Tuesday, May 14, 2013

John Z's new Moth: progress report

Earlier, I reported on the new Mistral design Moth which John Z has under construction here and here.  Today we get to catch up on John's progress since the last update:

"Here are some photos of the new boat.  I had planned to use a circular arc template as a a guide to make the cambered deck beams; built nice little beams to go alongside of the mast tube and then when I laid a straightedge from the slanted bulkhead to the bow found that my pretty curved beams were a half inch lower than the straightedge.  The circular camber technique works for cruising boats because the sheer line is usually curved upward toward the bow.  On our flat-sheer Mistrals we really want closer to a cone shaped camber for the deck rather than a cylinder so you would need a new template at each station.  I didn't have the heart to tear out the beams and couldn't live with a shoehorn shaped deck so I added shims on top of the beams, determining the shim thickness with a straight edge from the tip of the bow, sweeping an arc over the slanted bulkhead that already had a circular camber."

Live and learn,
John Z
The template for the bulkhead deck crown.

Deck beams to support the mast tube.  John later discovered that they needed a bit of shimming.

Gluing the main bulkhead in place.

Adding shims to those mast tube supports!

Things seem to be shaping up...

Detail pix showing form fitted blocks for the mast tube.

Y2K2 as of 14 May, 2013.
 

2 comments:

  1. She's looking good. Good and fast.

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  2. Yep. John is a meticulous builder. When finished this boat will be a piece of furniture.

    ReplyDelete