Its miserably grey and wet here for the third day so i am working in the workshop rather than down on the boat. Today i have mainly been working on 2 jobs : the bow fairlead and a weather/compass board for the comapnionway.
The modified bow fairlead is the one that i was working on as a former to then take to the local foundry to have cast in bronze. That would have been a lovely thing to have made and in the future i may well do that but my pattern i decided was nowhere near good enough to commit to that job…decidely aymmetric and wonky. The casting process even if it had come out first time was going to work out at over £200 and the guys at the foundry were doubtful about getting it first time if at all. On the budget £200 is a lot of cash that could go on something immediately more useful like a new PFD so for now i have to re-mount the old SS bow roller or mess about a bit more.
What i have done with the plywood pattern is to cut a series of circumferential grooves around the fairlead and then lay epoxy saturated kevlar cord into the grooves and then lay shorter sections of kevlar over the gaps in between the kevlar wraps. That comes to 4 full wraps of 5mm equivalent kevlar and 3 extras…should be strong for the task. I will now either set the whole thing in epoxy if we get some warmer weather or get a tube of super bog-o-flex (adhesive sikaflex).
The other job is a half-board (actualy its smaller than that) for the companionway. This is intended as a cover board for heavier weather when i want some protection to the hatch but not to put the full harbour board in.
I have already made a circuit for the compass from the main board…it has enough slack to allow the board to come in and out and be stored most of the time below.Next similar job is to make an upper section of the board with a wylie port for in harbour when its raining.Painted and fitted , just needs the electrical connection for the light.
Ps and yes the workshop needs a sweep and tidy.
Dirty Wet Dog, the great adventure. 