With this particularly cold winter
I've been putting off the next stage of transforming this mock up into shiny
perspex and 316. Not least as 8m of 316 angle comes to £80, and the perspex
around 60, so I'm working on an even better and cheaper solutions...ie. getting
some 3mm flat bar folded to the appropriate angle actually works out bettrer!
On the leading edge there will be a brush draught excluder along the top of
the hatch, so a an angle of about 130 would be far better than 90. The uprights
will be from some oval tube that I found at the scrapyard, and then the hatch
track and its' hyponeneuse will probly be good old angle.
Along the edge of the perspex on both sides a running attachement is require
to hold a half zip for the cloth sides. In fact this week we're off to a material
supplier for enough bits to start learning how this cloth goes though the machine..
starting with dodgers, then a lazy jack mainsail catchbag and a drop down washboard
'curtain' with clear acrylic sections.. by the time Mandy and I have wrestled
through that then I reckon we'll feel confident about attacking the side sections
of the 'hood. We may go for a black & white canvas combination just to really
funk up the design of our James Bond boat :-)
Luckily I have a complete set of canvasses off a sunseeker predator 54', a catchbag
off the Mirror Offshore, and a neighbour (Basil) with a bucket of ss canvas
poppers. What more could one ask for!
The real concern is where to put the side canvasses to the deck. The wider the
better for comfort (see the Dowsar wide 'hood) but getting frd becomes an obstacle
course. A narrower hood and your cockpit seats are not protected... especially
annoying as we have a 1600w hot air blower duct about to be fitted [stbd side
equivalent of the mirror on port].
I was also getting in a bit of a tiz about getting a full swing on the winch
handle. I keep forgetting I'm not racing! Besides we're putting some aft winches
on so the standard issues will have less work. That, as well as triple block
jammers either side and lines led aft should mean less deckwork as well. In
fact quite a few of our US colleagues often use the forehatch for f'r'd access,
( mooring and anchoring), so maybe I'll go for full width.
This is also the first part of the full cockpit enclosure, so half zips along
all the aft sections of this hood, and let's not forget that it needs to be
sturdy enough to take the traveller-on-top option.
If anyone is interested in having one of these then get in contact soon as once
I've done it future commissions will be in the sculpture range. While I'm engineering
and got all the tools lying around I can do things pretty cheap. I don't want
to pay more than £150 (materials + mates) for the coolest 'hood on a mac
in the world..did I mention the windscreen wiper? While I'm at it I can probly
knock out a few more at around the £300 mark. I'll know more soon. Anyway,
my teakwork down below is coming along wonderfully. There's a loose blog here:
http://www.ironengineer.com/mac/galley/
