KeithAug

Veszett, I know they do it on purpose I just think they should make an exception for a 70 year old pensioner. Fortunately I avoided buying a car where I had to rent the heated seats and steering wheel. I think this subscription world is mad. Eberhard - My wife reminds me that she won it at a school headteachers conference some years before she retired in 2012. It may be that it is 2 decades old. It's useless but still going strong - a bit like me.

Not much progress this week - life gets very confusing when you get to my age. The easy bit was buying a new car. I then realised that my old and trusty iPod was no longer supported by the new cars software. Accepted the iPod is over a decade old but I like it and I don't want to pay a subscription to buy access to music I already own. So then I thought I'll buy a flash drive and put my music on that. I did, but once again the car refused to co-operate. It would only access a few of the albums on the drive and ignored the other 90%. So then I thought I will put all my music on my iPhone. This wasn't my preferred option as it only has 64gb of memory which I tend to fill quite quickly with videos of the grandchildren. pictures for my build log etc., etc. However it seemed the only option. The next problem was the MacBook refused to talk to the iPhone. It turned out that the iPhone software hadn't been updating because of lack of memory so I had to transfer the grandchildren on to an ancient iMac which paradoxically was quite happy to talk to the phone. This then freed up enough memory on the phone to accept a software update. Finally after significant frustrations the MacBook and phone struck up a conversation. This took about 24 hours in total to sort out. I might have been better served by not changing the car!!!!!!! I never really believed that IT made things easier. After all they managed to build Dreadnought in 13 months when the only available IT was a phone and a mechanical typewriter.

Built by Uncle Sam! After a lot of tribulations the capacitor arrived today. Amazon failed to deliver and after 4 weeks of excuses offered me a refund. I reordered one from eBay and it arrived in 3 days and it works perfectly.

Eberhard, Rick, Tom. Thank you. Yes - but not sure why. May be just to confuse novices during docking. I can't see any other obvious purpose. Andy - My plan is a mixture of pre and post assembly shaping but I think inevitably the plan will develop as I proceed.

I'm nearly at the end hull sanding. I just needed to build up the keel slightly. I also needed to get the transom to the correct shape and "fix" the shape by attaching a pre-shaped piece of ply. Shaping the ply took a bit of fiddling with card templates but eventually I sorted it. I have had enough woodworking for a while so I am now figuring out how to make rudder post. I plan to make this out of brass. The key complication is that the lower portion (red arrows) is somewhat thicker than the remainder of the frame surrounding the screw. I plan to fabricate it out of 3 pieces of 0.1" brass plate. In drawing the yellow is the 0.1" portion while the orange is the thickened 0.3" portion.

The hull has turned out well. Planking when the frames are widely spaced is quite tricky but you seem to have made a success of it. Well done.

Good point, must get back to the day job.

I like it when solution develop - it's so much more educational. Nicely made smoke stacks Eric.

Impressive - as always.

Too true Keith.

I have to agree - beautiful work.

Yes Eberhard - too much of it driven by politics and parochial thinking. I feel I hear too much about how bad it will be if we do nothing but too little about a global collective will to tackle the issues.

Don't apologise Ian - it gave me a good laugh. So is your Toyota a 2.5l AWD version?

I guess the politicians don't know any engineers!!!!!!! This isn't quite true in the UK because the Conservative Energy Spokesman in the House of Lords is a certain Lord Martin Callahan. In the 1990's he worked in my engineering department. None of my staff were very disappointed when he left to pursue his political ambitions, frankly as an engineer he was as much good as a chocolate teapot. His political rise was somewhat metioric but on energy matters he sill talks out of the wrong end of his digestive tract. God help us.

Dear Ian. And I thought I was a grumpy old man. I have read your missive to my wife and she agrees you win hands down. I was trying to explain it all to my non techy brother in law. Average electric vehicle - 2.5 miles per KWh. Decent range of say 450 miles requires 180 kWh battery. Decent charging time of say 10 minutes requires a 1080 KW charger. That's like plugging in 540 fan heaters! We don't have the grid capacity to feed all those electric cars and won't have for years. I tried self charging hybrids for the first time last Tuesday and loved the "get up and go". I know they don't solve the environmental problem but they are a load of fun. Keith

Im only replacing it because the UK legislation now requires manufacturers to increase their % of electric cars sold by 20% per year. That means that by 2030 you won't be able to buy anything other than electric. I want to get in while I still have some choice left.

Andy - Yes. In the engine room area without the balsa they of course need to be edge glued, elsewhere the glue will be applied to both the edge and back of the planks. I too think she has lovely sleek lines - it was the one of the main reasons I wanted to build her. Thank you all for your comments - much appreciated. I have spent the last week touring round car showrooms in an attempt to find a replacement for my current 10 year old car. Indecision, indecision, indecision.

Andy, Pat, Keith, John, Greg, Hakan, Gary, Thank you all for your encouragement and "Little Ben" comments. Hakan - great news re June - does it have a personal pronoun yet? I am well on with the precision sanding. As previously stated I coloured the frame edges as a sanding guide. The preliminary rough sanding was done with 60 grit aluminium oxide paper held on a 2" x 8" cork block with rounded edges. The surface was reduced until small areas of the frame edges started to lose their colour. I then switched to 80m grit (on the same sanding block) and continued to remove the frame edge colouring. I sanded both sides alternatively while trying to maintain similar frame edge sanding patterns on each side. I proceeded in this way until the majority of the coloured edges were removed. I worked slowly from stern to bow. Gradually producing balsa snow drifts. I am about to switch to 120 grit before progressing with the final sanding / fairing.

Thanks Rick - I worry about her - she needs to find a good owner

Yes - our hobby its incredibly wasteful isn't it. I console myself with the knowledge that in the main I am only wasting renewable materials.

I have just been catching up, the interior detail is impressive. I do like these quirky working boats.

That is wonderful news Keith and getting Maggie home so soon is a miracle. When my mother-in-law had a stroke that affected her swallowing she found rich tea biscuits dunked in malt whiskey stimulated her recovery enormously. In fact, as I recall, she continued with the habit well after her swallowing returned to normal. P.S. I have started being more attentive to my wife since you posted your news. She now thinks I am having an affair!

Thank you for the engineering advice Veszett. Thank you Rick - have they managed to sell her yet? The last 6 months have flashed by but sadly he isn't showing many shipwright skills yet. I have continued with the development of my barrel making skills. The hull with the exception of the engine room is fully barrelled. I have attached formers to get the stern shape accurately established. I have block filled and sanded the stern to shape. I have also commenced sanding the hull but as you can see the frames still have most of their blue sanding guide marks still visible. I foresee a big sanding event coming up but will wait a few days for more eye recovery before I commence. I am looking forward to spring and the end of the incessant rain which seems to have been going on for ever.

As usual Nils your productivity puts me to shame.

Great progress although I winced when you got to the hull separation stage.