice finished look, sleeps 5, nice big cooler, full galley, fast, good build quality and great name.”
If I was to translate this into “rebuilder’s” terms, it would sound much more like
“damn, these liners kill 20% of the usable space behind sealed off panels while making the interior look angular and small, the sleeping areas are only big enough for your shoulders while an arm hangs over the edge, the cooler takes up double the space of the fuel tank and puts it right in the widest most usable part of the boat, and the galley needs to be made for cooking instead of looking. Thankfully she’s fast, has great build quality, and a great name”.
