Yet more parts..
Yet more parts..
Slabs of solid fiberglass ready to be sent out to be water-jet cut into more interesting and useful boat parts. The larger slab is 3/8” and will become keel top plates when its complete. The smaller is about 3/16” and is going to be mainsheet control backing plates when its complete.
We’ve been ordering stuff. Here’s a pallet of Acetone, catalyst, spiral tube, spray-tack and core. This came in yesterday. The gelcoat and 1/2” plastic tubing everyone was waiting for didn’t come in ‘till this morning.
1 1/4” core for the cockpit floors. I beginning to think this stuff is weighed in Troy ounces.
As some of you must remember from the last build. The cockpit floor gets extra thick core because it has an extra wide flat span to deal with. This thicker core gives us the needed rigidity without a lot of extra weight being added to the deck.
Winches for the keel lifts and stereo speakers. Today I ordered the masts, PBO rigging and all the Harken bits. I tried to order the trailer frames but didn’t get through on that call. Most likely tomorrow.
Pretty much most everything is ordered for now. There’s going to be one big boat parts order that’s in the works as I type, then at some point some more glass and another barrel of resin.
Glass parts are getting finished up and going on the shelves. The compression post bases complete and ready to install.
Chain plate anchors..
Keel spars..
First hatch shell, this isn’t complete, its still has a few steps to go before going on the shelf.
Keel skin molds. These came out of storage yesterday for cleanup and wax. They are currently coated with clear gel-coat and ready to be dry-stacked.
And here’s the dry-stack. Tom tells me this is planned for tomorrow AM. I’m not sure they’ll will make, it but we might have the first set of keel skins shot tomorrow.
Or maybe the day after?
Mostly dry-stacked. I’m guessing now its going to be the day after..
First rudder having its halves bonded together. That is the funkiest lookin’ setup.. It always works out fine, but I have to find something else to do when they put these things together.
Rudder molds cleaned waxed, gel-coated and ready for the next set of material to be loaded in.
There is a running joke around here about the “last mold”. I keep promising that we will be done with engineering and just be doing production, after this “last mold”.
Sigh..
What you see here is our current “last mold” being created. On the side of the battery case, we have a 20Amp main breaker for the boat. We needed a mount for this and Tim made up a Q&D mold (Scraps & hot-melt glue) to make a little covering mount for this switch. All the Darts ended up getting these little fiberglass switch covers/mounts. They work great and are really slick. Tim asked me last week if we could make a “real” mold for this part ‘cause we seem to be making them all the time. And, the old mold was supposed to be used for only one part. So, we’re making this one last mold for the Dart..
Tuesday, December 11, 2012