Twister

Matija,

Beautiful work - your attention to detail is quite simply stunning!

Patrick's (Omega1234) comment about the '... carefully rounded corners' is all too true and prompted me to think about how you might have made them. Were they cut from solid timber, laminated or created using some form of dark art?!

Keep up the fabulous work,

Regards,

Row

Michael,

Still absolutely amazed!

Re: Closed or open system cooling, I can see no reason why either system shouldn't work - with an open system (raw water cooling) the main issue is generally with over cooling so perhaps some method of adjusting the flow rate needs to be gone into with a bit of the engineers favourite (not!!) trial & error...

With the closed system I wondered if you'd given any thought to keel cooling? It's an incredibly simple set up and almost certainly 'age appropriate'.

Decisions, decisions . . .

Regards,

Row

Most definitely a work of art...

Row

Hi Mike,

I concur 100% with Patrick's words - as the various components come together it really does give one a better idea of Stavanger's lovely shape.

Looking at the last picture of your post and bearing in mind the sectional size of the midship frames, I wonder if it may be beneficial to insert some temporary diagonal cross bracing pieces to ensure the frames don't flex when you come to fit any stringers and subsequently plank the hull.  Food for thought if nothing else...

Row

Mike,

Just finished reading your build log to date and wow, what a project! You've obviously done this sort of thing before, your work so far is absolutely stunning. I particularly like your method for producing the ballast - I know lead is horrible to cut and/or machine, although apparently putting it in the freezer overnight between the various shaping stages does make it easier to work!! (It's not something I've tried but know of plenty of modellers who do & say how much easier it is).

I'm really looking forward to seeing how you deal with the planking, as a future project for me will be a 1:10 scale model of my father's yacht, a Saga 40, which has similar lines to 'Stavanger'.

Regards,

Row

Mark,

Fully understand your reasoning now - clever solution to a potential build problem, it's almost a 'half' POF I guess.

It appears from your photo of 'Cherub' that you've been busy re-caulking the garboards - not the most pleasant of tasks but very necessary...  Also, 'Cherub' appears to have some of her keel cut away aft not shown in your drawings or photo's on the first page, is that something peculiar to her particular size or was it a modification to improve helm balance or simply part way through a repair?

Looking forward to seeing how you progress with this,

Regards,

Row

Patrick & David,

It's also worth noting that all the recent 'J' class builds have been in aluminium, some of the originals that survive were steel with only Shamrock V being timber planked, although you'd never know it if you saw her - someone spends an absolute fortune keeping her topsides looking like glass!!

Row

Mark,

She's coming along nicely, very good progress!

I'm not 100% sure I follow your reasoning re: replacing the lower parts of some of the aft frames - is it because they'll be visible in the finished model? If it's purely an aesthetic issue, would it be worth considering a thin veneer overlay?

I must say I'm very impressed by your use of epoxy on such small components, yes, it's incredibly effective etc etc, but I always find the 'cleaning up' of the joint (especially when one needs to use lots of clamps) a complete nightmare!! If I may offer one piece of unsolicited advice, I've generally found that once the epoxy/filler material has been mixed (be it cellulose fibres, colloidal silica etc etc), loading it into a small syringe greatly assists controlling of its application.

Definitely looking forward to your next 'chapter' so to speak,

Regards,

Row

Michael,

Superb machining yet again. It's nice to know I'm not the only one to make assumptions - it reminds me of the advice my father always used to give 'Measure twice, cut once'. Sometimes I can even manage to measure 3, 4 even 5 times and still get it wrong! Can't remember if it was here or an engineering website where I read something like 'I've cut this bolt three times now and it's still too short...'

Looking forward to seeing how the 60 comes out,

Regards,

Row

Inspiring work & love the mount onto the nautical chart.

Regards,

Row

My goodness, that was quick, hull planked up in a week - so what are you going to be building next week...?!!

You must be using a pretty fast setting glue, is it a PVA or something a little more exotic? Tremendous progress & I'm looking forward to seeing how she progresses.

Regards,

Row

Beautiful...

Row

Hi Patrick,

It's been over 2 hours since you dangled that carrot of more pictures and I need my J Class fix!!

In all seriousness, I'm looking forward to seeing what wonders you've performed so I'll do my best to drop by later...

Regards,

Row

Walter,

My condolences on the 'shutting up shop', I'm all too aware how life has a habit of catching up and those multitude of little jobs can no longer be put off! I've always endeavoured to keep my workshop space sacrosanct, unfortunately to little avail - at the moment I can't even get to my workbench, in the run-up to Christmas my wife saw it as 'useful' storage space; as I type this I think there are various components of a 'Vax' carpet cleaner that she has valiantly stripped down for cleaning and can't remember how it goes back together!! Time for me to dig out the manual and earn some serious credits - payback will eventually come in the form of uninterrupted workshop time (once the new shower screen is fitted, the new bath panel is shaped and fitted, the house has been painted etc etc - you get the picture?!!)

