Mast step parts welded

All the 6061 T6 aluminum and 316 stainless steel parts are now welded. Many thanks goes to Dusan (the welding artist),Vlad (the facilitator), Mike (the good guy) and Les (the extraordinary machinist) for this effort.

Late note: (May 25th) If any builder is having trouble locating a source for the 1" diameter 316 stainless steel ball, I found an ebay store ToolSupply . The ball bearing ships anywhere by mail and is actually a couple of dollars cheaper than McMaster-Carr who declined to process my order.

It weighs about 3 lbs and I am very happy how it turned out.





Now to get it coated and perhaps build a main hull to mount it on.

Other recent news: my 26" Northstar 600 is now listed for sale. Here is the link.

A couple of links

Just wanted to upload a couple of links
1) A hydrofoil dinghy - enough said
2) Oliver Dom's F22 with sails up on an $800 dollar mast!
That's all

Mast step parts

As a favour to me, a friend from my previous workplace machined the mast step parts on his own time for me. At this price :) I could not turn this offer down, and as it happens they turned out very good indeed. It shows that CNC cutting is not necessary to make any of these parts. A decent quality mill with encoder feedback is all that is needed. I recommend that other builders print out the fabricated parts drawings with no scaling on the printer so that the part shape is actual. This will help the machinist and yourself verify the part contours are correct.

I am somewhat saddened that I could not make a batch of parts as I had offered earlier to the builder's group. Maybe Ian Farrier could be persuaded to make these parts in a batch as he is making the folding system kit. His new online store looks very professional and he is promising to expand his offering for the F22.

Below are a couple of pictures showing the parts laid out and some actually standing more or less in place. It is an intriguing mast step design.



Next step is to get the parts welded together.

Spring activitiy begins - start the push to finish float laminations.

It has been a very busy and stressful spring up to this point and it has been bothering me that I have not updated this blog for about half a month. A couple of things have happened
1) I resigned from my old company and I have just accepted a position in a new one. Sometimes you just have to make a change, however, I'm not the kind of person who makes this kind of change easily. The new job looks amazing and is a very good fit for me.
2) I've listed our Northstar 600 sloop for sale. We have spent the last few weekends cleaning and making sure she presents herself well. A few pictures of 'Gwaihir' can be seen here.

But back to F22 boat building.


I have the outside laminations complete on one float except for the deck and the transom. My plan is get the other float to the same point so that I can work on the decks with the floats side by side. Below are a couple of pictures of the float getting some extra heat into the resin on a sunny day. Using two people and two bathroom scales the float looks to weigh around 106lbs at this point. Still have the deck and transom to go.




Next the flying float gets lowered into the supports for lamination and the other one gets itself strapped up high.