KVARK – the homebuilt microcruiser

Well yes, there was a ton of “magic smoke” out of the machine, but that did not lessen the fun. The secondary of one of the transformers cooked and needs to be replaced. I’m looking into replacing it with enameled solid profile wire. Plus, as I found out, the spacing need not be tight in MOT (Microwave Oven Transformer) conditions. Meaning that I will leave some space between the MOT face and the winding loop to provide better cooling. Fixing the wires in place is good practice, because otherwise the wires will physically jump around the core, yielding losses and unnecessary noise. Enameled wire will also be better at giving away its heat, since there is less material for the heat to penetrate (compare to the insulation). There will be a upgraded forced air cooling system with better airflow regulation. I’m not sure about ballasting the thing. Magnetic shunts in the MOT cores seem to give pretty stable arc. Once arced, I could pretty much weld a whole rod. There should be a fail solution though, when you forget yourself to the fun of welding “very important metal pieces to other very important metal pieces” and forgetting that the coils might burst into flames any moment. As for usage on the ship, I’m thinking there is plenty of welding to be done once we get to building the deck and rigging.

Here you see some very important metal pieces welded together. To the right are some more or less decent welds. The rest you see is sputter. It all holds together though, I gave this unification of metal a good hammering and all I got were dents. Shall I sell it on Ebay?

Another update after a short and unfortunately relatively boatbuilding-free summer.

We were at the workshop yesterday and started working on the doublers again. Three of them are now dry-fitted and they stand very nicely on their own, you can even lie down on the floor of the boat between the bulkheads and get a feel of what it’d be like on an extended trip on the sea. We also tried out the welding apparatus that Uku built, for me it was my first welding job ever. Feeling the current go through something you hold in your hand and looking at the electric arc was exhilarating, but it seems that one needs to be really skilled for this to work, so practice, practice. The electrode really wanted to get stuck on the material, shorting out the apparatus. In the end we got a lot of smoke out of the secondary transformer after it overheated so now Uku will probably have a look at the core and perhaps rewind it if it’s shorted out, but I’d say once we become more skilled it could be a viable way of welding some of the metal parts we’re going to need later.

Now I’ve got to run to classes, but I plan to glue the doubler to B#1 today, some pictures will follow.

Well, no updates for some time, but the time has been spent well. As a side project I just completed an arc welding rig out of some old microwave ovens and an old PC chassis. First welds will be to my bike saddle, but I see a potential use of it in the shipbuilding as well. Perhaps weld up the rudder hinges?