Lofting Continued / Folksingers Anonymous
Nov. 17th, 2010 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillFurther Adventures in Lofting
I went off to Carson Newman and worked on the Rob Roy plans again today. I got all 11 of the stations for which they give offsets finished, but still need to do the stems.
The stations are big enough that I can't fit a whole station (in some cases) on the size of paper I have, but that is not actually a problem, because the accepted way to do this is to draw a line near the edge of the paper that marks the center of the station, then just draw half the station. Then when it's time to transfer the markings to the wood, you draw a centerline on the wood, cut little windows in the paper so you can align the centerlines of the paper and the wood, transfer the markings for one half the station (say the right half) then flip the paper over and transfer the markings again to get the mirror image. This makes the two sides of the boat mirror images of each other so if you've, say, made an itty bitty mistake in the curve, at least there are 2 mistakes opposite each other and hopefully the boat still goes straight when it's done.
This does call for paper thin enough that the markings can be *seen* on the opposite side, which may be a problem since I was using Kip's fairly good quality paper. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that.
Anyway, I still have to go back and do the stems for the Rob Roy, but the stations I have are looking fairly promising. It's a shallow arch hull, and the rocker in the back seems to amount to about an inch (the Osprey had 3/4 inch in the back, but it was a 15 foot boat as opposed to one that's slightly under 13 feet.) The rocker in the front is 2 7/8 inches (!) which seems like a lot; I think the Osprey only had 1 3/4 inches, and as I mentioned, it's a longer boat. (Regular readers will remember that rocker is how much the keel line bends up like a banana at the ends.) At 2 7/8 inches the Rob Roy is looking kind of banana-like. For comparison, the Bell Merlin II (an all-around boat) is 15 feet long and has 2 inches at the bow and 1.5 inches at the stern. So... hmm.
What I could do is alter the plan of the Rob Roy is to give it way less rocker--something approaching, say 1.5 inches, or even 1 inch in the bow and 0.5 inches in the stern. Now if I remember right, the standard way of adding rocker is to mount the center stations as normal, leave off three or so stations at the ends, and mount the stern and bow stations a little higher (lower, actually, since the first stages of construction occur with the boat upside down), then tack a long thin strip of wood called a batten to the centers of all the stations. The batten ensures that the prospective keel line has a smooth curve while you fit two or three stations under it at whatever heights suit the curve. So perhaps I could subtract rocker the same way. Or another option, which would preserve the sheer (upward curve of the gunwales at the ends), would be for me to put a little bit of a vee on the bottoms of each station so that I end up with a vee hull in the front and to some extent in the back. And while I don't like a lot of sheer because of the tendency to weathervane that boywizard brought up, I do want some sheer.
I have to think on this. And while I'm at it, draw the stems. And maybe I'll go over to the Bear Mountain Forums and ask if there are offsets for Station 1 and 13 anywhere.
Folksingers Anonymous
The reason I didn't finish drawing the stems today is that I had to go home and get my instrument and go to Folksingers Anonymous, which is the folksong meeting at Carson Newman. We meet every two weeks, normally on Thursdays but Wednesday has worked out better the last couple of times. There are about five or six of us who are regulars, and I've been having a *lot* of fun. I really enjoy playing and singing with people and I inevitably end up playing till my fingers are sore and singing till I'm hoarse. We use the _Rise Up Singing_ songbook and just take turns picking things we like and then everyone tries to play along. Last time I asked if anyone knew "Brandy Tree" which is in the "Dreams and Fantasies" section--nobody did, so when I went home I dug out my _Rise Up Singing_ CDs and ripped it, put it on my iPod and learned it over the next couple of weeks, and this time I played it for one of my songs. Everybody seemed to like it so we'll see if it becomes a regular or not.
Also, which was really kind of cool, when we were sitting around tuning at the start, I started quietly playing "Soldier's Joy" (which is an instrumental.) And Larry started playing along. Except he was Playing Along, if you understand the difference; this was plainly an accompaniment he'd worked up, complete with bass runs and stuff. Then Ernest started playing along and we just had a grand old time. I was worried that I would get self conscious and quit being able to play (which, like --way to make yourself self-conscious, right? But what can you do except try not to brood on it?) but I only fell off the melody once and hopped right back on on the next line. They didn't try to push me to play it fast (which believe me, I appreciate, since it's a pretty common thing with this kind of music to get into dominance games about who can play it faster and games you can never win just aren't much fun.) We played through it a couple of times and stopped and June said "that really is dance music" and Ernest asked me to play it again, so we did. That's one of the few times in my life I've got to play that kind of music with other people. It was great. I wouldn't want to do it to the exclusion of music with, you know, words, but it was great.
We're getting pretty good on some of the stuff we play every time, like "Hard Times Come Again No More." I'm trying to figure out how to do some equivalent of fingerpicking on the mandolin since strumming can only go so far, but I think I need to work on it more. We played for nearly 2 hours, then I hung out and talked with a couple of the Carson Newman people for some time afterward. They suggested I should think about building an instrument case from my leftover strips. I'm giving it some thought; Pearl deserves a better case than the cardboard one she has.
I went off to Carson Newman and worked on the Rob Roy plans again today. I got all 11 of the stations for which they give offsets finished, but still need to do the stems.
The stations are big enough that I can't fit a whole station (in some cases) on the size of paper I have, but that is not actually a problem, because the accepted way to do this is to draw a line near the edge of the paper that marks the center of the station, then just draw half the station. Then when it's time to transfer the markings to the wood, you draw a centerline on the wood, cut little windows in the paper so you can align the centerlines of the paper and the wood, transfer the markings for one half the station (say the right half) then flip the paper over and transfer the markings again to get the mirror image. This makes the two sides of the boat mirror images of each other so if you've, say, made an itty bitty mistake in the curve, at least there are 2 mistakes opposite each other and hopefully the boat still goes straight when it's done.
