Stern Extension

[Pat Ross]

Great News Joe, can't wait to see them

Pat

[JoeWalling]

Here are some pictures from the work done yesterday

[JoeWalling]

Today we:
- Made and offered up the new transom former - to strengthen the inner moulding and to define the inner shape
- Agreed the angle of it ( as close as possible to Rod's design)
- Made up the final duck tailed former - to describe the slightly rounded final external shape for the transom (see pic)
- Strengthened the whole assembly with added timber

When I say 'we' in most of the text, I really mean my friend Jonathan (see pic) who has worked with boats all his life.
The workforce in our local yard comprises him, the owner- Steve- and his son Andy. The three of them have been friends longer than
i care to remember so I know the project is in safe hands. You might notice that the top line looks to drop at a slightly sharper angle that on Rod's Lapwing. This may be because of the angle that HUSH sits in her cradle ( I doubt it) or possibly that the angle of the superstructure to hull join is different on the Mark 3 (Lapwing) as opposed to HUSH (who is a Mark 2) and I doubt that as well. It's probably down to the photos. We'll see. Anyway we have continued aft exactly on the line of the join (see battens and clamps) which I think gives a nice convergence - the top line drops, probably at a similar angle to the wing decks and the bottom line rises to approach it.

Over this weekend I will knock up a mock rudder in MDF ( do you have that in the U.S?). Its a dense and inert fibreboard - cheaper to make a mistake with than marine ply. I'll do this to help finalise the dimensions of the extended tiller and and the new stainless rudder stock.

Cheers, Joe

[Pat Ross]

Joe,

I probably have this wrong but let me see. So now you have a temporary mold in place using formica or something like that, correct? Next will you wax it and shoot gelcoat before laying cloth?

Pat

[JoeWalling]

That's right - it's thin plastic - about 1/16th inch, or 2mm - but is thick enough to hold shape and weight of resin and glass. It is very shiny and smooth so should release quite easily - famous last words!

[Pat Ross]

I think you are gonna be fine. I look forward seeing how you lay your cloth and adhering the new section to the main hull, so please take step by step photos and give detail explanations. I have corcell foam here at the house for a build I have going on now. So I could lay cloth, lay corcell foam, lay cloth and make a sandwich for the stern as well.

We were thinking about painting our boat before launching, we have never had her in the water as of yet. But if I am going to paint, now would be the time to do the extension. So I am going to watch you closely. I have all the materials I need here at my home where the boat is. I need to rebuild the rudder anyway .... yes we have mdf.

Thank you for the help, gives me courage!

Pat

[JoeWalling]

Hi Pat. If you look at the third picture - the one taken of the rear of the transom - from the recent series you'll see that the existing transom has been ground back to the matting,about four inches all round. I was tolded to go shopping whilst this operation took place! A matching flange will be made up at right angles to the leading edge of the extension and this will be glassed and bolted through onto the old transom. Its a shame I can't show the pictures bigger than they are - I don't know if Captain Ron has any plans to allow bigger sized pictures at some time? Or if there is a way doing it now?

Joe

[Ron]

Joe -

I don't have control of maximum picture size. Dan does. But he doesn't hang out here too often anymore. I suppose he limited the size because of the storage requirements.

[Pat Ross]

Hi Pat. If you look at the third picture - the one taken of the rear of the transom - from the recent series you'll see that the existing transom has been ground back to the matting,about four inches all round. I was tolded to go shopping whilst this operation took place! A matching flange will be made up at right angles to the leading edge of the extension and this will be glassed and bolted through onto the old transom. Joe

Joe, are you talking about picture 853? What is the matching flange going to be made of? Where are you getting your measurements from; i.e. extension length? Have you considered putting steps in this new section or a sugar scoop with steps? I was looking at this picture posted earlier by someone for ideas.





T-28 stern.jpg (117.82 KiB) Viewed 138 times





Pat

[JoeWalling]

Yesterday and today we

- Beefed up the mould with wood, especially around the edges
- attached the new transom which is nicely radiussed like the old one
- polished the mould
- applied gel coat (see picture 862)
- applied 5 coats of fibreglass

and some other minor stuff.

I scaled up pretty much an exact replica of Rod Chisholm's Lapwing rudder. This was not easy to do as I only had one real point of reference to work with and that was the depth of the outboard engine tray, at its trailing edge, using one of the earlier posted picture showing the tray and the extension (Lapwing's) side on. This gave me the depth of the new transom and from that I was able to scale up the rudder, using one of the other pictures with the rudder in it. I have kept and will continue to keep all my drawings and measurements.

When we first wrapped the plastic sheet around the stern to make the shape of the extension, I tried to scale it up from one of teh pictures but did'nt do a great job. By back testing the measurement more accurately, I find that Rod's extension is about 0.8 of a metre - HUSH's is 1 metre. This makes the boat just shy of 9 metres - probably the longest MK2 in existence! It'll probably have one of the longest tillers in existence as well. I have offered up the old tiller and I will still have plenty of turning room, although I do use the telescopic Spinlock tiller extension (really nice bit of kit - should be for the price)most of the time.

The new extension is so big that if I removed most of the old transom I could make an aft cabin - so that is what I'm going to do....but next year!

We're still playing with measurements for the rudder stock. Tomorrow,hopefully, we'll have the mould released. Prior to that a tube of foam will be ixed to the inside bottom and aluminium plates laminated to the transon inside

Joe