Ken_Potts
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Posts posted by Ken_Potts
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Hey Scott,
While pursuing a different obsession this evening (airplanes, or more specifically the Boeing L-15A) I found myself reading an online copy of Popular Science from March of 1947 and there is an ad for Thompson Boats on page 48. The runabout at the top of the ad looks suspiciously like yours.
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I'm thinking a bungalow would be good. A bungahigh would create too much windage.
(ducks and runs away)
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You're making great progress. Keep up the good work.
Be careful to stick with that plane as long as possible because the moment you switch to sandpaper your workshop is going to require frequent cleanings or maybe a sanding tent to match your epoxy table.
Your epoxy table is more refined than mine because I just use a spare piece of ply and get rid of it when the build up gets too bad. I might steal your idea the next time I mix up a batch.
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It sounds like something that would slide around hatching new covers. How many covers do you really need, though?
Yeah, I know... Chick's comment was funnier...
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Looking good! Keep us posted. And please remember that cutting a rabbet is an entirely different thing than cutting a rabbit - This isn't a cooking forum after all.
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That's probably not micro but it is pretty nice. I'd like one if we had flatter water around here.
Whatever design Chick selects I think he should paint it yellow to compensate for the re-coloring of Clementine and Southbound. We can't let the ratio of non-yellow to yellow boats get too high. After all, wasn't there a famous designer who pointed out that the only proper colors for a yacht are yellow and off-yellow? I might be mis-remembering the actual words but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
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Have you seen Paul Thiel's boats? If you built it lighter and flattened the run aft it would just be a big ol' box o' Jon Boat. There's undoubtedly a good Bolger candidate somewhere, too. A moto-brick or something. I'll have a look around (Oooh! Shiny!)
http://www.mission-base.com/sea-land-design/escargotMIII_layout.html
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The floor of the cockpit wouldn't be high enough but if the foot-well is narrow you might be able to get your legs under the cockpit seats (quarter-berth). With your lower body resting comfortably under the cockpit seat on one side of the boat, your upper body would be in the main cabin so it wouldn't be too claustrophobic. That would allow you to have a shorter cabin.
I'm just thinking that if you sleep with your feet stuck up in the bow you'll have your gear stowed under the cockpit so CG will be pretty far aft when moving, but if you sleep with your feet under one of the cockpit seats you'll have your gear stowed forward which will help balance out your weight as well as the weight of mister John-Rude.
Maybe I'll find the time to make a little sketch on graph paper to see if it would work. Or maybe I'll get distracted by something shiny and forget what I was thinking.
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Alex, I'm not just a Bluegrass fan, I'm a victim (banjo player). What does AF mean?
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If you're going to go for the self-bailing cockpit you might be able to arrange enough room under the cockpit seats for your legs while you're sleeping. That will shorten the cabin a bit and you can keep gear, food, anchor, etc. in the forepeak under a hatch that can be used to make loading/unloading of supplies easier while on land.
And if you just want sitting headroom for changing and w/c you could build an extra-large companionway and put a folding (or removable) dodger over it. If you include a narrow bridge deck at the companionway you'll have a comfy place to eat Vienna sausages under the dodger.
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I'm a big fan of not varnishing. Mostly because I haven't figured out varnish yet.
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I braved the January heat yesterday (I said that just for the enjoyment of those of you who have just pried a snow shovel out of your poor, frozen hands) and took two friends out for a sail. There wasn't much traffic on the river but we managed to get into a race with a larger boat that is almost 20 years newer than mine*. I think we beat them but I'm not sure if they noticed we were racing. My crew snapped these pictures as we overtook them.
* Witchcraft (my boat) was launched around 1980. The Duyfken replica was launched in 1999.
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I didn't realize you were launching the big boat. I'm pretty sure the marina ramp will not work for you (check anyway), but I can't remember the conditions at the Remley Point ramp.
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We (the future Wife and I) had a nice time chasing dolphins around USS Yorktown.
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I took Southbound out of the water once at Remley's point boat ramp. I put the boat in the water at a ramp at or near the Charleston City Marina. I can't remember where I parked the truck, but it was probably at a friend's house. I don't remember any drama at either boat ramp because it's been a number of years but I get a vaguely happier feeling about Remley's point. I was there in Thanksgiving of 2009 and that's when I met my Wife.
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It was smarter than catching the grown-up ones!
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8 hours ago, Action Tiger said:
Ken, I would LOVE to talk paddlewheelers with you
Well hopefully (maybe) I'll be driving past your place on a road trip in the next year or so. My wife would like to see more of the U.S. and I'd like to see more purple boats.
I think she just likes the funny accents.
