Mike Donlin

Roland, I think I still have a copy of that screensaver on some 'puter around here. I think you should put up the pics from that-at least the one with the yellow weekender that the Stevensons launched in the swimming pool. I think they were dressed as pirates in the photo. Do screensavers even work on new computers any more? Mike Donlin

Konrad sails and races Ice boats. These two pictures from the old website involve a duck decoy, bags of lead shot hidden in the competitors ice boat, and trap shooting on the frozen lake. I'm thinking Konrad will have to chime in here and tell us the whole story behind these pictures.

You might look at SketchUp. Google owns them now and I think there are 2 different versions. I have the program and like what it can do for concept drawings and for quick sketches that are easy to bang out. Dave (the sketchup guru) will pop in here and show you his work that he has done in sketchup. It is a fairly easy program to learn but once you see his drawings you will see that they can get very detailed. I use it for drawing buildings so the customer can see what his project will look like with different door and window placement. It works great for something like that where I'm not too concerned about correct placement. Like any other cad type program there is a learning curve, although this curve is MUCH shorter than the other programs you mentioned. Hope this helps.

Another obvious solution to take four people sailing is to have the other couple build a boat at the same time as you build your boat. That way you can learn from each others mistakes. Then whenever you sail together you can have your own little regatta, besides more boats=more fun.

Steel Away- A Weekender

Just look in the yellow pages under "Steel Distributors" or "Steel Fabricators" You just need to know the length and thickness and they can cut it to length for you and you will be back in business, or better yet take in the old one and they can use that for a pattern for the holes and such.

DocA Click on the Gallery tab above and then click on the all images button under the search box over on the right hand side of the page. It worked for me so now I have even more pictures to drool over. If that doesn't work you will have to call on the Great Wizard behind the Green Curtain.

Just click on the store link at the top of this page and type in the name of the book in the Amazon window in the upper LH corner and it will take you right to the book. It is my understanding that this site gets a small cut from anything you buy from Amazon if you go to Amazon FROM the store link at the top of the messing-about.com page.

adla, I'll second that. We just returned from vegas on Sat and we were cold the whole time we were there. We had to come back to SD to warm up. Chin up, it will be warm before we know it.

Our stock weekenders that we built weigh in the 650 to 700# range. That is fully rigged less the 12 oz cans of liquid ballast, the thermal containment system, and the small cubes of temporary refrigerant. Our trailers are around 200# so you should be under or right at the 1000# mark.

Hey Konrad is this work related or have the little ankle biters gotten into your workshop? Are you still working in SD? Google for beanedoo, this is a soybean based product that I saw at the World of Concrete for cleaning mastic off of floors before you acid stain them. According to the lit it works on most everything yet is non toxic.

Hey Konrad, don't worry, they will be over that stage soon enough. Then it's on to the mobile wrecking ball. I'm always amazed at how much destruction one of those diaper clad little buggers can cause. Aren't you working today? I thought you had some project in Yankton and/or Mitchell this winter. The weather turned nasty here on Sunday. It started with an inch of ice on everything and then a foot of snow on top of that, then 35 mph winds all day Monday. I-29 andI-90 have been closed since late Sunday but they should reopen later today. Let me know where you are working and in my travels I can stop in and talk boats.

Wow, you will be close. Yankton is about 3 hrs from me and Mitchell is only 90 miles. Are you taking the boat to Yankton? How much time will you spend on the project? Any decorative concrete on the project? You can give me a call on the cell 605-870-1199 and fill me in on the details.

Konrad, We have to have the stats for the second kid, my wife isn't content with just the sex of the kid, they have to know the beam measurements, displacement, name of the unit. Lisa might get a kick out of this.

Sorry Bill, I didn't mean to hijack your vector topic. I think Konrad got caught up in the nostalgia of the old posts and forgot to answer your question. But then again after looking at his knee, maybe they didn't have much for steering.

