The Do-it-Yourself Thread: A Home for Handymen and Artisans - General

[QUOTE=woolio1;44919801]Does anybody here know anything about bending plywood? I know the couple over at onefortythree's figured it out, but I don't have quite as stocked a shop as they do. (One day, but that day is not today.)[/QUOTE] You can buy crackle wood or wiggle wood and bend it over a form and then you put epoxy on it to hold its shape. Or you can cut several datos in the wood, or just run a bunch of saw cuts in general to thin it out in certain areas. Build your round frame and then use cargo straps to bend it over. I have a large shop where we do custom cabinetry sometimes and I also restore antique boats. I know a lot about curving wood and bending it, but Id need to know what you DO have at your disposal to help you better.

Inspired by the guy on up the page, I built a little soda can stove today. Thing acted more like a torch when I took it out for testing, though. Sucked in air through the sideholes instead of blowing out a flame. [t]http://i.imgur.com/m2tf80R.jpg[/t] I actually ran into some difficulties lighting it when I started out... Hadn't really given it much thought, so I lit it on my desk. The thing just sort of turned into a blue fireball, so I blew it out and took it outside. It wouldn't stay lit outside, no matter how I adjusted the fuel flow ring (that weird thing in the middle). Eventually, I got a very low, invisible flame that sputtered blue every so often, so I threw a bit of wood to it and got a ten-inch red flame. That burned for about fifteen minutes on an ounce of 91% Isopropyl. Overall, not a bad little experiment. I might try to refine it later, since my cuts definitely weren't as clean as they needed to be. Need to pick up another bottle of isopropyl, since I used most of the bottle cleaning ice off my windshield this spring. Next time I do this, though, I won't be lighting it inside.

If I had to guess, I'd say there wasn't enough calories.

[QUOTE=woolio1;44949161]Inspired by the guy on up the page, I built a little soda can stove today. Thing acted more like a torch when I took it out for testing, though. Sucked in air through the sideholes instead of blowing out a flame. I actually ran into some difficulties lighting it when I started out... Hadn't really given it much thought, so I lit it on my desk. The thing just sort of turned into a blue fireball, so I blew it out and took it outside. It wouldn't stay lit outside, no matter how I adjusted the fuel flow ring (that weird thing in the middle). Eventually, I got a very low, invisible flame that sputtered blue every so often, so I threw a bit of wood to it and got a ten-inch red flame. That burned for about fifteen minutes on an ounce of 91% Isopropyl. Overall, not a bad little experiment. I might try to refine it later, since my cuts definitely weren't as clean as they needed to be. Need to pick up another bottle of isopropyl, since I used most of the bottle cleaning ice off my windshield this spring. Next time I do this, though, I won't be lighting it inside.[/QUOTE] i haven't looked much into alcohol stoves, although i also have a trangia stove. i think they need a lot of wind protection to be useable. Also, did you come up with that design yourself or did you look up other designs on the internet?

[QUOTE=GreenLeaf;44954384]i haven't looked much into alcohol stoves, although i also have a trangia stove. i think they need a lot of wind protection to be useable. Also, did you come up with that design yourself or did you look up other designs on the internet?[/QUOTE] I sort of looked at pictures of them for a while, and then got out some scissors and started cutting soda cans. Believe me, though. This thing didn't need any wind protection... But I don't know if I'd call it usable. You'd burn up everything around it. (Also important to note, it won't burn triple-sec. Or maybe triple-sec just doesn't burn. I'm no mixologist.)

I finished my longboard restoration/reimagining. [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62766551/the_other_norseboard.jpg[/t] The grip tape turned out to be too thin to cover edge to edge, so I just added a thin border around the edge and I actually think it looks much better this way than it would have had I gone all the way to the edge. [editline]31st May 2014[/editline] Oh and I also just ripped out the hot mirror on my spare camera body (accidentally breaking the LCD in the process), so I have an IR ready camera now.

I'm in the process of planning out an LED matrix controllable by my raspberry pi. While I'm not new to electronics, I've never done a project like this before and so would ofc appreciate any applicable advice/things to be wary of. Current plan: 5x8 matrix of LEDs, power source would be 5V max. 1A supply. Multiplex two serial outputs from the pi -- one for columns and the other for rows and they'll be synched so that one row will light up at a time. I'd use a couple of other outputs from the pi for various clks etc Since I don't have any of the electronic gear (other than the pi), the setup cost is higher than the project would otherwise be but it's still a nice cheap project to keep me busy (<£30) Edit 3/06: ordered all of the components etc, circuit simulations look promising

A small project I've been planning for a couple of weeks is starting to get underway [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHcfkf6FsI0[/media] The idea is that the bar graph will be the mouth of the robot plush, with a couple of other LEDs in the eyes and probably a little sound circuit to make some beeps and boops.

