The brass machine screws arrived this afternoon so once work was done I went down to the workshop to fit them. Although the required length is just 12mm I bought ones that were 20mm in length and cut them down to fit. The reason being that I’m more likely to use 20mm lengths and they come in packs of 20.
It didn’t take long to cut the machine screws to length, grind the ends so that a nut fits and then to fit them to the outer housing.
I still do not have a simple way to mount the LED in the bottom of the outer housing, so I just made up something that will do for now and if it proves to be deficient in any way then I can find a better way then.
I did take the time while the light was still in the sky to sand and put the fourth, and last, coat of varnish on the hatch runners. Once this is hard I shall put the hatch on, probably in a week or so since the temperature is still in the single digits and will be for at least the next week according to the forecast.
The mounting of the LED is not that difficult, it is the wires that are the problem.
So this is the way I’m going right now. This is the underside of the LED mount with the LED and the wires held to the wood with hot glue.
I have reassembled the compass, now to try out the lighting.
I have a variable power supply in my office which I set to 12V and connected the LED. This is the result with the office light on.
And with the office light off. Not at all bad.
Except that the inner housing has been put in backwards and the lubber line, which should at the front of the compass is at the back. So I will have to change that.
While I had the compass open again I took a photo of the LED mount. As you can see, it is very simple. Hopefully the huge blob of glue I put on the wires and wood will hold and stop them from being torn off.
Here is the compass the correct was around. You can see the word AFT on the outer ring at the bottom and the lubber line now opposite, where it should be.
So, the compass is done and now needs to be installed into the cockpit. But, since I get into and out of the boat on the starboard side, putting the compass in now would be right in the way, so I’ll put it aside somewhere safe and install it closer to the launch day.
Shoal Waters was fitted with a ‘ fine brass binnacle compass’ (Sailing Just for Fun p113) and whilst it originally had a detachable domed top, complete with viewing window and side illumination, this has gone missing somewhere back in the mists of time. Still the compass survives but needs a little work.
Here is the compass disassembled. Originally, before being installed in Shoal Waters the compass gimballed in all axes, but Charles removed the fore and aft gimbal so that it just gimbals side to side.
I drilled out the 1/4″ holes in which the lugs of the compass inner housing located and press for four roller bearings, two in each side.
The lugs are quite sturdy and fit securely into the bearings.
The Bakelite bearing supports rest on two flat Bakelite pieces screwed to the outer housing and held in place by screws from the outside. These, being brass, had started to soften so I’ve ordered some more, but M5 bolts this time.
The holes in the Bakelite bearing supports were drilled out to 4.2mm and them tapped with a 5mm tap.
The bolts secure the supports inside the outer housing.
I used the M5 stainless bolts that I had available but these will be replaced with brass once they arrive.
The next task is to mount the red LED inside the housing which is not as easy as it sounds since the LED must not be too high or it will foul the inner housing as it gimbals.
This is where the compass is mount in the cockpit and you can see the small hole for the LED as it was originally mounted in the bridge deck rather than in the compass. I aim to change that and just have the wires go through the hole, probably through some sort of grommet that will also serve to stop water from going down the hole.
So. it is time to put the thinking cap on and devise a way to mount the LED.
Just a few small tasks today, starting with applying the third coat of varnish to the hatch runners on Shoal Waters.
It is also time to apply some slippery gunk to the hatch itself. I made a jar of furniture wax a decade and a half ago consisting of beeswax, linseed oil and White Spirit for several projects I had back then. I made a lot more than I needed, but it has proved useful during the intervening years. I recently used it on two rope winding heads, on the teeth of the wooden gears.
Today I’ll use it on the htach.
This is the before photo, you can see that the wood is mostly untreated. It might have been treated with something originally, but years of sliding back and forth on the runners would have worn it off.
This is the after photo. I’ve applied two coats of the mixture. The white spirit acts like a solvent for the linseed oil and beeswax and penetrates the wood. The the spirit evaporates quite quickly and after that the oil slowly polymerises. The effect is to carry some of the beeswax into the wood leaving some on top of the wood.
The nice thing about this mix is that after a few days the surface of the wood is just covered with a thin layer of wax. If you get it on your hands or clothes, it is easily washed off.
The last task for today, I’m having a ‘rest’ day and not doing that much, is to cut the glass mat. I bought 2m of 1.27m wide 300g biaxial glass cloth and it needs to be cut in half.
Half of the mat covers the case side with plenty to spare, although I’ll probably need to cut it down to size a little more once it has been placed onto the pre-epoxied wood but before it is wetted out.
