No update does not mean No Progress!

I've been pretty busy working away on all sorts of things over the last weeks. There are just so many little items to do that the list never seems to get any shorter. A lot of the time has been spent making dust which turned into a real chore! I'm hopeful that that stage has almost completed; filling, fairing and sanding are not my first love....

Some of the things I have done and have photographic evidence are the leading of the rudder blade and sheathing of it and the rudder stock.

Notch cut out to accept lead

Lead poured

Filled, faired, glassed.

Fixing

In the last photo above the eagle eyed will also notice the yuloh pivot. This was made from an A4 stainless bolt with a drilled out bronze door knob off a piece of furniture. Yet another of those small jobs.

Mounting deck hardware, cleats blocks etc. has also taken up any idle time that I may have had, not to mention marking and drilling about 400 hoes in the Lexan windows.

With the arrival of my sail, it became apparent that I'd have to complete the tack strut assembly. I built one as to plan except of course it was not made of hard copper pipe as specified. I (like others have already discovered) was sure this would not be robust enough in use and lead to fairly rapid failure.

With that in mind I went about fabricating my own design using standard 15mm plumbing parts.

Component parts.

One T piece cut down and the inner shoulders reamed out to accept small joiner piece.

Two right angle bends trimmed down and two inline joiners and associated pipe work.

Nine parts in total.

Soldered together.

Assembled

Filled with epoxy/microfibres

The entire top section was filled with epoxy/microfibre mix before re-drilling to accept bolt and rope strop. It all appears to be pretty bullet proof.

I've plenty to move along with. I'm hoping to get the sail rigged the next fine windless day and as I have all my paint waiting, I'll be starting final painting any day now.

More later.....