Chick, the Chapman motor has a 6 or 7 foot drive shaft on it. If you had a strong enough transom you could rig it up like one of those long-tail outboard motors you see in pictures of exotic faraway lands like Thailand and Florida. You might need a little ballast in the bow, though.
I think we've managed to completely, irrevocably, hijack Tiger's thread now. I'd apologize but I'm hoping he's enjoying it.
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Mister Wiki tells me that the propeller showed up in a marine context in 1775 (Turtle), but I think it was almost a hundred years before the propeller was more common than the stern wheel or side wheel. There were a number of reasons that the prop became prominent but the most influential was probably cheap petroleum (read that "excess horsepower").
Although I have a soft spot in my heart for the (arguably) more energy-efficient side wheeler, I realize that the stern wheelers had practical advantages in a rolling sea or in a river with a lot of debris. I just like a side wheeler.
I've read that the most successful blockade runners in the civil war were side wheelers due to their speed (efficiency) and quiet (at least in the case of a feathering wheel). A paddle wheel of either type wouldn't long survive first contact with the enemy, though, and wasn't it about 1865 when props overtook wheels in popularity? Props are nicely protected from enemy fire by being entirely below the waterline and the increasing power of engines at the time would ease the pain of less-efficient propulsion. I don't know if it's correct but it sounds sensible to me.
Either way, sign me up for Tiger's stern-wheel Delta force!
I've been on a few steam-powered stern wheelers and the combination of silent engine and the swish swish swish of the wheel is a lovely thing (as is the Delta). Not that my new (old) two-stroke motor will be silent - I'm a little anxious about how this motor is going to sound with the exhaust hooked up (with no exhaust it's like death-by-fireworks). I'm hoping for something like "tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk" instead of "BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG" If it's too loud I'll have to pass it along to someone who will love it for what it is.
Sorry for my rambling, but it's still raining (ex-cyclone) and we're smack in the middle of the dry season (I should be on the boat but I'm typing instead). The dog is quite bored, too, as she's too precious to walk in close proximity to precipitation. Actually, the rain was well-timed to stop a bush fire that was dropping ashes on our house (and threatening the homes of others ~20-30k from here). We weren't in danger but there are likely some people up in the hills who are breathing a sigh of relief with this unusually North-Carolina-Like summer weather.
As soon as the rain stops I'm going sailing.
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That engine would probably feel quite at home on the Delta. It's a 4-1/4 HP Chapman Super Pup, maybe from the 20's. It came from a little boat that was used to fish for whitebait on a nearby estuary. The engine was removed recently (in the last year, I think) because the owner decided to re-power with an outboard. It's in running condition and it came with all the necessary parts. Not shown in the picture are the exhaust or the drive assembly which includes the original clutch, lever and bracket, the S/S prop shaft, the necessary bearings for the shaft and last but not least, the 12.5" bronze 3-bladed prop. I didn't mention the gearbox because there isn't one. It's a direct drive.
I'm partial to a stern-wheeler myself (or even better, a side-wheeler) but I'll probably stick with the original prop when the engine eventually gets put into the boat that Chick is about to build for me (Thanks, Chick!)
I like that the method of reversing the boat involves slowing the motor down until it is just about to stop and then grabbing the magneto and twisting it into another position so the engine will bounce off the compression stroke and run backwards. Transmissions are for sissies!
I'll post a couple of more pictures of the parts if you like but probably not today. We've got the remnants of a cyclone going over so it's a bit wet outside at the moment.
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Or if you would prefer a powerboat make sure it is a 2-stroke because they're light, simple and easy to handle. I just stumbled across this one and even though it is 4hp it only takes two people to lift it.
An added advantage of building a boat for a motor like this is that you won't be tempted to car-top it.
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"That one guy" was in my opinion the worst I've seen in all the years (decades) I've been following this forum. It's too bad you were the target of his bad mojo.
You are our kind of people and he is not.
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"But..."
Okay, I'll bite! Why is a galvanised tube bad for steaming?
And what's wrong with Jerry Springer? That was good old fashioned fun!
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Yes, they are different processes and it was my understanding (possibly incorrect) that both of the processes resulted in an oxidized surface. I didn't express my thinking well in my previous post - I typed "anodized" where I meant to typed "oxidized". I'm still not sure I'm correct, though.
Southbound has sleeve-luff sails and during the five-ish years I sailed her the sails were stored rolled up on the masts so the sails were constantly in contact with the uncoated masts. I don't remember the sails turning grey but is has been a number of years since I moved to Australia and I may just be a victim of selective memory here.
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And if you leave the boat in a marina you'll have people telling you all night long that you left your anchor light on
Action Tiger builds sailboat. With epoxy!
in Main Forum
Posted
So would you say you're 90% done with 90% to go or 95% done with 95% to go?
Looking good.