John Z. invited me over to his place over Christmas Week. When I got over there he showed me his hand-drawings of a simple cruising dinghy similar to the Sea Snark. (He owns a 28' cruising sailboat and wanted a QD - quick and dirty constructed dinghy to tow behind the sailboat on his trips.) We quickly decided to build a concept model that evening. I returned to my house to retrieve some thin cardboard and we went to work, cutting the cardboard, and putting the pieces together with a hot-melt glue gun. I mostly watched, held cardboard pieces together, and added my two cents worth at every decision tree. I call it a three-beer model because, in an hour and half of slapping this model together, I had two craft beers and John had one.
The finished model was a simple flat bottom, slab sided hull. John has since taken the concept model and massaged it in a computer. He is planning construction when the weather turns warmer.
The blogmeister holding the three-beer model. The sides of the model are thin pink foam that John sliced up using his new hot-wire foam cutter he designed and built.
Over in the comments section, blogger My2Fish, a nuts-and-bolts guy, wanted to see photos of John Z's hot-wire foam cutter. Here are two. It is a bow cutter. (Sort of like a bow saw - one end, the top end in this photo, is the tensioner, the other end is the hot-wire.)
John cutting a thin sliver of foam using the floor as a base.
but where's the picture of the foam cutter?!
ReplyDeleteMy2Fish,
ReplyDeleteFixed!
wow, interesting - seems like a fairly simple DIY solution.
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