Thinking about this 17' Macgregor sailboat that the guy just wants to get rid of on craiglist. He's willing to trade for anything. I'm seriously going to try and trade some LCD TV's I've fixed for it. My uncle had the same boat and loved it in the 1980's and this boats in sailing shape as well! The guy who has it doesn't know how to sail and has never taken it out in the water. It'd be my first sailboat but damn it might be awesome. What do you guys think? I'd refurbish it, install a hatch, repaint it, do everything. [img]http://images.craigslist.org/00r0r_5K6rzpxtmFU_600x450.jpg[/img] My granddad built his own sailboat for his family in the early 60's and sailed to Guam. Sailing is in my families blood but I've never had my own boat.

[QUOTE=Ajacks;45029263]Thinking about this 17' Macgregor sailboat that the guy just wants to get rid of on craiglist. He's willing to trade for anything. I'm seriously going to try and trade some LCD TV's I've fixed for it. My uncle had the same boat and loved it in the 1980's and this boats in sailing shape as well! The guy who has it doesn't know how to sail and has never taken it out in the water. It'd be my first sailboat but damn it might be awesome. What do you guys think? I'd refurbish it, install a hatch, repaint it, do everything. [img]http://images.craigslist.org/00r0r_5K6rzpxtmFU_600x450.jpg[/img] My granddad built his own sailboat for his family in the early 60's and sailed to Guam. Sailing is in my families blood but I've never had my own boat.[/QUOTE] Is it wrong if I really want to see what you can do with this thing? Everything you've done so far has been phenomenal.

[QUOTE=woolio1;45030060]Is it wrong if I really want to see what you can do with this thing? Everything you've done so far has been phenomenal.[/QUOTE] Thanks man, for the hull painting I really like the look of this. [URL="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/ajackss/1Qtr2010769_zpsee30dbcb.jpg"][IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/ajackss/1Qtr2010769_zpsee30dbcb.jpg[/IMG] [/URL]Dark navy, white stripe and the dark maroon. My uncle says paint will be about $250 in materials, since boat paint is so damn expensive.

Go for it, I'd love to see a progress thread of this thing. It'd be sick.

[QUOTE=Ajacks;45030195]Thanks man, for the hull painting I really like the look of this. Dark navy, white stripe and the dark maroon. My uncle says paint will be about $250 in materials, since boat paint is so damn expensive.[/QUOTE] That's clean as hell! And, tangentially, quite a similar scheme to how I redid my bike last summer (indigo frame, polished silver components with brown leather saddle/bar tape.) I love it! Add a tasteful amount of mahogany trim, or even a deck towards the bow, and I think you'll have a sweet first little sailboat. Plus if it's practically free to you, why not? :v:

Do it.

[QUOTE=Ajacks;45029263]Thinking about this 17' Macgregor sailboat that the guy just wants to get rid of on craiglist. He's willing to trade for anything. I'm seriously going to try and trade some LCD TV's I've fixed for it. My uncle had the same boat and loved it in the 1980's and this boats in sailing shape as well! The guy who has it doesn't know how to sail and has never taken it out in the water. It'd be my first sailboat but damn it might be awesome. What do you guys think? I'd refurbish it, install a hatch, repaint it, do everything. [img]http://images.craigslist.org/00r0r_5K6rzpxtmFU_600x450.jpg[/img] My granddad built his own sailboat for his family in the early 60's and sailed to Guam. Sailing is in my families blood but I've never had my own boat.[/QUOTE] You can't really buy a boat without looking at it. Make sure the fibreglass is dry and that there are no soft spots in the hull. Depending on how long that thing's been in the sun you might run into issues with the blocks and lines. Make sure that the hull has not deformed around the trailer. Boats do not like sitting on trailers for long periods of time. It's a nice pace ship though. Just expect at least $500 in repairs Nice small pace ship to start with tho [IMG]http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor2/Venture%2017--nice.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;45036348]You can't really buy a boat without looking at it. Make sure the fibreglass is dry and that there are no soft spots in the hull. Depending on how long that thing's been in the sun you might run into issues with the blocks and lines. Make sure that the hull has not deformed around the trailer. Boats do not like sitting on trailers for long periods of time. It's a nice pace ship though. Just expect at least $500 in repairs Nice small pace ship to start with tho [IMG]http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor2/Venture%2017--nice.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Oh I'm familiar with what to look for, my family has always had boats, and my uncle had and loved this same boat. I'm not going to buy it without looking at it. I expect to put quite a bit into the boat to get it going if I get it, hopefully the sails and in good shape, but it's likely they are, they are very heavy weight sails, making them heavy but also durable. This is an early Macgregor, before they got bought out, the fiberglass on this boat is very well done, they are hand laid fiberglass cloth, instead of the crack prone blown in fiberglass that macgregor and nearly all manufacters use now a days.

