Power tool jigs

I've been distracted from the PDR for a couple of days because I have to make some desks and shelves for the kids rooms before the holidays finish.

The shelves are basically thin boxes made from 42 x 18 finger jointed pine glued both sides to 6mm ply. This is overkill for the short shelves but I have some that need to be 1900 long and the thickness should stop them from sagging. They'll be mounted into a recess in the room and fixed to the wall on three sides.

For cutting the ply I've made a fence for my circular saw which I clamp across the cut line. I use an 9 1/4 inch blade with 80 teeth set to cut just below the lower ply and it seems to cut without breakout.

For docking timber to a consistant size I've built another jig. I clamp the wood to the back fence and screw in a stop to make sure the size is consistent.

 

They're nifty jigs that do the job but I'm sure there are better ways of doing it.

The PD Goes 2D

Today I braved the 40 degree C heat and cut and smoothed the side panels and deck sides.

I used a bit of 11mm square finger jointed pine as a batten to lay out the lines and it seemed to give a fair curve.

The only tip I could give about this part of the process is to keep the jigsaw cut close to the line (especially the top of the side panel) as there isn't much room to fit things in when you flip the parts over to trace the copy for the other side.

For the fairing of the curves (convex and concave) I used a block plane. This is another magic tool. It's light and designed to be used one handed. It's blade is set at a lower angle than a regular plane making it good for working on plywood and end grain.

On the convex curves you may need to hold the plane on an angle to reduce the length of the sole and allow the blade to reach the timber. You may also need to set the blade out a little but careful not to set it too far as the gap will close up and tend to get blocked easier.

I needed to stop once during the process to sharpen the blade but all in all it went fairly quickly and I've now got myself a 2D PD. I'm a happy chappy.

Sharp as a Samurai Sword

While I was down south I managed to find some time to sharpen my planes and hand chisels. I took them with me because dad's really good at this sort of stuff (he makes his own knives from bits of expensive stainless steel).

Rather than using a stone dad uses wet and dry paper on top of a small sheet of float glass. Starting with 100 grit and moving on down to 1200 for a mirror finish making sure to keep it very wet the whole time with kerosene (or in this case we used gum turpentine because it was all we had on hand).

It worked a treat. We re-ground all the chisel bevels and flattened the plane soles by hand this way too and it's all looking better than new.

I'm going to get myself set up to do the same thing at my place. I'm hooked on ninja sharp tools now.

Milling

I spent a few days down south last week at dad's place helping him with a kitchen bench replacement. It took up almost all my time so sadly no work got done on the Roberts.

There was a little radiata pine scrap left over from the back of the kitchen bench and as I had my PDRacer plans there with the materials list I was able to use dad and his saw bench to cut up the scrap into perfectly sized bits of wood. I ended up with everything I needed except for the foil and spar timber. Rock on!

Ladder Frame

After looking through the illustrated building guide to the OZ PDRacer I noticed a nifty ladder frame on legs they used for all sorts of things. As I only has a couple of saw horses and 6mm ply is as floppy as a wet biscuit until it's framed up I decided I needed to make one for myself...

The mess I work in (my fault - I should get it organised but given the choice between building a boat and tidying the shed....)

First I needed to extend the saw horses with some 4x2s and screws.

Then build a ladder frame with a few screws, some 35x70 pine, and a scrap of 12mm ply to keep it all square.

And so it's done, note the nifty shelf for plans and tools. Works like a charm.

OZ Mk2 PDRacer

After reading Annie Hill's "Cruising on a Small Income" she mentions that the tender they used on Badger was a Bolger Brick. I went looking for info on this design and came across a class of dinghy called a PDRacer conceived by David Routh.

"The PDRacer is a one design racing sailboat that is basically a plywood box with a curved bottom, and is the easiest boat in the world to build. Free plans, free club, all boats must have have the lower 10" of their hulls be alike, but the rest is up to the builder. You can put any type of sail rig or underwater fins that you wish. Also the interior and deck above 10" is completely up to you."

Perfect! I needed a tender for the Bruce Roberts 24 I'm building with Dad. After a bit more reading I came upon  Michael Storer's refinement of the PDR design. Doubly Perfect! He'd managed to make it look pretty and sail fast. For the small sum of $20 you receive 3 very detailed PDF files of over 100 pages of plans and step by step illustrated building guides.

Anyway things got in the way for a couple of years and the plans sat on the computer unused but I now find myself living near the coast and longing for a boat. I recently had some time off work and finally got around to looking at the plans again. They were even better than I remembered and I've got even more enthusiasm than before. I emailed Michael (who must be the most accessible designer ever) and he got back to me with updated plans and some answers to some questions I had.

Which sail rig do you recommend for ocean sailing in 20 knot winds (typical coastal Perth)?

The lug reefs so is a good choice for a cruiser.  If you are a crazy dinghy racer the sprit will stand up find and feel somewhat similar to a Laser in dynamic terms ... but with somewhat less speed!  The PDR does go upwind against rough stuff quite well.

I've bought 3 sheets of 6mm 5ply marine ply but I now notice the plans call for 2 sheets of 4mm. Is my boat going to be significantly heavier? Does most of the weight from the hull come from the ply?

It won't matter too much.  Maybe an extra 7 or 8 lbs.  Just be careful with the rest of the build to choose materials and methods that keep the weight down to a normal level and it will be fine.  Generally boats don't end up badly heavy unless lots of different things have been done to increase the weight.

Best wishes...

MIK

Awsome... I'm building another boat!