Hunting Expedition

 If you haven't figured it out yet, this is supposed to be a building blog.  It might occasionally be more than that.  Please understand that this doesn't mean more entertaining..  In fact, it will likely be less.

Since I don't have my plywood kit or timber kit yet (I didn't order until November and I won't get them until after the first of 2021), I'm basically thrashing around finding parts by any means possible and trying to gather them into my orbit.  I've found a ST1000+ Raymarine tiller pilot and a very nice Torqueedo 1003 electric outboard, both used on Craigslist.

I've purchased or put a deposit on a few other things (wind vane steering unit, hatches, class required stainless steel kit).  I'm trying to get a handle on the long lead time items before I get to building my boat in earnest.  Once I'm building, I'm sure I'll need to be concentrating on that.

In the mean time, Hull 79 and I have been working on cutting out keel parts.  I slightly modified the files supplied to cut out the keel fin and keel top plate.  These are supplied "to size" and don't take into account clearance needed to assemble the parts.  They leave that it to the user to decide how much clearance they want to add for assembly and welding.  I REALLY REALLY like and trust the company that's cutting out our keels.  Danrich Welding does a fantastic job and has some really top notch welders in Juan and Jaime.  Jim runs a pretty tight ship and keeps raw materials coming in and great work going out.  Danrich cut the parts a few weeks ago on his really cool laser machine.  We cut 3 keels and 4 top plates because that's what we can get out of a sheet of 5/8" material and a half sheet of 5/16" material.  We have a keel fin and two extra top plates.  If you're interested in obtaining them, contact me or Hull 79 through our blogs and we'll work it out.  I certainly don't need to store them.

It's super neat to look at, but a seven minute video about laser cutting is pretty long.  I'll shorten it as soon as I figure out how.

This is what it looks like after the parts go through the laser.  The three keels took about 18 minutes to cut.  Cutting these out freehand using a band saw, a box of zipper wheels or some other method would have taken a lot of hours and they would been about 1000 times less accurate.+

What follows is a lot of milling (removing material precisely, chip by chip, very slowly) and grinding (removing material as dust very slowly).  The operative words here are very and slowly.  I'm not rich enough to own machinery to do any of it quickly.  Cheap means you get to spend your time to do stuff.  Since I don't have any parts of the hull to build, what else do I have to do?

Welding is happening on Monday morning and I can't wait to see it happen.  It'll be the first serious component to keep moving.  Next will be cleaning up the welds and then on to the guy doing the galvanizing.