Jiggy Jiggy Pt 2.

Right, I bought a router.

Having spent the better part of 20 minutes cutting the first scarf joint, and the better part of $200 on a router, I thought I had better use the latter to resolve the former.

I figured if we could cut two cheeses (technical term to describe a wedge) at a 6.5 - 1 gradient, I could use them to form the right slope to route the scarf joint.  So, I thought about my Sines and Cosines for a while, and my Pythagoras and finally got a ruler and measured  6.5 inches along and 1 inch up - in metric obviously, this isn't the dark ages.

Having cut a base for the router, we screwed the cheeses to my scarfing table and played around with the resulting jig. It took a few adjustments but when we cracked it, the results were magnificent.

Chris on the verge of a rather industrial manicure.

It doesn't get much better than that - our jig creates perfect joints.

As you can see by the photos, I can now create perfect scarf joints in minutes, most importantly, significantly less than 20 minutes.

Jiggy Jiggy Part 1.

Having spent 20 minutes cutting an average/poor scarf joint with my second hand No. 4 Stanley plane, I decided to see if we couldn't automate the process. Also, I work opposite a DIY store and the lure of more power tools was just too much.

I bought myself a router.


Just an aside for the antipodean audience - a router in this case, is pronounced rowt-er. In all other cases, it's pronounced root-er. Particularly in the case of data (pronounced day-ter, not dah-tah) switching equipment. This caused much mirth and merriment when I first worked in Australia. A typical conversation over there would go something like this -


"Did you Router"

 

Bruce - "I met a lovely Sheila last night"



Cobber - "Did ya root er?"

Can you see where the confusion may lie.

Moving on.

I bought a router, in part 2 I will describe how we turned this into a really useful scarfing jig.

Don't worry, the fall will probably kill you

I took the plans on holiday. They enjoyed it, but since they stayed in their cardboard tube for most of the time, failed to enjoy the delights of Piha, Hawke’s Bay and Taupo. It was my intention to see if I could make a start on manufacturing some of the internal components of the boat, such as the drinks cabinet… such optimistic aims were rather at odds with the business of entertaining and corralling my two boys, so I returned rather sheepishly, having contributed no advance to the project. It was a relief to find that Joe’s activity hardly put my inactivity to shame.

However, our work last week was hugely positive: we created a very effective jig that enables us to deal with the scarphing and thus the assembly of the planks in minutes rather than days; and we set to shaping the hog, stem and stern so that we are at last ready to fix the first (“Garboard” ) planks – the ones that will form the very bottom of the boat at the keel.

I did manage some reconnaissance during my travels. I rather wish I hadn’t as it has become clear that parts of our journey will be pretty arduous. Once we have crossed Lake Taupo, the Waikato ‘proper’ starts, but within a few hundred metres, we encounter sluice gates which will necessitate a portage (lugging the boat overland) across State Highway 1. A few kilometres further on and we will have a much longer portage over more difficult terrain to get around the Huka Falls (mentioned in an earlier piece). Back to it for a short distance and then we encounter the Aratiatia Dam, which is big and scary: the main stream runs through a tunnel to pass through the turbines, but every couple of hours in the afternoon, they let a huge surge of water through the old, natural, channel, which is basically a series of waterfalls and pools. It’s an impressive sight, so don’t miss it if you are passing through, but it means we will have another very long portage, over a fair sized hill. Think Shackleton and South Georgia.

Once we’ve done that lot, there are some serious rapids, no doubt complicated by the nice folk who run the Jet Boat thrills. I suspect that these obstacles will mean that our second day will be a slow one.



I also managed to scope a couple of the other dams further down. One or two are fairly easy: the landings above are clear and close to roads and there are good places to embark once more. The Karapiro Dam, however, will be a big obstacle and we have yet to get any idea how to deal with some of the others which are massive and without obvious access points.


Exciting challenges – I can’t wait. Just need a boat…


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Transom Trauma

The Christmas break is nearly over, and I am back a work tomorrow, so I'd better backfill the blog. I have been working on the boat, as has Chris, but I have neglected the blog.

First things first. We decided that my first attempt at the cutting of the transom was not quite perfect, so I decided to have another go. This time with the assistance of the most helpful craftsman I know. (And probably the only one). I took another chunk of Mahogany down to John Calvert and asked if I could use his band saw. Oh, and his workbench and his tools, and his skills.

I did use his band-saw, although John did the complicated bits, and we came away with a perfect transom, as per the new drawings. I "offered up" (Technical term meaning, to put a bit next to another bit) the new transom and found that it was a lot bigger than the sternpost that I would need to glue it to. Oh poo.

So, I checked the drawings, which were fine, then I put the two transoms together and found that one was much bigger than the other. A flurry of emails followed and, I am sure Alec won't mind me saying this, it was discovered that the drawings are wrong. Anyway, it'll just mean that 1. I'll have to cut some bits off the planks and the boat is going to a little bit smaller than Alec intended, although exactly as long as the blueprints and 2. The next person who buys this kit will have learned from my discoveries.

So, here's the new transom. Much better than the first attempt.

The plans and the new transom, something wrong here.

Later, I will upload the photos of the scarphing jig what that we built.