Thursday, December 29, 2016

Akas (6)

Three more hours of work during these holidays: still beveling the akas... Not much to show here other than a lot of wood shavings. I do the rough part with the power planer and Cinzia does the refining work. There are 8 substantial wood planks to fair...

Total work time to date: 526 hours


Sunday, December 25, 2016

Akas (5)

Two more hours of work yesterday, continuing to shape those akas which are taking more time than expected.


At a certain point though Cinzia's mom gave us a bag of freshly made "pettole", which are a typical Christmas food in southern Italy. Delicious!


Merry Christmas!

Total work time to date: 523 hours

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Akas (4)

Two hours of work yesterday during which we started to bevel the esposed  edges of the aka planks.
Here's how we're doing it, using the power plane first, cutting a 45° bevel


and then finishing with power planer, rasp, Surforms and sandpaper


Total work time to date: 521 hours

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Akas (3)

Four more hours during the week end. Yesteday we drilled all holes for the swing-wing aka structure which seems to work properly.


Today Cinzia fiberglassed the other side of the false transom with the same schedule. 

Total work time to date: 519 hours

Friday, December 9, 2016

Akas (2)

Six hours of work between yesterday and today. We completed the initial akas installation, making sure they're as square as possible to the centerline as well as parallel as possible to each other. It takes a certain number of measurements, tiny adjustements, "splitting the difference", and so on. At the end, the installation looks accurate to +/- 5 mm (about 1/4 inch).


At the end, we drilled all necessary holes with a 10 mm bit and made sure that the swing arms do swing. This is a video but it does not play in my browser...


This is a front view of the forward ama with the swing arms installed, which gives an idea of the size of the boat. The aka "doubler" is not yet glued on. Those akas are HEAVY. We'll see how they behave at sea.


It's getting colder now so after the sunset we went inside to fiberglass one side of the false transom with two layers af 160 g/sq.m. cloth and epoxy.


Total work time to date: 515 hours

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Akas! (1)

Two hours today in which we started working on the akas. First thing was drilling the holes in the mounting blocks. We used a 10 mm bit, and a drill support the keep the hole vertical. No big deal really. We then drew the centerline on the forward aka, centered it on the blocks, aligned it square with respect to the centerline, and pinned the position of the bolt hole from underneath trough the bolt hole just drilled int he mounting block.


Total work time to date: 509 hours