Hello all,
Some more progress from the shipyard. Time was limited for a number of months so I did not get much done. In the winter I soldered the supports for the driveshafts. Here are four of the eight supports -
Over the winter I also fitted the four motors in place. I was planning on adding the supports and driveshafts in place before adding the two main hull sections together. When I add the two hull sections together there is a big gap which needs the marine ply added over. This requires moving the hull on its side and upside down to glue the ply sections in place. My battle with gravity was unsucessful and I haven't as yet found a way to make CA glue flow uphill - hence the need to move the hull around. It is too easy to damage four driveshafts sticking out the stern end when moving the hull around so I decided that the supports and driveshafts will get added after the hull is completed and covered in glass fibre.
A problem arose with my shipyard which is, I am sad to report, merely a 48 year old garage with a 48 year old roof. Time has taken its inevitable toll, which it tends to do whether on a 48 year old human or a 48 year old garage roof, meaning that the leaky roof had, I am even sadder to report, gone from moderately drippy to a minor deluge. This was not a problem in the past when little drops of water splashed onto a car roof (cars are pretty waterproof anyway) but is a significant problem when you have a plywood Nimitz with no water protection as yet. I knew I was on a losing run when having to resort to hanging a small paddling pool from the roof to keep water off the boat. I am sure you will not laugh or even giggle at my expense when you hear that water inevitably got into the boat. I then had to build a new PVC roof with supports and gutter to make the garage roof waterproof, hence why I made zero progress on the Nimitz for a while. Making garage roofs is not usually on my build list.
The marine ply is prone to mould and this was going to become a problem so I next had to paint the entire boat, inside and out, with anti-mould paint. The colour of the paint is white so I now have a white mini-Nimitz which better be free of mould.
I then had the fun bit I was really looking forward which was adding the two hull sections together. Again I added the broom poles between the hull frames with car body filler for added strength. I would like to think I straightened up the bow correctly to avoid a wonky hull. Here is how it looked after adding together -
I have started to add the marine ply to the hull sides and is so far going well. Once a few of them were in place I convinced myself the bow wouldn't fall off. Thankfully I found that my wife / shipyard assistant and I are capable of lifting the thing between us. I was a trifle concerned given it weighs about the same as a small elephant and I don't have a crane to assist within my now-dry garage.
Next up is designing the photo etch for the four radars. I will also need PE for the nets at the side which are designed to catch sailors with a death wish. First calculations are that the netting will be 2 cm wide and a total of 4.4 metres long.
Cheers,
Dougie