Well this was my plan, but like all good ideas its been nabbed.
Dont tell Deb though.
Senin, 08 Agustus 2016
Minggu, 07 Agustus 2016
Side Work
After 6 coats of varnish, I was tired of that operation and needed to get the sides done. The plan was to do some paint graphics to hide some fiberglass reinforcement tape at the plywood butt joints on the sides and at the side to transom junction. The tape at the bow seemed to fade away sufficiently to ignor it. I tried to get a graphic designer to work on a design with me, but he must be busy as he was not returning my recent calls. So my wife, Vicky said "Lets grab some paper, colored pencils and work out our own design"....and so we did." I added a beer to the operation to loosen up the creative juices. Then we went to an art supply store to get some 1/4" wide artist tape to do the masking in the curved areas.
After the curved areas were done another pass of wider tape was put down and then some masking paper over all the varnish areas to protect from the roller and splatter. I used 3/4" wide tape to define the boot stripe and then masked above and below it and then removed it. The butt end of a x-acto knife was used to burnish the edge of the tape to prevent paint bleed. (This worked well but I would recommend that the burnishing be done twice as I had a few areas where I got some bleeding where I must not have gotten the tape edge down tight).
After putting down a coat of primer and sanding, a coat of white was painted on just using a foam roller. The bubbles did not pop as the paint can said it would, so after sanding, the second coat was applied with a roller and tipped off with a foam brush - much better. Then the blue portion was masked off and painted. I decided that the blue areas will probably be finshed off with a border of 1/4" wide white vinyl tape as masking off a consistent narrow band seemed impossible. The blue dried overnight and a second coat
applied. Next day it was mask removal time to see what was under the mess of paint, 
paper and tape. Looks pretty cool I think.
After the curved areas were done another pass of wider tape was put down and then some masking paper over all the varnish areas to protect from the roller and splatter. I used 3/4" wide tape to define the boot stripe and then masked above and below it and then removed it. The butt end of a x-acto knife was used to burnish the edge of the tape to prevent paint bleed. (This worked well but I would recommend that the burnishing be done twice as I had a few areas where I got some bleeding where I must not have gotten the tape edge down tight).
After putting down a coat of primer and sanding, a coat of white was painted on just using a foam roller. The bubbles did not pop as the paint can said it would, so after sanding, the second coat was applied with a roller and tipped off with a foam brush - much better. Then the blue portion was masked off and painted. I decided that the blue areas will probably be finshed off with a border of 1/4" wide white vinyl tape as masking off a consistent narrow band seemed impossible. The blue dried overnight and a second coat
applied. Next day it was mask removal time to see what was under the mess of paint, paper and tape. Looks pretty cool I think. Later when I talked with the graphics guy, he showed me how to mask out a border band so I could paint it so I would have a perfect color match. He showed me how to mask using 1/4" vinyl tape that he gave me that bends easily without puckering. A couple of hours later I had another white strip outlining the blue areas.
Final side work was a 1/4" red-orange stripe put on by the graphics guy and the word "Squirt" done in a 50s retro script lettering.
Final side work was a 1/4" red-orange stripe put on by the graphics guy and the word "Squirt" done in a 50s retro script lettering. Unusual Boat
This boat moored up next to us last night.
There is much talk of wrapping as a way of "painting" a narrowboat, or indeed any boat.
www.maidoffibre.com
I had a very close look and even close too its difficult to see the joins. As this is a printed design its camouflaged to a great extent. I think if it was to be done as a single colour it would have to be done in a continuous strip or the joints over the windows at the shortest point.
The windows have also been done and from the outside they look covered but on closer inspection it can be seen they are full of small holes. The owner said looking out was different.
Sabtu, 06 Agustus 2016
Throttle Shift Controller Arrives Finally!
Back in early July after advertising on the Antique Outboard Motor Club website that I needed a controller, I got a response from a guy in New Jersey that he had a Green Quicksilver manual two lever controller with cables that would be the right length for a Squirt and the appropriate vintage for my motor. He actually had it on a Squirt some years back. We agreed on a price, I sent a check and started waiting for the package to arrive. I made some follow-up calls to him and he said he was trying to track down the package with the post office. After several weeks and a few interim calls, I called ready to ask for a refund and he said the post office never did find it in their system but over the weekend a soggy box with all the addresses blurred arrived back at his shop. It was my wayward controller. He repackaged it and sent it UPS this time and gave me the tracking number. I tracked it on the UPS website right to my door and it only took 3 days. 
