grendel

Ah ok, we will just have to settle for his Pearls of wisdom then.

mind you, I wouldnt want you to think I had shelled out a furtune for this lot, just a couple of quid and a couple of hours produced this.

I will be testing things like that, I have already learned one thing, they are all the same wood - just stained a different colour, I am going to plump for lime, as the smell while cutting is quite lemony, this is a perfect hardwood for bending. anyway just under 2 hours later, I have a nice selection of strips to build with. next to test how well they bend with steam?

Well here is my new collection of timber, just off into the garden in a minute to make it into useable rib thicknesses and planks, one lot is something like beech, the other is oak.

I cant wait to see Charlie sporting his pearl necklace

Well I had a nice walk into town (to get the bits I needed to sort out my cider) I called into some charity shops en route home and managed to pick up another wood slat blind for just £2, plenty of thin strip wood now.

My trip to the dentists today is complete, so I have the rest of the day to do things, first was refitting those strips to test them. then I had a brainwave, I have enough of these strips that they can form the basis of the ribs for the second model, the wood is a finer grain and no knots, and is more flexible than the wood I am currently using, plus there is enough strips that I can get the right number of ribs from just the two sides (outside the slots for the strings). this should give even better results than I have achieved on this hull (see I am learning all the time). I will strip some to size on the table saw and see how they perform in the steam bending. they are not long enough to plank the hull (though they would do a great job) I may be investigating how much these wooden blinds cost

today, a chance find of a wooden slatted blind that had been chucked in a skip and I have some nice flexible parts to make formers for the front section ribs. another glued on, another steamed, this time on the intermediate former.

by the time I have finished we should literally have a step by step how to build the model record.

a boring update today, another rib in place and another one steamed up, I might need to make an intermediate former soon as the shape is starting to change quite quickly at this point on the hull - thinking about it doesnt get it done - so I just went and did it. first pic - the step between formers, second pic - the new former

I allow all spam to come in, my email provider (bt) handily marks messages it thinks are spam by adding [SPAM] to the title, so I filter on that to a junk folder, this avoids the problem that the ISP filters out some genuine messages along with the spam. once a day I visit the folder and move all the genuine messages back out of the spam folder. I can generally keep my time spent checking emails down to about 10 minutes a day. I use windows live mail, on vista and win10, and sylpheed on linux, as well as picking up my emails on my tablet (not so friendly for sorting emails)

Tim, and there was me thinking you would want to be buried with a roman gladius, a viking tortoise brooch and a mobile phone, with your favorite beagle lying at your feet - just to confuse the heck out of future archaeologists. Oh yes and maybe a sign saying ' I aint dead'

tonights efforts, fit a rib steam a rib, next I was looking ahead, and thinking how I was going to form the ribs for the forrard section, as between the bulkheads we go from a curved bilge, to the totally opposite curve. hmm, I laid a couple of planks in place and observed the twist they have to follow. I may have to lay some planks in place and steam round them, maybe alternate planks (to give space to get clamps in). this will have to happen in a week or so, once I have filled in the next couple of sections with ribs.

My Uncle when they extended the Thanet way through Whitstable was Mayor of Canterbury, the road was gointg to be just next to his hedge, but he got it moved a further 50 yards away, when he happened to find some rare vole living in his hedge. (nobody knows where he got it from and to this day he wont admit anything). This was the same uncle who ended up with a metal plate in his skull from playing rugby, this however did come in handy when the local Gypsys used to shoot air rifles at him when he was out running, just keep your head down and keep running was his advice.

Even Grendel's have real names QV, and indeed mine is Peter (or Pete for short )

no Tim, the anti nuclear, anti wind farm, anti solar brigade will do that for us, when all the existing power stations close down (some are already well past their use by dates- the replacements having been blocked by various pressure groups, or not in my backyard protesters.

all cleaned up and fitted nearly in place (needs to move back a bit) and another rib fitted, another steamed and in the shaping jig.

just ;popped over to watch and saw a collision with a dayboat, another small boat started cutting behind the dayboat, sitting side on to the river, just as it started reversing to moor up, tight swerve with what appeared to be a bow to bow collision.

it doesnt say record, but has a big number six cast on the side. The good news is it does the job, even not bolted down, its heavy enough to do the job. starting with the vice sheet metal bender I took each side of the channel to about 75 degrees, this left more of a u channel, so it was wrapped around a piece of 1/4" bar steel, this was then crimped tight to bring the bends to 90 degrees and the bottom of the channel hammered flat. This was test fitted on the model, then some wood of a suitable thickness was inserted, and the straight lines of the shape cut, the rounded corners were achieved by drilling just through the brass in the corner with a 10mm drill. all that remains is to file all of the rough edges, and one skeg is made. the offcuts from the brass were bent up to form soft jaws for the vice.

as I said thats the light one, the others are older and heavier

well the vice is picked up, It was a bit epic, normally I would have tackled it from the garage doors, but when I got there someone had stacked an 18" high pile of fence panels in front of my mother in laws garage, ( i havent been round the back there for a couple of years, and she probably hasnt looker there in 5 years at least), so it was then in through the entrance from the garden, this I had been dreading, armed with long handled loppers, I attacked the brambles. it was a good ten feet of dense brambles to get to the door, I didnt even find Sleeping Beauty's castle en route. Eventually I made it, then cleared half the workbench and unbolted the very big heavy vice, before spotting this one sitting unbolted under the pillar drill, this was lighter with wider jaws, so a better choice. there was also my blacksmiths vice, andinaccessible, just visible at the far end of the bench, another of my heavy vices, in the garage to the side was a further heavy vice, I make that 5 I had a choice of, this was the lightest. I also found my little razor plane, and some oak drawer fronts.

Nothing got done yesterday, I had a meccano club meeting, this was over an hours drive away, and when it finished I proceeded to the pub with some work colleagues who had come along. after getting home and having my dinner, I had to run my daughter up to A&E, not returning until 10pm, so no work done. The big hassle in the morning came when I went to get some cash out and all of the machines rejected my card, home again and a quick phone call determined there was a fault on the chip, with a new card on its way, I then had to get into town to the bank (why are they in the middle of all the pedestrian areas miles from the nearest parking) I then had to queue with all the shopkeepers getting their change for the day, at the one human teller (they have converted all the other positions to machines that use your card! ) to withdraw some cash to tide me over until my new card arrives - though apparently online purchases will still work - hmm can you get the car filled up with petrol online? having left home at 9.00am, I eventually left Canterbury at 10.30am, now just a little bit late, still a good day was had by all and my crane managed to win a cup.

more of the same today, ribs \fitted, ribs steamed, well if you want to imagine it, just watch the videos again

having seen how the moored boats curtains twitched when Broad Ambition wens down the rivers after dark, I would be surprised if any managed to get away with it, mind you I wonder How many times private craft moving after dark have been reported?

well no videos for a couple of days, tomorrow will be the same as today, fitting ribs, saturday I am out all day, and I should pick up a vice sunday, after that I can post a video of the skeg bending (hopefully)