Simon

Yeah Oz can't be written off yet. If we do get knocked off, I'll be backing NZ over the poms, bit of trans-Tasman solildarity ... NZ not doing so well in the tri-nation one day series in India at the moment - all out for 92 in the 31st over. Mind you we got flogged by the Indians a couple of days ago. We've lost all our star bowlers ... sob. (seems we can still cope with Flemming and the boys though ... for the moment ... )

Yep you'd have to say the All Blacks are equal favourites with England for the comp. Not much hope for the US against the French I'm afraid, who are guaranteed to finish on top of the table for their pool already. There have been some pretty ridiculus scores when it comes to the minnows of the tournament, e.g. the Wallabies beat Namibia 143 to nil, where a typical score for closely matched sides would be 16 to 12. So if the US can come out with a try or two and keep the French under 50 they will be doing okay.

Excellent advice guys, thanks ... Not sure how comfortable a flat backing plate will be on the seat though - should it sit proud, or should it be recessed (i.e. the plate is installed from behind)? Or is there a better way to get the access I need without sacrificing comfort and looks, that I haven't thought of?

Hi all, I want to install deckplates, similar to the pic shown, on the seat backs of my PC, to allow access for ventilation/backing plates in these flotation chambers. The seat backs are curved and as yet uninstalled. My question is, should I install the deckplates first and then glue in the seat backs or vice versa? Cheers, Simon. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Thanks for the kind replies everyone. It was alot of fun to build, but as Mark has guessed it pretty much brought the PC to a halt. I've been going pretty hard on it over the last week or so though, hoping to get the cockpit finished before the birth (in about 2 weeks). By the time I get round to painting, the baby should be old enough to crawl inside the cabin lockers and paint in there. Sorry to hear of your loss Mark, that must be really hard. I'll have to take the battery situation as it comes, I'm hoping that the baby is anachronistic as I am, and will prefer clever mechanical toys that don't need batteries, but I don't like my chances .... I've told everyone that the baby would like handtools for its zeroth, but they keep giving me jumpsuits instead, what the hell am I sposed to do with these?

See more at: www.maths.uwa.edu.au/~scolling/cradle[/i] PS: Frank, large photos are available for the calender if any seem suitable.

Yep, she looks sweet mate, congratulations. I'm curious about the last shot on that page - have you removed the cabin bulkhead, or is that a trick of the light?

Ouch! Seriously though, I've been working on a different project over the last few weeks (more on that later), which I'm currently in the finishing stages of. Its much smaller than a weekender, and its really given me an appreciation of the amount of work (sanding) required it would have required to get the level of finish you have on 'Fire Escape." Its kind of satisfying though. One of the most frustrating things is when you fill up a hole with epoxy, leave it for 24 hours, sand it back, and ... the hole is still there! Usually a bit smaller, but, well its just as much work to refill it again ... sigh. :roll:

So you haven't had any leaks then? :P

Gee, it would be so much easier and quicker to just build two of the same type. You could paint them and finish them completely differently to make sure there was no confusion. It wouldn't be as fun though I suppose.

Aliright, I'm starting to feel guilty now, 'cause I voted to stay the same before I read Frank's pros and cons. The thumbnails do sound pretty good on reflection, so subtract a vote from "stay the same" and add it to "thumbnails."

Chris, what did you do instead of countersinking the screws?

From all I've heard these masts a massively over engineered, so there's quite a good chance that your's is still usable, at least short term. No other ideas really, unless you can source single, solid piece of wood to use - or buy mountains of fast drying glue (like 5 minute epoxy) and lay up another one.

Let's hope he's not thinking of Hari Kari.

Hey Tim, I think its about time we had an update on this one - when you posted it first I was intrigued, but patient. Now I'm intrigued and impatient! I've had this wild idea for ages of making up a catamaran (or perhaps a tri) by welding 44 gallon drums end to end and then fabricating nose cones for them. Not going to happen very soon, but that was the first thing that occurred to me when I saw this post. So fill us in on the 'wonderful story' that goes with this boat - the pics and report on the sea trial would be great too. How's the luthiering buisness? Is it still keeping you out of the water? Take it easy, Simon.

The pose reminds me of an ancient samuri warrior contemplating his deadly foe.

Fantastic :)

Man that lake is absolutely stunning :shock: You ever see a picture of a place and just realise that you have to go there? I think I had a dream about that lake once. Excuse me while I get out the map out. I may not get much work done today. Do you have that pic in a larger format? I'd like to set it as wallpaper. Nice boat too.

I have an old laser that has been sitting around in my parents shed for some time and is no longer welcome there. The hull is basically fine, but around the top of the footwell, where you would sit with your feet in the well is cracked and the glass has become very weak and flexible. I have a couple of thoughts on fixing it up, they are: i) grind off the gelcoat for a large area surrounding the crack and build up layers of glass until it becomes rigid or ii) cut the hole open and try to insert some wood reinforcing under the crack and then put layers of glass on top of this. Does anyone have any alternative suggestions, or reasons why one or the other method might be better?

This is what I did on my PC - I routed this profile into some lengths of Jarrah and then glued them on. Not ideal for a number of reasons stated by people in this forum, but it looks quite nice .... relatively easy too. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Fantastic, congratulations. :) Are you wearing a bag on your head in that second shot? Come on, it can't be that bad - let's see the proud father! :P

Hey Abe, enough teasing with close up shots of the stern and rudder mechanism - lets have some pics of the whole boat to drool over.....