Well, soon it is May. We’ve lots of maybes going hot with that. But foremost: half the planks are now on the boat and the interior works are on the verge of completion. It is a long verge, though, as the past has shown us. We ended up ordering rudder hinges from Duckworks, as bending 3 mm stainless steel with a bench vise seemed awfully threatening. We understand that 1 mm steel will bend, but resigned the idea after seeing a 4 mm test piece we obtained. Windows have also been cut. Polycarbonate seems a facinating material. This is what covers the PopeMobile’s windows to make them bullet proof. It has quite different bending properties when compared to organic glass, which snaps under pressure. 8 mm polycarbonate can be bent 180 degrees back and forth several times with no breakage. It can be scratched, relatively easily. There are polycarbonates available with scrath proof coatings. Joosep obtained some stainless steel pulleys and we had a chance to test out our inside-cabin steering system. The rudder blade has been laminated, next task is to cut and laminate the two tiller holes. Our new 3o kg patch of epoxy is dissapearing at an alarming rate, with 1/3 of it gone in a month. Also: acetone did a wonderful job at cleaning our 2 year old epoxy pumps. Here is the gallery:
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- Joosep trimming shelve base plate edges with a saw.
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- A shot towards the galley. Instead of the tools we will have a gas stove, below it, we are concidering a metal plate.
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- A view of the inside as it pretty much is at the moment.
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- A promise of the future: this is the way we will have to take our boat out.
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- Bench hatches are complete. They stand fastened until we get to making gaskets.
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- The all-great polycarbonate glass. 8 mm thick, rated bulletproof.
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- Behind the galley is the well for the liferaft. This is it, the hole.
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- A test setup for the inside steering tiller. To the left is a solid piece of oak which is to be laminated to the rudder blade standing in the right of the picture.
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- The rudder blade, has an oak leading edge.
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- A watertight foam chamber in the aft.
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- To-be shelf.
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- A profile shot.
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- And… this is where we stand at the moment with our project. The wings are not for the boat. They are being built for a RedBull-flugtag event by the Technic club folk.
