Author: patrickxavier

Building a mast

patrickxavier
Making solid timber hollow.
With the aid of biscuits …
… two become one …
… and four become two (see bulkheads at far end, and on supports awaiting placement at gooseneck(s) and spreaders) …
… and then one again …
… clamped and glued, awaiting shaping.
Meanwhile, uroxsysing continues to six of ten coats: portlight lintels, …
… washboards and hatch slide …
… tiller end (brass cap screws flush, securing end to tiller) …
Engine control fitted to starboard
10 litre waterlock fitted for abundance of insurance against hydraulicing …
… still tucked away below grating behind enginebox, showing cross cockpit drains.
And then there’s the prop …

Tiller and prop

patrickxavier
Bronze tiller, tiller head cap and plate, with teak tiller end resting on after deck below.
Have plans for some nominative engraving …
Self-explanatory, really.
Beautifully weighted, falls open with revs, slips closed with flow.
Pedestrian by comparison, but the anchor chain locker, to be fixed to the forward sampson post.
Patterns for mast/boom gooseneck and pinrail.

Companionway hatch

patrickxavier
Hatch slide was out of wind (as in ‘winding’, not ‘windy’). But by extending rails aft and outboard, room remained to clash the edges of the slide, to bring it back into wind. Now brass tabs carry the slide smoothly in its rails.
Meanwhile, lowest board now hinged over threshold, to lie flat on cockpit floor grating (not shown), with upper washboards to be stowed under cockpit seat forms.
Goes together like this, each washboard locking into place above its predecessor …
… and the slide’s tabs lifting up aft …
… to carry the slide up and over the top washboard. All very monumental, making sense of the extended and relocated rails.
Rogue’s new blocks (awaiting varnish) blinged up with commemorative enamelled Armistice Day centennial NZ 50c pieces, a $10 roll of which I had acquired at the centenary, after it struck me their disposition here honoured Rogue‘s original lead keel’s loss for the war effort

Washboards, and bowsprit bling

patrickxavier
Bottom washboard template hinged over cockpit floor.
Bottom template washboard secured in position by sprung wooden catches (see here).
Swim ladder and washboards under construction.
Washboard stowage under cockpit seats.
Fuel tank, with sightglass, secured in place under cockpit floor.
Deck fuel filler cap.
Least intrusive gear and throttle lever, to be located under starboard cockpit seat form.
Depth/speed transponder socket (inside …
… and out).
Cockpit floor grate patched from previous fuel hatch.
Patterns for mainsheet Murray winch supports (in yet another sop to age-diminished upper body strength).
30 m 8 mm anchor chain and 30 m 16 mm anchor warp.
Companionway threshold, rudderstock base and backstay lever plinths, now with 10 coats of Uroxsys (as has toerails).
Steamed/laminated oak masthoops from Pert Lowell in Newbury MA, and mainsheet horse, boom crutch pads and bowsprit jewellery back from polishers.