JeffH
12-19-2002, 12:20 AM
Hi folks,
This here will be something of an experimental update, the result of me playing with some of the more advanced features of my camera. This came from stitching two pictures together, top to bottom:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/pc50cf016aab3ae7b55f4a3bc94f7a3c3/fcea9caa.jpg
Not too shabby, really. It gets a little more touchy when you try panning without a tripod and stitching five somewhat uneven pictures together (also a pretty big file. It shrank some when trying to get it to a manageable size for uploading). We now have twelve strakes mostly all the way around... Over halfway! The milestone for today was that I drove my 3,000th screw (at $0.75 each. Yikes), which is half of them. Hope there's enough....
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/p55bf15aaf858d2439a84ce9b5809c096/fcea9ca9.jpg
And here's a little experimentation in color:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/p88c3210e7cbad1fae9f6351536bae7cf/fcea9cac.jpg
Anyway, on my last posting, Wilson Fitt asked some questions I never got around to anwering:
I'd be interested in how the frames were made up and faired without station moulds and ribbands to hold the whole thing together, and how the shape is maintained as the planking proceeds and the compression loads start to build. Will you plank straight from the garboard to the sheer strake or move up and work back down to a shutter plank? At what stage will the shelf and clamp be installed? So many questions...I may have to take a drive to Maine to annoy you with them in person.
A lot of this boat was made possible by the magic of modern wizardry that the old-timers could only dream of. The plans came from John G. Alden, Inc (which is still in existence) in CAD form. The nice thing about this is that you can loft every frame station with a couple mouse clicks a lot of plotter ink. Then, all you need is a large flat surface, some framing dogs, a pneumatic press and a pile of clamps. The dogs are set up to the lofting, the frame laminates are glued up (in this case, oak with resorcinol), bent around the dogs and clamped to high heaven. The really neat trick is that the frame bevels are then picked off the lofting and converted to degrees. The frame sections are then sent through the shaper that has a servo motor connected to the tilting mechanism and a large angle guage, and the whole rolling bevel from garboard to sheer is cut in one pass. All that remains is to notch the bottom of the frame and knock it in place. With the bonze floors patterned and installed and with cross-spawls and spacer blocks at the tops of the frames, the whole structure is quite rigid. There is a 2-by-4 ribband temporarily installed about five planks ahead, but this just keeps the frames from moving around too much as the planks are clamped and fastened. The method is actually quite accurate - We just set a thin batten along the frames just before each plank is hung and touch up the frames with a plane here and there as needed.
As for the second question, we'll be going from the garboard straight up to the sheer strake. This is mostly because nobody has gotten around to building staging high enough to reach the sheer, and because it's easier to wedge the planks down to the one below it than up to the one above. As for the rest of the questions, I don't really know. I'm not sure there really is a definite plan that far ahead.
Off to bed!
Jeff
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/pc322ad6c3734a2cd8431c9d573851b54/fcea9ca8.jpg
[ 12-19-2002, 06:51 AM: Message edited by: JeffH ]
This here will be something of an experimental update, the result of me playing with some of the more advanced features of my camera. This came from stitching two pictures together, top to bottom:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/pc50cf016aab3ae7b55f4a3bc94f7a3c3/fcea9caa.jpg
Not too shabby, really. It gets a little more touchy when you try panning without a tripod and stitching five somewhat uneven pictures together (also a pretty big file. It shrank some when trying to get it to a manageable size for uploading). We now have twelve strakes mostly all the way around... Over halfway! The milestone for today was that I drove my 3,000th screw (at $0.75 each. Yikes), which is half of them. Hope there's enough....
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/p55bf15aaf858d2439a84ce9b5809c096/fcea9ca9.jpg
And here's a little experimentation in color:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/p88c3210e7cbad1fae9f6351536bae7cf/fcea9cac.jpg
Anyway, on my last posting, Wilson Fitt asked some questions I never got around to anwering:
I'd be interested in how the frames were made up and faired without station moulds and ribbands to hold the whole thing together, and how the shape is maintained as the planking proceeds and the compression loads start to build. Will you plank straight from the garboard to the sheer strake or move up and work back down to a shutter plank? At what stage will the shelf and clamp be installed? So many questions...I may have to take a drive to Maine to annoy you with them in person.
A lot of this boat was made possible by the magic of modern wizardry that the old-timers could only dream of. The plans came from John G. Alden, Inc (which is still in existence) in CAD form. The nice thing about this is that you can loft every frame station with a couple mouse clicks a lot of plotter ink. Then, all you need is a large flat surface, some framing dogs, a pneumatic press and a pile of clamps. The dogs are set up to the lofting, the frame laminates are glued up (in this case, oak with resorcinol), bent around the dogs and clamped to high heaven. The really neat trick is that the frame bevels are then picked off the lofting and converted to degrees. The frame sections are then sent through the shaper that has a servo motor connected to the tilting mechanism and a large angle guage, and the whole rolling bevel from garboard to sheer is cut in one pass. All that remains is to notch the bottom of the frame and knock it in place. With the bonze floors patterned and installed and with cross-spawls and spacer blocks at the tops of the frames, the whole structure is quite rigid. There is a 2-by-4 ribband temporarily installed about five planks ahead, but this just keeps the frames from moving around too much as the planks are clamped and fastened. The method is actually quite accurate - We just set a thin batten along the frames just before each plank is hung and touch up the frames with a plane here and there as needed.
As for the second question, we'll be going from the garboard straight up to the sheer strake. This is mostly because nobody has gotten around to building staging high enough to reach the sheer, and because it's easier to wedge the planks down to the one below it than up to the one above. As for the rest of the questions, I don't really know. I'm not sure there really is a definite plan that far ahead.
Off to bed!
Jeff
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid43/pc322ad6c3734a2cd8431c9d573851b54/fcea9ca8.jpg
[ 12-19-2002, 06:51 AM: Message edited by: JeffH ]