Its all there and the cables hook up to the engine as its supposed to. After playing around with various potential locations, it seems that the best location is between the carling and the shear just aft of the dash. If mounted low on the side it has to be on the floor for the levers to clear and its not a comfortable place while seated in the boat. Inboard of the carling, the cables are exposed and its right where my knee wants to be. This means the decking will need a cutout for the levers to protrude through. Other Squirt builders have mounted it there and now I see why.
Its all there and the cables hook up to the engine as its supposed to. After playing around with various potential locations, it seems that the best location is between the carling and the shear just aft of the dash. If mounted low on the side it has to be on the floor for the levers to clear and its not a comfortable place while seated in the boat. Inboard of the carling, the cables are exposed and its right where my knee wants to be. This means the decking will need a cutout for the levers to protrude through. Other Squirt builders have mounted it there and now I see why.
The cables have the necessary connectors for hook-up to the motor and are about 9 long. They may be a bit long but it all seems to work. He included an extra set of cables that are about 11 long just in case.
One Lives And Learns!
I have to admit that despite doing all the calculations, in the real world the 240v electric combo microwave / oven just wasnt doing what it should have.
It did work from the engine alternators or the new 12v genset through the inverter but it was just not efficient and also an engine had to be running to use it so noisy too. So reluctantly I have had to admit I was wrong. I know I was told many times on the forums and had quizzical raise eyebrows from people I spoke to about it face to face.
So I now have a gas oven and full width grill and jolly well (and silently) it works too.
Read More..
It did work from the engine alternators or the new 12v genset through the inverter but it was just not efficient and also an engine had to be running to use it so noisy too. So reluctantly I have had to admit I was wrong. I know I was told many times on the forums and had quizzical raise eyebrows from people I spoke to about it face to face.
So I now have a gas oven and full width grill and jolly well (and silently) it works too.
Once fitted I did a gas leak check with a digital manometer. Start pressure was 39mb. The supply was turned off and the pressure dropped to 30mb by turning on a gas ring. It was left to settle for 5 minutes where it dropped 4mb. After another 5 minutes the pressure had risen slightly to 28mb. I left it another 20 minutes or so which is more than is required and the pressure remained at 28mb. Test passed.
Selasa, 02 Agustus 2016
Post apocalyptic Boat Building
Why build skin boats? Ive been asking myself that ever since I started building skin boats. Ive come up with a bunch of practical reasons such as low price but thats not really why I built them. First and foremost I liked the looks of skin boats. But right up there with good looks was also a yearning for self-reliance. I wanted to be able to build a boat that at least in principle I could build entirely from scavenged materials with simple tools that if need be I could make myself.
For the sake of convenience, I use electrical tools to cut the wood and synthetic fiber cloth as a skin and petroleum based paint to seal the skin so I dont really build an entirely off the grid boat. But I like to imagine that I could build a boat strictly from found materials in the manner that people of the Arctic once did. In a way, the Arctic before the arrival of the Europeans was very much like what a post-apocalyptic (PA) world would be like. No stores, no factories, no electricity. Everything you wanted you had to scrounge or barter for.
But a PA world would not look exactly like the pre-industrial Arctic. A PA world would have a lot of stuff from the industrial world still laying around like scrap metal, wire, plywood, tar and even ready to use hand-tools. A PA world would not be a stone age world necessarily. It would be a world that had very little new stuff in it. If you wanted new stuff, like a new kayak for instance, you or one of your friends would have to make it themselves.
Could I build a boat entirely from scrounged materials in a PA world? Probably. More than likely, if I wanted a boat with some cargo capacity, I would probably scavenge plywood, and make it out of that. I dont know what would be available in the way of sealers to keep the boat from leaking, but I could probably find something.
If I wanted to build a skin on frame kayak, that would be fairly easy. Plenty of construction lumber installed in buildings. I am assuming that I could get some hand saws. The hardest thing to find would be a suitable skin. I imagine myself scrounging tarps or awnings and sewing those together, again, assuming I could get a hold of some needles or maybe even make them from bone. If the tarps were plastic, they wouldnt need a sealer. If the tarps were not plastic, I would have to figure out a way to make them waterproof.
Hunting sea mammals for skins would be more or less out of the question. That would require more skill than I have. Even if I could manage to kill a sea lion hauled out on a beach by stealth, I would need four skins to cover a kayak. Getting four skins would be way too ambitious.