What I mean about the water logging is, in the 70s-early 80s, making lightweight boats wasn't like making a lightweight boat today, I can't necessarily say about macgregor, but I own two bombardiers from the same era that used cardboard as a support for the glass instead of wood, and one that was not well kept had a habit of having this cardboard come out the hull plugs when draining. Not pretty for the structure of the things. Best of luck to you on the sails but 70s sails are really bad for deterioration issues. Mostly issues with the threads getting really bad at old ages. If the battens were left in during storage expect the worst. Fibreglass cracking has very little to do with boat damage and often happens naturally over time due to heat cycles etc. Your biggest labour on that is gonna be getting all the old gelcoat off. It's probably all chalk by now. Expect everything around that boat to be blue for the next three weeks after you strip it down. How much is he asking for it in money terms?

OK so I'm wondering if anyone in the thread has lots of bakelite and a nice camera to take photos of it with. I work with making 3D models and I've never been able to find good bakelite photos for reference or as base textures.

This isn't really DIY, but while cleaning some metallic model paint off a brush with acetone I accidentally did this: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ng6F3a01lQ[/media]

Did a pointless fantasy paint scheme for the boat. Still talking with the guy, hopefully getting to go look at it soon with my uncle. My uncle says it's not worth putting to much effort into the boat since it will always be a small boat but if you know me, I wouldn't be able to resist doing something unique if I have to paint it anyways. [IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/ajackss/sailboat_zps3b7f62ab.jpg[/IMG] I saw some boats where the ports were tinted, frames were painted and gloss black paint painted around and it looked really sharp. Again, over the top but damn I don't think I'd be able to resist trying something interesting. Modernizing a 1970's boat.

the white stripe on the bottom will yellow really quickly and you'd want a lighter sail cover to help keep your sails fresh. Other than that it's a nice scheme.

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;45096734]the white stripe on the bottom will yellow really quickly and you'd want a lighter sail cover to help keep your sails fresh. Other than that it's a nice scheme.[/QUOTE] Out of curiosity, what do you mean about the colour of the sail cover?

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;45096734]the white stripe on the bottom will yellow really quickly and you'd want a lighter sail cover to help keep your sails fresh. Other than that it's a nice scheme.[/QUOTE] I've never had a white stripe turn yellow on the waterline. I did a landing surf vessel that had a coast guard stripe, and red and white stripes along the waterline that I painted before I craned it into the water, never faded in the 5 years i dealt with it. Bottom paint is some obnoxiously resillient stuff. I'm also working on the Joltin Joe which was a Chris Craft that was given to Joe Dimaggio as a gift. It is also my understanding that he banged Marilyn Monroe on it. So it's kind of a cool project. Anyhow... the entire hull planking is cedar with gloss white Interlux on the side. The deck is the only thing varnished, and these kind of boats never really turn yellow either, so what did you use that got messed up that bad? It's still in interlux primer right now just to keep the seams from seperating, but it will be gloss white eventually. [URL=http://s43.photobucket.com/user/serj22/media/CAM00323_zpsa0762b8a.jpg.html][IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/CAM00323_zpsa0762b8a.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [video=youtube;Vb2NHY0Xs4w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2NHY0Xs4w[/video] That's a little video about the project. I'm the one in the black shirt with the white sunglasses on my head near the beginning and the "experts from Benicia" are me and my dad of Curtis Boat Restorations. They managed to come in right when I was about to leave so I wasn't doing anything remotely interesting, except geometrically lining out where the hull sealing screws went so the union guys could put the screws in when I left. The 1947 Hacker I'm working on now is a dark brown bottom, with a red stripe for the waterline. Red and brown are easier to keep clean. I have a picture of the stripe I think: Nevermind, I forgot I still have it covered in tape to keep the varnish off of it. It does look cool I promise. lol. As for DIY stuff, I made a fake airplane prop out of a piece of 2x8 yellow pine. I just cut off a 5' chunk, and drew the shape out and then used a skill saw to cut the blades down harsh, then a belt sander for a hour or so to finish. The back is not shaped since it's just meant to sit on a wall, and not fly. I'll add some more details to it eventually. I'm thinking bolt heads and drill out the center, and maybe some serial number or something. [URL=http://s43.photobucket.com/user/serj22/media/Fans/IMG_20140605_163355_zpsd1e06d49.jpg.html][IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/Fans/IMG_20140605_163355_zpsd1e06d49.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s43.photobucket.com/user/serj22/media/Fans/IMG_20140605_163509_zpsdd420292.jpg.html][IMG]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e356/serj22/Fans/IMG_20140605_163509_zpsdd420292.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[QUOTE=Ajacks;45095317]Did a pointless fantasy paint scheme for the boat. Still talking with the guy, hopefully getting to go look at it soon with my uncle. My uncle says it's not worth putting to much effort into the boat since it will always be a small boat but if you know me, I wouldn't be able to resist doing something unique if I have to paint it anyways. [IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/ajackss/sailboat_zps3b7f62ab.jpg[/IMG] I saw some boats where the ports were tinted, frames were painted and gloss black paint painted around and it looked really sharp. Again, over the top but damn I don't think I'd be able to resist trying something interesting. Modernizing a 1970's boat.[/QUOTE] Shit man, you're getting me interested in sailing again. I've been looking at classified ads for little 12 foot dinghies all day, just as a starting boat. I think cruising would be awesome though, get some 25-30 foot and live off it, sailing from port to port. Stop fueling my pipe dreams. [editline]14th June 2014[/editline] We need a sailing thread.

