Loose ends.

[catsittingstill]

Laptop

Kip and I went to Knoxville yesterday to purchase a replacement computer for the laptop that was stolen.  Thanks to the generosity of pocketnaomi, cflute, durconnell and Anna, we could actually stretch to the same kind of computer we had before (a little more advanced owing to 2 years of computer developments.)  We are very grateful for the help that made this possible!   We have named her Minerva.

We promptly put OpenOffice and Eve Online on it.  I thought OpenOffice was a big download because it took 15 minutes on broadband, but it paled next to the Eve client which took four hours!   Of course the very next thing that happened on Eve is that Kip and I were mining a nice grav site and jerks drilled into our wormhole and attacked us for no reason, destroying ships that were worth more than the ore we'd mined.  That's Eve for you.

Boatshop / Next Build

I have spent the day disassembling cradles, sorting leftover planks, and in general getting ready to make the next boat.  The boatshop looks very empty without a boat in it, but I will soon fix that.  I am still trying to decide what design to build; my current clever plan is to go over to Carson-Newman tomorrow and see if I can use their Wonderful Drafting Table to loft both the Rob Roy from _Canoecraft_ and the Vayu from _Rushton And His Times..._  (Note that "Vayu" is the name of the specific Ugo Manley {later edit: Arg!  Not Manley!  Manley wrote the book and owned the Vayu but the measurements were taken by Orvo E. Markkula!} took his measurements from--like my Wee Lassie II's name is "Constance."  I have heard that since the final shape of a Rushton canoe would depend on the elm ribs and the cedar planks kind of wrestling each other to a standstill after the boat was taken off the form,  no two were precisely alike.  This is great because I think "Ugo" is ugly but I kind of like "Vayu" so I now have an excuse to call it by a name I like better.)

People make a big deal out of lofting, like it was some really hard thing to do; I totally don't get that.  You take your list of heights and widths, make 2 perpendicular lines on the paper, one vertical and one horizontal--measure the height on the vertical line and the width on the horizontal line and make the dot at the right height and width.  When you've drawn the dots for one station, use a curve to connect them.  Do the same for the other stations.  It's a bit tedious if you don't like that sort of puzzle, but I did the Wee Lassie II in an afternoon.  (Though the WLII had the numbers attached to little thumbnail sketches, which may have made it easier; maybe I shouldn't talk till I'm finished.)

Anyway once I have both the plans drawn out I can compare the hull shapes better than I can when they are lists of numbers.  If I like the Vayu's hull shape, I am thinking about reducing the plans by 10% or so in height and width.  That would make it a boat with a 27 inch beam, and about 10 inches depth in the center. (I was misreading last time when I said it was 15 inches deep--it's only 11 1/4; my bad.)  If I also reduce the length 10% it becomes a 13 1/2 foot boat, which is pretty close to the Wee Lassie II, and probably short enough to do with 14 foot planks which saves me money (shorter boards tend to be cheaper per board foot.)  That also changes the distance between stations from 1' 10" (I was wrong when I said 2 feet last time; again, my bad--I was just dashing things off when I should have been checking) to 19 3/4" which may or may not be enough to make a difference, but seems worth trying.

I've built 2 boats.  Maybe it's time to try my hand at modifying a design.  More extensively than I did with the Wee Lassie, I mean :-)  And the Vayu is arguably of historical interest, while I am frankly pretty sure that the _Canoecraft_ Rob Roy is basically an homage, name-wise, to the famous early canoe (and there were several of that name, one of which was a full-fledged 21 foot sailboat; damn MacGregor anyway) but not any serious re-creation of the design because the _Canoecraft_ Rob Roy is asymmetric--the stern half is slightly wider than the bow half.  I'm pretty sure this is a modern development in canoe design.  (Of course, I thought tumblehome was modern too, so I could be wrong.)