But how exactly did people of the Arctic build their kayaks in a pre-industrial world? We have some ideas but Europeans have been going to the Arctic since the 17th century and most of the kayaks now in museums were built with at least some access to steel tools and also possible to milled lumber.
The pictures below show what kayak building looked like in the transitionary period when people in the Arctic still built kayaks, but had industrially sourced tools and materials available to them. The kayak type being built here is Eastern Arctic, that is Canadian Arctic. These kayaks were long flat and stable and if you killed a seal, you transported the carcass on the wide back deck of the kayak.
Read More..
For the sake of convenience, I use electrical tools to cut the wood and synthetic fiber cloth as a skin and petroleum based paint to seal the skin so I dont really build an entirely off the grid boat. But I like to imagine that I could build a boat strictly from found materials in the manner that people of the Arctic once did. In a way, the Arctic before the arrival of the Europeans was very much like what a post-apocalyptic (PA) world would be like. No stores, no factories, no electricity. Everything you wanted you had to scrounge or barter for.
But a PA world would not look exactly like the pre-industrial Arctic. A PA world would have a lot of stuff from the industrial world still laying around like scrap metal, wire, plywood, tar and even ready to use hand-tools. A PA world would not be a stone age world necessarily. It would be a world that had very little new stuff in it. If you wanted new stuff, like a new kayak for instance, you or one of your friends would have to make it themselves.
Could I build a boat entirely from scrounged materials in a PA world? Probably. More than likely, if I wanted a boat with some cargo capacity, I would probably scavenge plywood, and make it out of that. I dont know what would be available in the way of sealers to keep the boat from leaking, but I could probably find something.
If I wanted to build a skin on frame kayak, that would be fairly easy. Plenty of construction lumber installed in buildings. I am assuming that I could get some hand saws. The hardest thing to find would be a suitable skin. I imagine myself scrounging tarps or awnings and sewing those together, again, assuming I could get a hold of some needles or maybe even make them from bone. If the tarps were plastic, they wouldnt need a sealer. If the tarps were not plastic, I would have to figure out a way to make them waterproof.
Hunting sea mammals for skins would be more or less out of the question. That would require more skill than I have. Even if I could manage to kill a sea lion hauled out on a beach by stealth, I would need four skins to cover a kayak. Getting four skins would be way too ambitious.
But how exactly did people of the Arctic build their kayaks in a pre-industrial world? We have some ideas but Europeans have been going to the Arctic since the 17th century and most of the kayaks now in museums were built with at least some access to steel tools and also possible to milled lumber.
The pictures below show what kayak building looked like in the transitionary period when people in the Arctic still built kayaks, but had industrially sourced tools and materials available to them. The kayak type being built here is Eastern Arctic, that is Canadian Arctic. These kayaks were long flat and stable and if you killed a seal, you transported the carcass on the wide back deck of the kayak.
 |
| Heres a guy in his open air workshop, no special jigs or benches or other sort of stuff you would expect to find in a boat shop. But he does seem to have a handsaw that he is using to trim something in the cockpit area of his kayak. |
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| This guy is sitting in his workshop. Hes using some rocks to level out the deck of his kayak. Hes got the rib blanks stuck into their mortises, all ready for bending and trimming. Or maybe he is going to do three-part ribs with hard corners. Also not the canvas tent in the background. |
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| Here two people are working at putting a skin on the finished kayak frame. The skin is canvas, not seal hide so one or two people can do the job. Putting on seal hide usually was a task for many women since the hides had to be kept wet and pieced together which required way more sewing than was practical for one woman to do by herself although it was probably done solo sometimes by necessity. Also not the wood plank in the foreground, evidence of milled lumber brought into this location, probably by ship. Also note the long wide and flat back deck suitable for transporting the spoils of the hunt. So what can we say about boat building in an imaginary PA world? Probably possible as long as nobody has any set ideas about what is allowed in the ways of tools and materials. |
Senin, 01 Agustus 2016
Wallpaper Oak Trims
All the oak trims have now been ordered from a company in North London. I found a firm that would produce exactly what I wanted. As well as their extensive range of standard moldings they also produce to customer requirement.
www.dwgeneralwood.co.uk
I have various angle beads, skirting, architrave, flats, and special design capping.
Today I hung the wall paper in the lounge. It was a bastard! The paper went up well but to find the patten match, well it took ages. This is the dark one, we are having a light one in the bedroom which is going to be even harder.
Hmm! Crocodiley
Its amazing how a flash gun reveals what the eye cant see normally
All the panels for the bed base should arrive tomorrow so work on finishing the bedroom can start.
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