[QUOTE=~ZOMG;45097700]Out of curiosity, what do you mean about the colour of the sail cover?[/QUOTE] generally when you have a sail cover you want it to be a lighter colour so that the sails inside don't get cooked. Heat is bad for sail cloth are wears it out faster. Think of the sail bag as a car on a hot day, in a cover like he has planned, it becomes an oven. Dacron deforms and stretches at the temperatures you'll see in one of those bags if it's black. There's no shade on the water, so anything black becomes a George Foreman. As for the yellowing stripe a lot of it is dependent on where you sail your boat and what you paint it with. It's a fibreglass hull so it needs gelcoat, and depending on where it sits in the water, and where he was going to put his bottom paint line, the gelcoat will start yellowing. Yellowing of hulls is HIGHLY dependent on where you sail though, so he may be in the clear depending on location... [IMG]http://www.neptuneproducts.co.nz/site/rosmac/files/images/Boats/RSRPhoDoc3.jpg[/IMG] That's what fibreglass gelcoat does after a while, unlike wooden hull paint, gelcoat is slightly porous and a complete bitch to maintain. Even in lakes I have to give my lasers a wash every once in a while.

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;45098431] [IMG]http://www.neptuneproducts.co.nz/site/rosmac/files/images/Boats/RSRPhoDoc3.jpg[/IMG] That's what fibreglass gelcoat does after a while, unlike wooden hull paint, gelcoat is slightly porous and a complete bitch to maintain. Even in lakes I have to give my lasers a wash every once in a while.[/QUOTE] Interesting. I can't say I do a lot of work with fiberglass, as it is considered the enemy of my trade. As such, I've never actually used gel coat, but I can see what you mean. That's unfortunate that it doesn't hold up that well.

[QUOTE=Serj22;45098500]Interesting. I can't say I do a lot of work with fiberglass, as it is considered the enemy of my trade. As such, I've never actually used gel coat, but I can see what you mean. That's unfortunate that it doesn't hold up that well.[/QUOTE] Fibreglass holds up very well, you just need to be mindful of maintenance. Proper washing and the occasional wetsanding of the gel that goes chalky and it will be your best friend. All the yellowing is a discoloration caused by the absorbtion of pigments from the sea water, it washes right out with proper cleaner.

I just unyellowed the gel coat on my fiberglass Eames shell, so I'd imagine you could do the same for boats. The gel coat HM used for the shells is very similar to a marine product. Granted, my shell didn't sit in the water... ever, so I'm not entirely sure why it was yellow to begin with.

[QUOTE=woolio1;45098851]I just unyellowed the gel coat on my fiberglass Eames shell, so I'd imagine you could do the same for boats. The gel coat HM used for the shells is very similar to a marine product. Granted, my shell didn't sit in the water... ever, so I'm not entirely sure why it was yellow to begin with.[/QUOTE] Sweat. If there's color in a liquid, gel coat will find it. It's really funny at dinghy regattas because you can tell who's been drinking what on their boat by the color of its stains

[QUOTE=A_Pigeon;45098931]Sweat. If there's color in a liquid, gel coat will find it. It's really funny at dinghy regattas because you can tell who's been drinking what on their boat by the color of its stains[/QUOTE] I'd say so, but the seating surface of my chair's orange nagahyde. It was the back that was yellowed. I don't think it was smoke, because it didn't smell like it and cleaned easy. Maybe high humidity?