Konrad-I found this just poking around on the web. As Desi would say to Lucy "you got some splaining to do" with some of those photos. I remember most of the ice boats photos, with the duck and shooting trap on the ice, but some of them border on the paranormal. http://www.geocities.com/bosch_232/ I think you should take some time to post the old photos with the short story to each one so the new builders can see just what kind of environment us old builders had to put up with while we were building. It would seem like we would glue up one piece on the boat and then race to the computer to see what Konrad and the rest of the Husker boys were up to that day. I remember expolding transoms and splintered rubrails on someones boat and how to overcome the bending limits of plywood. I think it is only right that your kids should hear the story of "socko and numbskull" from the creator of that story-I laughed so hard pop flew out of my nose. Inquiring minds want to know if Lisa ever forgave you for that episode. I await more tales from the "Adventures of Konrad" BTW here is your knee

The only place that I have the picture of your knee is on the screensaver that Roland Blais put together in the "Roaring Late 90s" He had a website at one time http://www.rolandblais.org but I haven't visited it for ages. Konrad was quite famous in that screensaver, a shot of his knee, the Little Red Monkey, the Explorer with the tongue heavy Vacationer, and a shot of a vacationer or two with the added ratlines.

The BYYB screensaver has a shot of knee with a nasty looking gash on it. The knee belongs to Konrad and that was a land sailing accident, not sure if it was the vector or not. Speaking of history does anyone remember the story behind this picture? It came off of Konrad's website but I can't remeber the story-the title of the pic is Satandog

It will only get worse from here on out-good luck. You're gonna need it. This might be a good time to review your insurance policy, esp. the parts concerning man-made disasters. Gee, you and Lisa have the whole "let's see where the water goes when I plug the drain with this washcloth and turn on the water" trick to look forward to yet. Just keep posting stories-we have all "been there, done that" Hang on and Enjoy the ride. They grow up way too fast.

I'm with Greg, I can't figure out the tender's name either. I named my weekender "Steel Away". I have been building steel buildings and steel grain bins for 30 years, a welder for about that long, and so when it came time to build a wooden boat the name seemed like a good fit, since there isn't much steel on these boats. This is a neat thread, I like to read about how all the names came to be.

I can't remember if we have any HVAC people on this board but my son is over in Iraq and has questions on working on a split (ductless A/C system) 1)If he charges the system w/ R-22 without sucking it down first with a vacuum pump, will it work or is he just wasting the R-22? 2) Any idea of what the pressure should be on the high and low side of the system? I suggested he look for a data plate someplace on the unit. 3) Anything he should be concerned with or watch out for when doing this? He has a set of A/C gauges, I not sure about a vacuum pump. Resources are the important things over there, time they have in abundance. He is mechanically inclined so it shouldn't be much of a challange if he can find the correct info. Anybody know of any links on the web that would have some basic service info? Sorry I don't have more info on brand, type, size of unit. If you want to just send the links direct to him at kevin.donlinNO SPAM@us.army.mil (take out the NO SPAM) Mike Donlin Builder/skipper of Steel Away Miller SD

Flipping a weekender is a POC (piece of cake). Two people can do it but three is ideal. Put some carpet scraps under the rail and then have some building foam (1" thick styrofoam) sheets for the cabin to sit on. After it is flipped over, you just lift one end at a time and block it up to whatever height you want. Then lift the other end and block that up.

On my wekender I cut a rabbet to fit over the exposed 1/4" ply from a piece of 1x2 pine. I fastened this to the plywood with screws from the plywood into the pine. I then fastened a 1x2 piece of mahogany on either side of the pine to create a toerail 2.25" thick. These were rounded over with a router and finished bright. Here is a picture of what the finished product looks like. Notice the dock dings, I'm going for a "workboat look" This idea came from Bob Butler and it was on one or two of the THREE weekender boats that he built. The splash coamings were made the same way because I would cut the first piece out of pine and then transfer that to the mahogany, but then I couldn't see wasteing the pine so I just alternated each layer. http://www.donlinbuilding.com/sailboat/SmallSplashToe.jpg

Here is how we mounted the electrics on our two boats. This is a picture of the pintles from West Marine http://www.donlinbuilding.com/sailboat/SmallMotorMount.jpg and here is a pic of the motor mount that I made http://www.donlinbuilding.com/sailboat/motorplate.jpg Sorry the pic is so dark but all I did was to cut the heads off of some 5/16" bolts and weld them to a piece of 1/4" by 1 flat iron, that was then bolted onto the board that the motor was clamped to, the top pintle is longer than the bottom two pintles.

Alright, something I know about, 1" thick steel is 40.84 pounds per sq. ft.