To be able to get the 2″x 1/8″ thin strips needed to laminate the apron and stem I need nice clear (knot free) vertical grain wood. In my case that will be Douglas fir.
Last weekend I was able to find several 2×3 lengths that if ripped on its edge will give me 2.5″ wide strips that will give me the margin to plane down to the 2″ width specified. To do this you need to rip accurately, and the solution I found is to make a little jig that attaches to the table saw that should help yield consistent strips throughout the 8″ lenth. After each cut you move the fence over until the board stock rests against the jig guide wheel & repeat.
simple ripping jig with roller
I also went back to the lumberyard to get western red cedar to build up my centerboard and rudder. I’m doing this while the strongback is free of the boat and I have a nice flat surface. That way I’ll get all my laminations done at the same time.
I’ve borrowed from the Gougeon Brothers and tu Gurit Embh. publications on wood foil construction. Ian Oughtred’s plans and instructions in “Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual” are good but basic and as water is so dense small improvements in execution should have dramatic impacts in performance.
lamination plan for rudder and centerboarsCenterboard stringer design in “How to build rudder blades & centerboards” by J.R. WatsonGurit instructions for cutting a Naca profile for a centerboard
Gurit’s guide also suggests that in testing stiffness western red cedar sheathed with three layers of unidirectional carbon fiber had a 67% gain in stiffness over just using mahogany.
This weekend I was able to get back up to speed on my Caledonia yawl project after missing a week. I glued one of the two scarfs on strake 2 and will leave the other to do when I’ve got the station molds up as there is the most twist in the forefoot of strake 2 and it will be easier apparently to glue it down first and then do the scarfs.
Scarf clamping mechanism. the 2×4 is screwed to the 3/4″ plywood to keep it from warping.
It was then time to tackle the apron and stems of this Caledonia Yawl. I’ve decided to try the method of laminating thin strips 1/8″ of Douglas fir with epoxy and West system 403 microfibre additive. The part I’ve been struggling with is that in Ian Oughtred’s plans the apron is 2″ wide. So I need to find a stock of wood that is at least 2.25 or 2.5 inches wide so that after it is laminated I have a little margin to plane it down and fair it.
Punching through the plans to create a pattern for the mould that will be used for the lamination.
But all the standar lumber jumps from 1.75″ to 3.5″ and it seems wasteful to rip down a 4×4 timber just to get something 2.5″ wide. After a visit to a couple lumber yards I decided to get a few vertical grain clear 2×3’s and rip them along the wide edge to get the width of strips I need.
The stems are only specified to be 1.75″ wide and so I am able to use rough fir 2x4s to cut the lamination strips and I’ll have 1/4 inch of material to plane off and to keep it true.
Transcribing the bow apron and stem pattern.
After using my full sized plans of the bow and stern apron and stem to punch through all the reference points onto my pattern board. I traced it all out again.
laying out the blocks I will use to clamp the laminated wood. Note that I’ve also put down packing tape to make sure the epoxy won’t stick to the pattern.
You can now see the panel discussion in which I participated at the IMTM 2015 FuTurism.com conference in Tel Aviv on Feburary 11th. The moderator of the session was Jonathan Mieri who is a digital entrepreneur who started the app Superfly on the panel with me were:
Amir Halevi, director general for the Israel Ministry of Tourism,
Li Baochun, deputy secretary general for the World Tourism Cities Federation,
Gideon Shmerling, spokesman for the Tel Aviv Yafo Municipality
Jenn Sander, head of global initiatives for the Burning Man Project.
Ido Ahoroni, the consul general of Israel in New York was slated to be on the panel as well but unfortunately was not able to attend.
The topic was broad “Mass tourism and Viral tourism” and other than some preliminary discussion with the moderator as panellists we did not get much more direction than that on the focus of the discussion. I tried to think of my fellow panellists and the audience in my contribution to the discussion by focusing my answers less on the what I do at Tourism Vancouver as an energy specialist and more on the why am there doing the work that I do.
Here is a direct link to the Youtube post for the panel discussion on mass tourism in which I participated:
Sharing my perspective & thoughts on the future of tourism
I had the great fortune to be able to participate in the FuTurisme.com conference plenary discussion on mass tourism and the future of tourism at IMTM 2015. I was there at the invitation of Tel Aviv Global which is a municipal corporation tasked with promoting the economic development of the city attracting investment and developing tourism. One theme that was very prominent in their strategy is to leverage the tech start up ecosystem of the city. The conference had 42 travel related digital startup companies pitching their ideas and vying for the mayor’s digital travel award. The Roschild boulevard at the heart of the city is a wonderful pedestrian and cycling oasis.