After this I folded both pieces up, put them into the bag it came in originally and took both the glass mat and the case side back into the workroom for the next stage.
It is February already and I need to get a move on. Still lots to do and time is starting to run out. The task for this wet and dreary day is to complete the construction of the port case side.
Unfortunately, the runner sprung slightly when I removed the cramps and I’ll have to do two things to rectify this. Firstly this gap needs to be cleaned out and filled and secondly, the runner will need to be trimmed on the bottom to compensate.
The first part is easy, a sharp chisel and some sandpaper and he job is done. The second part can wait until later when the pivot bolt hole is filled with epoxy.
Next task is to drill out the pivot bolt hole and to do this both case sides are clamped together and a 10mm drill drilled down through the completed starboard side drilling out the epoxy filled hole on the port side.
The next task is to make and fit the vertical support. Here I have already fitted the metal plate and marked the places where the screws will be put in from the inside.
The support was located using a 10mm drill bit through the support and the case side and then clamped in position so that the holes could be drilled through from the other side.
This is the inside and you can just see the tip of the 10mm drill bit in the pivot bolt hole.
Two of the holes were drilled and countersunk, then screws put in place to hold the support whilst the remaining four holes were drilled, countersunk and screws fitted. I use a vertical drill guide to make sure that the holes are drilled, well, vertically to the workpiece. I also drilled out the bolt hole to 13mm as was done before for the starboard side back on 1st January.
Once this was done, the mating sides of the support and case were lightly sanded, glue applied and the support screwed in place. The glue squeeze out was removed to reduce the work needed to clean up later.
Time for a cup of tea.
Having fixed the support in place it was time to move on to the diagonal brace.
I made a paper template from the first side and used that on the small angle jig.
Like this. This it was just a case of cut the end of the brace, make a template for the other end and then cut that to give me the brace with tapered ends.
Mark the position of the brace, drill holes through the side, clamp the brace in place and drill into the brace from the other side and chamfer the holes. Then glue it all together. Then I started shaping the ends to meet the runners and realised that I had made a critical error. The brace was the wrong way round !!
Fortunately, the glue had not started to set, so I hastily removed the screws, cleaned the clue (water soluble whilst still liquid) and put it on the other way around.
Here is the result and you can see where the brace was before. I’ll have to put epoxy in the screw holes to fill them up but I have to do that for the pivot bolt hole and the sprung section I referred to earlier. Once the side is installed into the boat and painted you probably will not notice the error. At least I hope so.
Now I definitely need a break.
Time for a cup of tea.
Before I took a break I brought both case sides up into the house to be in the warm since the next major task will be the epoxy, glass and graphite layers on the inside faces and the wood should be warm for that. Well, warmer than outside.
Then I took my tea break.
One I had consumed the tea I took the port side into the workroom, drilled out the errant screw holes to 12 mm, put squares of blue painter’s tape on both sides of each hole, making sure that the tape was pressed down firmly, then cut the tape on the top side to reveal the holes. The sprung section had tape put on the underside. Into these holes I put epoxy thickened with low density filler mixed to the consistency of double cream. I want it to flow into all the holes and fill them up without me having to press the epoxy in with a putty knife.
This is the sprung section.
And these are the screw holes. The blue bag you can see in the photo is a piping bag that I bought when I rebuilt Naiad. Well, I bought a roll of 100 catering piping bags and they are great for this sort of work and for putting down epoxy fillets with a stiffer epoxy mix. I used the slow hardener for this job so that the epoxy has time to seep into the wood fibers before curing to make sure that the hole is made completely watertight. A bit of an overkill, really, since this is the side that is going to be glassed but doing this gets to be a bit of a habit once you have done it a dozen times or more. Any hole that I make in a wooden hull, for example, is drilled out over size, filled with thickened epoxy and the correct sized hole drilled into the epoxy.
Before calling it a day I sanded the hatch runners on Shoal Waters and applied a second coat of varnish. It is currently 8º C and is forecast to be 6º to 7º between now and this time tomorrow, so the varnish should dry well in that time. Wednesday and Thursday are forecast to be a similar temperature, so I should be able to get another two coats on to complete that task. Then I’ll have to wait a few days for the varnish to harden completely before putting the hatch on.
The hatch is by the Rayburn until it is needed having had four coats of varnish all round. The day before I put it back on to the boat I need to grease the parts of the hatch that touch the runners so that it slides easily.
As I went out to the boat to apply the varnish, I noticed that I had left the cabin light on from this time last night. That means it has been on for 24 hours. The battery is an old one and doesn’t hold charge well any more, but the light was still on. Mind you, during the day I expect that the majority of the charge to the light came from the solar panels.