Of course by the time I've messed with the Vayu design, plus constructed it using a technique that was completely unavailable to Rushton, it's moot how historical it could be said to be.  (And no, I will not be trying lapstrake with feathered laps to produce a completely smooth surface rabbeted into an oak keel and stems made from spruce knees, thanks anyway.)  Rushton *would* have used fiberglass if he'd had access to it, I'm sure; that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

League Stuff

Also tomorrow I need to get started on the booklet for the League of Women Voters.  I don't know who the mayor of Jefferson City is (it's presently a tie and there will probably be a run-off election) but I could at least do the rest of the elected officials.  Plus I need to ask the Chairman of the County Commission to speak to us in January, since I'm in charge of January's program.

Sigh.  Well, at least I can work on boats part of the day.

Comments

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

I heartily recommend asymmetric hulls; my second boat at 16 feet was definitely faster than the first boat at 17 feet, despite the fact that boat number one was scaled down from an 18 foot racing design. Maximum beam on two was about fifteen inches aft of the center; it was quite obvious when looking directly down on the boat.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

What I might do with the altered Vayu is stretch the spacing between forms a little in the front and reduce it a little in the back. The Wee Lassie II is like that; the *forms* are symmetrical but there's 13 inches between them in the front (if I remember right) and 12 inches between them in the back. You end up with an asymmetrical boat because the center (biggest) form isn't halfway between the two ends but three inches back from that.

On the other hand, the Vayu (if I go with that) will have seven forms total, meaning a central one, and three in front of that and three behind. I'd have to think about whether that would be enough to handle a similar stretching gracefully.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that you could get the kind of computer you wanted, and that we could help.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

*hug* Thank you.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

*hug* :)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you got a new computer! Sounds like you're having a lot of fun with the drafting table, but if you'd like a look at the design in three dimensions, you might try applying to download the pre-release Mac Rhino at http://mac.rhino3d.com/.

Keep up the righteous work at League!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks :-)

I think I will start with the drafting table, which I expect to be able to figure out in a day or two.

However, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in design programs, which I may need for altering whichever design I end up choosing. Do you know whether Rhino is in the Wenatchee or Cashmere stage? I can learn a new program, but I'm not a programmer.

There is also a free program, also in beta, called "BearBoat SP" by Robert Livingston here http://web.mac.com/rlivingston/Site/Welcome.html The tricky thing is that program can't output drawings for forms; it needs another program that can turn its numbers into drawings--and that other program only runs on PCs. As long as it can put out tables of offsets, I guess I can loft them by hand, but arg.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Rhino for Mac is a Wenatchee release, but I have found it to be stable and reliable, but having some important limitations. Most of the geometric modeling functionality is there--the "loft" command works--and one does not need to program to use it. Arbitrary sections of a shape can be generated, which I believe is what you need for your forms. Unfortunately, as the Rhino for Mac website says, "Printing is pathetic," and so far I can't see a way to print a pattern to scale--if I wanted to do that, I'd run it through the released version on my Labs Windows machine. Maybe there is a workaround. I'll look into that tomorrow.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I appreciate you checking into it for me. If it can't give me drawings (and finding a printer that could print that size might be difficult anyway), I can draw my own using the Carson Newman drafting table if it can give me a table of offsets.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Wide-format printers are fairly common these days. Most Fedex print shops have them, for instance. There is even a shop in Knoxville, Highresolutions, that has a Kongsberg table router and can cut flat patterns. But a table of point locations is perfectly possible, though a bit tedious to generate without some scripting. If I have time, I might be able to do some scripting for you, in fact.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you for finding these things out for me. I appreciate it.

I am still messing about with paper and pencil :-) But I should check out these programs too.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

Alas, though, Rhino Mac WIP has no print-to-scale functionality yet. It can export files in AutoCAD or Adobe Illustrator format, though, and those can be taken to a service bureau and printed. Not so bad if you're going to send the work out, anyway. I don't recommend trying to assemble a pattern from many small printed pieces. I never was able to achieve accurate registration doing that, though it probably is possible if one uses an accurate printer and is sufficiently careful.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Eve? Haven't heard of that.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Eve Online (http://www.eveonline.com/)

Ah,

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

it's a game!

Re: Ah,

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yep. Sorry I wasn't clear about that.