This does call for paper thin enough that the markings can be *seen* on the opposite side, which may be a problem since I was using Kip's fairly good quality paper. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that.
Anyway, I still have to go back and do the stems for the Rob Roy, but the stations I have are looking fairly promising. It's a shallow arch hull, and the rocker in the back seems to amount to about an inch (the Osprey had 3/4 inch in the back, but it was a 15 foot boat as opposed to one that's slightly under 13 feet.) The rocker in the front is 2 7/8 inches (!) which seems like a lot; I think the Osprey only had 1 3/4 inches, and as I mentioned, it's a longer boat. (Regular readers will remember that rocker is how much the keel line bends up like a banana at the ends.) At 2 7/8 inches the Rob Roy is looking kind of banana-like. For comparison, the Bell Merlin II (an all-around boat) is 15 feet long and has 2 inches at the bow and 1.5 inches at the stern. So... hmm.
What I could do is alter the plan of the Rob Roy is to give it way less rocker--something approaching, say 1.5 inches, or even 1 inch in the bow and 0.5 inches in the stern. Now if I remember right, the standard way of adding rocker is to mount the center stations as normal, leave off three or so stations at the ends, and mount the stern and bow stations a little higher (lower, actually, since the first stages of construction occur with the boat upside down), then tack a long thin strip of wood called a batten to the centers of all the stations. The batten ensures that the prospective keel line has a smooth curve while you fit two or three stations under it at whatever heights suit the curve. So perhaps I could subtract rocker the same way. Or another option, which would preserve the sheer (upward curve of the gunwales at the ends), would be for me to put a little bit of a vee on the bottoms of each station so that I end up with a vee hull in the front and to some extent in the back. And while I don't like a lot of sheer because of the tendency to weathervane that boywizard brought up, I do want some sheer.
I have to think on this. And while I'm at it, draw the stems. And maybe I'll go over to the Bear Mountain Forums and ask if there are offsets for Station 1 and 13 anywhere.
Folksingers Anonymous
The reason I didn't finish drawing the stems today is that I had to go home and get my instrument and go to Folksingers Anonymous, which is the folksong meeting at Carson Newman. We meet every two weeks, normally on Thursdays but Wednesday has worked out better the last couple of times. There are about five or six of us who are regulars, and I've been having a *lot* of fun. I really enjoy playing and singing with people and I inevitably end up playing till my fingers are sore and singing till I'm hoarse. We use the _Rise Up Singing_ songbook and just take turns picking things we like and then everyone tries to play along. Last time I asked if anyone knew "Brandy Tree" which is in the "Dreams and Fantasies" section--nobody did, so when I went home I dug out my _Rise Up Singing_ CDs and ripped it, put it on my iPod and learned it over the next couple of weeks, and this time I played it for one of my songs. Everybody seemed to like it so we'll see if it becomes a regular or not.
Also, which was really kind of cool, when we were sitting around tuning at the start, I started quietly playing "Soldier's Joy" (which is an instrumental.) And Larry started playing along. Except he was Playing Along, if you understand the difference; this was plainly an accompaniment he'd worked up, complete with bass runs and stuff. Then Ernest started playing along and we just had a grand old time. I was worried that I would get self conscious and quit being able to play (which, like --way to make yourself self-conscious, right? But what can you do except try not to brood on it?) but I only fell off the melody once and hopped right back on on the next line. They didn't try to push me to play it fast (which believe me, I appreciate, since it's a pretty common thing with this kind of music to get into dominance games about who can play it faster and games you can never win just aren't much fun.) We played through it a couple of times and stopped and June said "that really is dance music" and Ernest asked me to play it again, so we did. That's one of the few times in my life I've got to play that kind of music with other people. It was great. I wouldn't want to do it to the exclusion of music with, you know, words, but it was great.
We're getting pretty good on some of the stuff we play every time, like "Hard Times Come Again No More." I'm trying to figure out how to do some equivalent of fingerpicking on the mandolin since strumming can only go so far, but I think I need to work on it more. We played for nearly 2 hours, then I hung out and talked with a couple of the Carson Newman people for some time afterward. They suggested I should think about building an instrument case from my leftover strips. I'm giving it some thought; Pearl deserves a better case than the cardboard one she has.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 09:20 pm (UTC)Transferring station points through good-quality paper
Date: 2010-11-18 12:40 am (UTC)Waay back when I was first learning highway drafting, that is how we'd plot points that defined the existing ground elevations, only we were staying on one side of the paper. The idea was to make the point-mark as tiny as possible [the point of the divider].
Re: Transferring station points through good-quality paper
Date: 2010-11-18 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 01:16 am (UTC)I greatly enjoy your adventures in boatbuilding.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:15 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the boatbuilding adventures too.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 05:39 am (UTC)On beyond mando strumming
Date: 2010-11-18 04:10 pm (UTC)For a sustained note, turn the tip of the pick almost-but-not-quite perpendicular to the strings and tremolo: (vibrate back and forth across the string pair).
Let me know if you've seen these before. If not, I can demonstrate somewhere that we'll be seeing each other, or I can poke around the web and seek some examples.
Re: On beyond mando strumming
Date: 2010-11-18 07:18 pm (UTC)I suspect I just need more practice.
Re: On beyond mando strumming
Date: 2010-11-18 09:07 pm (UTC)I've considered banjo, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 06:51 pm (UTC)I've not done it much but am very very happy you had this opportunity to find the groove and hope you are able to continue with these fine folks.
I admire you and your accomplishments in many areas very much. Keep having fun, stretching yourself and making us proud Cat!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:19 pm (UTC)