Saturday, May 17, 2008

We ran into a brick mirror…

Well, all was going pretty good this morning. I got the last frame cut out first thing then after running a few errands and adding 8’ to the cutting frame I got the first hull chine laid out on the 6mm plywood. This was very straightforward layout work and we thought we had set the pace for the day. I found one small error in the plan here where a measurement was taken from a different base line than all the others. It was easily caught when we bent the batten across the points to mark for cutting. Using the circular saw to cut the large arced pieces (yes, you can cut arcs with a circular saw) I was done in no time at all. Then it’s just a mater of using the first one for a template, marking it, repeating the cutting process and tada it’s over.

I threw up 3 more sheets of plywood on the table after lunch in preparation for laying out the next panel, which was the hull topside. Here’s where it got ugly. It seems that in the program the designer used to draw the plans the hull topside panel got mirrored on the nesting plan. No big deal if you have a CNC machine cutting out parts but laying it out by hand got tedious real quick. Not only do you need to think in mirror you can not pull your marks from the edge of the plywood as the baseline runs at an angle in order to get the parts from the least amount of plywood. After working on it for a while I decided to come upstairs and scan the paper plans and print a mirrored image out. I can then sit down and write the measurements so there legible. With the exception of the baseline issue problem solved. I’m a little miffed as to what I want to do here. I can pull a line with a string and layout from that I suppose, even pop it in chalk I guess. I don’t like the idea though as a string can move and chalk lines can be 1/16” or more throwing the measurements off by as much.

I have come to the conclusion that I should scratch my head on this for the rest of the evening. If you have any ideas feel free to post them on the forum at http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?t=16577