Getting a tour of the startup ecosystem in Tel Aviv. The big questions seemed to be that starting things was happening in an organic way but holding on to the dividends of that innovation was the challenge. Keeping successful startups in the city and making sure international investment was not just pulling the human capital out of the city.
That evening I was invited to a cocktail at city hall with the mayor of Tel Aviv where they unveiled a commemorative stamp of the city. Tel Aviv has been recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site for its white city collection of Bauhaus architecture. It also recently was recognized by UNESCO as a creative city in the digital sphere and they are running with it as a branding element for the city.
The Tel Aviv Global team also came up with a wonderful idea to put a call out to students to volunteer as local hosts for the conference speakers. This was an opportunity to meet someone with an interest in your subject matter, but also they acted as ambassadors and sometimes interpreters or even personal assistants. I found it to be invaluable and rewarding, helping me develop more insights and broadening the conversations I had. My student host Marina Balkarey
Speaking on a panel discussing mass tourism and implications on destination development.
Suite à la publication de l’article dans Skift que j’ai poster récemment. J’ai reçu une invitation a participer a un congrès de tourisme international a Tel Aviv le 10 et 11 février. Avec tout juste un mois de préavis je n’étais pas sur que l’invitation soit sérieuse, mais après un échange de communication au ralenti à cause des onze heures de décalage. Ils m’on confirmer qu’ils cherchait réellement à me fair participer à une colloque avec le ministre de tourisme de Israël, le consul général de Israël à New York entre autre. Le thème est de discuter le future du tourisme et l’impact sur le développement durable des destinations. Je vais parler de mon travaille et le contexte qui le met en valeur a Vancouver. Continue reading Un article mène à de nouveaux horizons→
Things are progressing well on my Caledonia yawl project and I’m getting into a rhythm. My only question is that I hope that the scarf alignment guides will be good, as I won’t know until I place them on the molds.
Il y a une semaine j’ai fait un interview avec le journaliste Greg Oates du journal d’industrie du tourisme Skift. Voici l’article qui en est le résultat:
I’m still feeling sick today, I was supposed to go cross country skiing today but my body would not have enjoyed it much. So I’m back in the boat shed. My hot box worked well and the epoxy seems to have set well on the garboard scarfs. There was just a little squeeze out that was easy to sand smooth. This certainly builds confidence as I now know my procedures seem to work well. Six more pairs of strakes to go or twenty four more scarfs to glue.
Ian Outghtred’s instructions say to glue the scarfs for the second strake as you are laying them down on the garboards as their is quite a lot of twist at the forefoot of the strakes. So I’m leaving #2 for now and moving on to number 3 strakes.
There’s have quite a bit more curve than the garboards.
I coated the scarfs with clear epoxy to let it soak in the fibers before adding a bonding filler to the epoxy and applying more.
Some squeeze out lets me know that there are no voids.
I then clamped them down with a board and a few drywall screws.
Today despite a nasty cold that was keeping me from thinking straight for the last couple days I managed to get out of the house.
As it is winter and my West System hardener 205 is recommended to be used above 4 degrees Celsius I needed to devise a portable hot box to help keep the temperature slightly warmer and ensure that the epoxy gets a chance to kick. I came up with a design that should accommodate most of the glueing of scarfs, the laminating of the stems, centreboard and rudder.
I built a 32″x60″ frame wrapped in foil backed bubble wrap.
The scarfs once glued and covered by wax paper I clamped down with a block of plywood and some screws. We’ll see how it set tomorrow.
Then with a 75w bulb as the heat source mounted inside I placed the hot box over the glued scarfs to set overnight. The access hole just gets covered by a piece of plywood.
With some luck it will set nicely and I’ll be able to repeat the process for the other six pairs of strakes.
Today I put down two sheets of plywood on the strongback to create the flat surface I will use to glue up the scarfs for each strake of the boat. There are 26 scarfs to glue and on this platform I easily can do two strakes at a time. So as long as it does not get too cold (my shed is dry but not heated) It should take me seven days to glue up all the strakes.
To properly glue the scarfs it is necessary to line them up using a string guide provided by Hews & co.
The platform also becomes a great space to lay out Ian Oughtred’s plans.
Projects, images, and ideas for my little piece of the internet
