Bigelow Bingo

The BINGO competition is fierce on this ship. Below: A toast to sea legs.

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All Fired Up

Just a quick post today cos I wanna share.

With the help of my dad on the ignition key I pressurised the fuel tank and got the engine to fire up.  Even without the exhaust connected it sounded sweet.

Earlier in the day I connected up the cooling water intake and with the aid of a hose pipe from the mains I started up the generator and was able to run it at duty speed.  Previously I had only been able to run it in a protected mode because there was no cooling water, and then only for a few seconds  Seems that if there is not enough water flow it will run in protected mode only.

So all diesel powered systems are working.  Central heating boiler, generator and main engine.

Photos to follow.

I have now connected the new power take off cables from the battery pack. 95mm/square cables which needed end terminals put on.

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River Lark Timelapse

I did some timelapse recording while cruising about during our month aboard.  I used a GoPro camera in timelapse mode taking 1 x 5mega pixel shot every 2 seconds.  In this video the final edit there are 7515 shots. These are then reduced in size to 1024 x 768 which takes so long to do I set the PC to do this task overnight.  Also for the assembly software to compile the images they have to be consecutively numbered.  The software used to reduce the size and re-number is Infranview.

The next stage is to compile the stills into a movie.  For this I use VirtualDub  The result is this:-

 First cut

Theres still a bit more to do to this so check back for sound and titles.

I have now been told  3.5 mph over 3.5 hours = 12.25 miles travelled which is about right . To cover that distance in 2 minutes youd have to be doing 367.5mph (12.25 x 60/2)

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Blast from the past!

"Where did you find that???" Nancy was doing some re-arranging and came across some old "stuff"...

I had almost forgotten the era of the "WinkieMobile". Its not such a bad name when you know that it was in honor of my old shop supervisor, Winston, an aging, but wonderful, Springer Spaniel, who was around for the building of all fourteen of them.

I know that I have many better shots of them somewhere, but these are available now and bring back some memories of the little car that we used to make, that we thought was a bit special. Unfortunately, it had over 300 parts to each one and we were unable to get back anywhere near what we put into them. Still, they hold a special place in my memory.

There was an evolution that came from the basic idea of it. A little car that was made of fine woods, with all sorts of features that kids might like. The hood opened and inside was a brightly colored engine with removeable spark plugs, air filter and the engine block came out too. Beneath that was the sophisticated steering system, operated using spindles and nylon rope to absorb shock. The trunk opened and contained a wrench made from maple, as well as a threaded jackstand so that the tires could be changed, or exchanged, with the spare which was held to the trunk lid by a maple "bolt" large enough to easily be turned by small hands. The wrench could also be used to extend the length of the car by unscrewing some maple nuts under the frame and sliding the the rear portion  of the car either forward or back.

That evolution started with visiting a friends toy store and finding out that there was much more involved than looks. The next step was to have it kid-tested and they virtually destroyed the first designs in minutes. We still have those cars. Finally, the, much more solid, WM3 design was adopted and everyone loved it, but...

What was special about the cars was that they were made from very fine hardwoods. They were all painted with a lacquer-like feel to their painted surfaces, but all finishes were done with water-based paints.With all of the parts involved, we had to create a lot of special templates and jigs. It took from four to eight months to build one.

Although "Fire Engine Red" was the most popular color, we also made them in White, Dark Blue, Yellow, and Teal. The seats were usually "book-matched" as in the white one above. The lighter wood is Tiger Oak and the darker wood is Black Walnut. We made their seats from Birds-Eye Maple, Black Walnut Burl, Koa and some other very interesting woods. The steering wheels were made from Purpleheart, Mahogany, Maple, and others. The bumpers of the white car above were made from Purpleheart. The bumpers went through an interesting evolution of shapes, the first being made as assemblies to form springs from Ash, changing to solid shapes that had "fiddle heads" carved into their ends. That was some interesting carving.

The last WinkieMobile? was a custom order. You can see the "fiddleheads" on the ends of the bumpers. The seats were book-matched Black Walnut Burl with Ash trim. It had a gold-lettered license plate. The hinges of the trunk lid were made from Koa.

Every now and then someone remembers that we used to make "those little cars". They were probably doomed from the start. We charged about $500, which didnt come close to covering costs. We were faced with people saying: "Why would my kid want that? They have a battey powered jeep and I didnt pay that much." We even had offers to have them made overseas for us. Our answer then was no and it would be the same now. To make them properly, you have to love them and nobody else would do that.

Its a moot point now. Hurricane Isabel flooded our shop in 2003 and we lost many of the necessary templates and jigs required to make "those little cars".  We had pretty much moved over to making only boat models by that time anyway, because they were in high demand.

Still, I have some good memories of "those little cars". Perhaps Ill find some of those other photos, so you can see the engines, the steering mechanisms and the chassis...

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Navigation Lights

We are off in under 2 weeks eek!

Final preparations now for the continent include extra navigation lights.  Since the boat was built it has always had port and starboard lights (red & green)

Mine are like these

but the continentals are a bit more picky about navigation lights.  I did however in preparation put in the roof a socket to add a masthead light.

This is how a boat of Avalons size should be lit at night or poor visibility

Because we dont expect to move much at night or in poor visibility the use of these lights will be limited, so I decided to make them easily removable.  They are attached with powerful magnetic mounts. 

 Masthead magmount

 Masthead light

 360 anchor light

Stern light (bolted down)

I have replacement LED bulbs on order for these new lights.

And the final prep is extra pins.  I could buy them but making them is far more me.  

I suggestion from my friend Graham (Contented Souls) about extra strong hold mooring pins, I have made these.

I have made a pair of these. These will act as 3 pins in one and each can have additional cross pins through the eyes. Of course in deployment they will be banged into the loop. 800mm each

Why?  Because there are some very big and fast commercial barges on the continental waterways of Europe.

Like this and bigger

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Generator Update

The new drive plate has been made and fitted.

Once the drive plate and new support frame was fully bolted into place a final dial gauge test was done. On the end of the shaft there was 5/1000th of an inch runout. This shaft will be cut back on final assembly to about 11/4" (30mm) when the HRC90 coupling is fitted. This will reduce the runout even more. The coupling is designed to take way more runout than this.

This video explains better than I ever could how the taper lock system works.

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Getting on with things

Boat building has stalled in the last few weeks as I realize that the raising of each frame will bring the project one step closer to completion or calamity. At this point, Im not sure which it is going to be and am thus reveling in a rather blissful ignorance. When the frames do go up next week (!), I will know once and for all whether Luna will be a beauty or a god-awful mess. The quality of the lofting job I did over a year ago will be put to the test when I can use a batten to check the three-dimensional curvature of the chine and sheer.

The last couple of days have seen me drinking a lot of wine, eating a lot of tamales, avoiding the boat shop,and over-analyzing each step Ive taken to get to this point. For each part of the project there were setbacks and things that didnt turn out quite like Id imagined (these lessons have been mentally filed under "The Next Boat"). After spending a lot of time before each new step thinking about what could go wrong, I realized that the sooner I could deal with what went wrong, the better. Id stall before each new venture (just as Im stalling now), think about various outcomes and contingencies, and ultimately had to decide to just do it. Just take a chainsaw to that keel piece you spent a week in the hot sun laminating. Just run a Skillsaw down the side of  keel. Just buy that planking even if you arent sure itll wrap around the hull. Just use that adhesive even if its not proven. Just glue this piece on that piece and bolt it to this piece.

Just build the boat.
 

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