Anyway, I look forward to seeing how you progress with 'Meridea' when time and space permit.

With all good wishes for 2015,

Row

Michael,

Quite simply, I'm in complete and utter awe!!

Regards,

Row

Row, that's good to know. Sounds interesting, & I have a couple of questions - what glue did you use, & how did you set up the clamping on the planks? Epoxy is great glue but it's hard to clamp (as you know - I looked at your J boat log), as it's quite slippery for a while. I'm tempted to use a cross-linked PVA or one of the Titebond glues, & rely on paint to keep the water out of the glue. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Ta, MP

The glue used was one of the Urea Formaldehyde's - can't remember exactly but it would have been either Aerolite, Cascomite or Cascophen, all of which are pretty water resistant IIRC ( We're talking early to mid 1980's here). Clamping was a mixture of minature 'G' clamps, rubber bands & string to keep planks in place and securely held to neighbouring plank.

The 'Enterprise' plug was planked using a water resistant PVA type glue and when completed after basic fairing, was painted with resin internally with the outside being given a layer of light weight glass fabric ( without checking I can't be sure but it was almost certainly something around 80g/m2 - 100g/m2). As it was a plug for taking a molding from, the primary purpose of the glass/epoxy layer was for waterproofing so that there would be no plank movement when it came to cutting back using wet & dry prior to polishing/waxing. If you intend to use the model as a pond sailor or even consider R/c then I'd definitely give serious thought of going down the route of a glass/epoxy layer to the outside of the hull, if nothing else it'll give you peace of mind!

Hope that's of some use - any further questions then please don't hesitate to ask.

Looking forward to your next instalment,

Row

I can now fully appreciate that my eyes don't deceive (!), she looks absolutely stunning, a credit to your quite exceptional talent!

Keep up the amazing work & I'm definitely looking forward to future instalments...

All good wishes for 2015,

Row

I'm well aware that it's been said before in various guises but it really is the only appropriate comment I can currently think of:

So Michael, Thankyou so much for this incredible ongoing masterclass, you really are 'The Master'. I can say with all honesty that I really don't think I've ever learnt so much in such a relatively short period of time. Just love those big end shell bearing/bushings.

I'll finish with a question if I may, do you intend to fit similar shell bearing/bushes to to the crank main journals?

Regards & all good wishes for 2015,

Row

I'll definitely be following this one! Really looking forward to seeing how you work your magic on this utterly beautiful yacht.

Out of interest, do you intend building her 'as launched' in 1934 or as her modern incarnation? - I think visually the main differences are the deck houses and cockpits.

Regards,

Row

I'd like to follow along too, such pretty little boats. As for the cursing, I think it's ok within certain parameters, although in my experience it kind of goes hand in hand with boat building!

With all good wishes & happy boat building for 2015,

Row

Mark,

Although a very different hull shape, many years ago I built a mahogany planked 'Marblehead' class model yacht which was built over taped shadows (to stop the planking from sticking) the planks being glued only to each others' edge, the bow former, the transom and the keel. Once the planking was finished the shadows were removed and then ribs were bonded in, steamed first where necessary. In that particular instance I'm not entirely sure how much additional strength the ribs added - the monocoque structure formed by the planking was phenomenally strong & maintained a very accurate hull shape.

Regards,

Row

Wow, 2mm diameter by 35mm deep !  The machinists where I worked would not drill to a depth more that 10 times the diameter

I appreciate your input Bob, just wish I'd known that before I started! At least the components I'm (trying to) work on are practice pieces in aluminium before the expensive brass comes out...

Regards,

Row

B***** brilliant work, Michael!

 

John

Couldn't have put it better myself!!

Regards,

Row

Mark,

A very beautiful yacht that will, I'm sure, give a wonderful model.

Your comments and diagrams about the differences between drawn lines and built lines got my grey cells working overtime until I managed to drag from the dusty & cobwebbed far reaches a saying attributed to L Francis Herreshoff. Apparently when talking about one of his J Class designs he complained bitterly that the finished yacht, beautiful though she was, bore little or no resemblance to what he'd actually drawn...

In this instance a fair curve always trumps a blue print! (Another quotation, the provenance of which I'm not entirely sure - that aforementioned grey matter letting me down again!!).

I'll definitely be trying my upmost to keep popping in to monitor your progress if that's ok,

Regards,

Row

(it would be nice to only have to make something once for a change)

Ah, but Michael, if a job's worth doing it's surely worth doing twice!! (Or an opposing view is that real idleness is doing it right first time... )

Having read your 'primer for drilling' I can concur whole heartedly with every piece of advice you offer - I've recently broken several 2mm bits trying to drill 35mm blind holes into aluminium & the only addition I'd make is that WD40 is also a pretty good lubricant. Now, if I can just work out how to remove the offending 'bits' of drill I won't have to remake the components...

As usual, absolutely amazing work / machining - even I'm beginning to get excited as the first firing up approaches!

Regards,

Row