SC No Rush's Journal

11:28 am - long time no update

Well... nothing much has been happening on my boat... i've been a bit too busy with school and what not to really do much of anything to it... i've been thinking about the boiler design and the seats and covers and what not... so it's just been alot of planing and getting stuff lined up so we can actually finish the boat!!!!

I AM hoping to have it at Blaine this year next month, but we'll see how that goes =/

Anyway, I am off to do some yard work and stuff, ta!

12:42 pm - Update

Well, I haven't taken my boat back out since Wheeler, we have been working on the benches, and waiting for the weather to get a tad bit better before we do much of anything else =/

I got a question about how quite my engine is, and its about as quite as a normal steam engine, although at the higher rpm's the way the mount is right now it sets up a harmonic (which we will be fixing this spring/summer), hopefully my boat will be 'done' by late summer and I can start tweaking it and looking at some of the nifty ideas i've been having =)

anyway, I must be off to school, ta!

10:27 pm - boat and engine update

well I've been quite busy this last week... so here is what has happened:
- Dad and I finalized the seats and have started the gluing process (the seat bottom is glued now, tomorrow morning we will do the seat back (where your back rests), then the front member (where your knees are) will be glued into place. tomorrow night we will do some of the strengthening to the back joint and then glue the very back on.
- I replaced 2 steam valves (one of the old ones was NOT rated for steam and the seat had moved and was deformed), I also did a bit of repiping so now from the boiler to my engine is nothing but 3/8" (it use to go from 3/8 to 1/4 then back to 3/8), I don't expect significant gains, but it should smooth the flow of steam out a bit. I plan on sometime next week rolling the boat out and do a test steam before I cover anything up to make sure I get all the leaks and also to make sure everything works. Then sometime around the 24th to the 27th I plan on a short trip around the north end of Lake Whatcom to test the performance (and maybe also to take one of my friends for a boat ride), then on the 3rd of next month I will steam over to Gorden Garlic's new dock and take people for rides (@ 2 people per trip).
- the engine: it's completely back together, I still have to figure out how to do the reverse mechanism (I have ideas, but I must test some of them out first), I put the handle back on, I know I will use that for the steering (thinking about getting a push/pull cable with gear box), but now I must figure a way to actuate the forward/neutral/reverse (as I said I have an idea, I just need to experiment).

anyway, I must go and take care of some other stuff, I shall be taking pictures tomorrow so people can see what I'm doing, ta!

03:05 am - urg...

due to illness and set backs beyond my control my boat will not be in blaine this weekend... I will however have slips of paper with the sites address and my photo album with me to show people.

anyway, thats the bad news, the good news is that the new hand cart is almost done (it's been sandblasted and painted, tomorrow morning it should be ready to put back together), once the cart is done and a space cleaned out of the garage i'll head over to grandpa's house and pick up my engine to bring back home and run on steam (as well as fill the lower end with oil).

I believe that my next project will be to drop the lower end out and take it into an engine shop and have them work on it for me to replace the gasket and see where the leak is (provided i can find someone to work on the 1970's johnston lower end)

Anyway I'm off to bed, I took a long nap and had a chance to breathe and figure out some stuff on my boat....

Oh, one last thing: the Bellingham area steamers are having a mini meet early next month which i WILL be attending (it gives me almost 3 weeks to get both seats done) =)

well time to be off to bed with me, ta!

08:41 pm - updates galore!

Ok, did a bunch of stuff:

Engine painting: pretty much everything is done for my engine... i have it almost all back together i just have to put the oil guards back on (the railings and back panel), it looks very spiffy (which will be vary apprent once i get the pics copied, resized, and uploaded). I am also making a new stand for transporting the engine to and from the truck (to ease one person launching).

Website: I have uploaded one more pic for now about my engine, and changed some of the finer stuff on the main page (which i notice a spelling mistake which i will take care of soon), and i'm preparing to redo some of the pages and do a slight redesign of the website.

Boat: Dad and I are moving forward on my seats, we pretty much have all of one seat ready, we have to coat the bare wood first though, then dad and I decided to assemble it on the boat instead of in the garage as the two surfaces might not match =/ we should have one done completely by the meet in blaine (as I am not going to the one out by port townsen, or whatever that town is), and hopefully I will have the final seat done by the time school starts again this september

Boiler: Dad and I are putting the design for the new boiler aside for the moment, I need to rethink some of the stuff and he and i need to talk about some of it and we need to start choosing some of the materials as we need to start looking at weight problems (the undercarage weighs a bit more then we thought it would).

anyway, lots going on, and hopefully i'll post more soon, or when more stuff develops, ta!

09:23 pm - Engine update

Well, I finally got all the painting that I needed to do done (there are still a few pieces that I SHOULD paint but won't quite yet). So in a couple days or whenever the paint appears to be hard enough to work with I'll be taking EVERYTHING back over to grandpa's house and attempt to get it all back together again.

Wish me luck!

06:00 pm - Website update

Well I got the painting done for 5 pieces (the top and bottom plate, the packing gland, the cylinder, and the plate that holds the cylinder and packing gland together). I took two pics of the painted pieces (they are still drying a bit and should be done in a day or so).

I hope to get the engine back together and in running order by the end of the month if all goes according to plan.

anyway, I shall keep updating and posting more pictures, Ta!

02:20 am - sandblasting

well... i have the bottom plate, the cylinder, the cylinder plate, and the crosshead packing gland blasted and i plan on painting them tomorrow afternoon =)

anyway whats left is the steam chest, the cover for it, and thats pretty much it, but i think i will get everything that I have blasted painted then go back and do the chest and cover.

anyway, off to bed with me... ta!

04:42 am - Engine update

Well, my engine is pretty much in pieces. I spent about 3-4 hours today taking the entire thing apart and now i'm preping it for sandblasting and then paint. I think I can get the sandblasting done next week if I get all the prep work done tomorrow (or a majority of it).

Anyway... off to bed with me, Night!

02:37 am - Hey

Sorry I haven't updated in a while... but I finally got into Western and I've been quite busy with that.... but now it's summer time and I'm free!!!

So here is the list of stuff that needs to be done to my boat:
- repair paint where damaged
- fix seats up and install
- change motor mount
- 'rebuild' engine
+ take apart and degrease
+ paint all non moving parts
+ put back together and hope the paint sticks

after that is all done (hopefully before the steam meet in Blaine) I will make it to the Blaine pre-meet as I am not going to the one on the peninsula (ferry charges and the the fact that the trailer is 8' wide makes it kinda hard to trailer the boat on the ferry also I've been hearing rumors of construction or something over there around that time, so I've thought it through and my answer is a no go this year (also it will give me more time in lake whatcom)

Anyway, off to bed with me now... i've got a long day tomorrow =)

01:55 am - Web update and Boat update

Ok, I uploaded two new pages, the Maiden Voyage and the Float test pages contain a bunch of pics... but I plan on attempting to revamp the site to hopefully cut down on bandwidth usage and to make it a lot cleaner (both visually and code wise)

now, onto the boat!

Last weekend I tested the injector (rolling the boat out and building up about 45-80 lbs of pressure) and it apparently will work every time now (with a small head of water)

once it was confirmed that the injector would work repeatedly, I set to work removing the 27 lbs feedwater pump that grandpa had given me and sent it back to his house as i didn't have room for it here.

once that was out of the way, I set about replumbing about 90% of what I did before...

so in the end here is the list of stuff i changed:

• removed hand pump pipes from front of boiler and routed in the front of the boiler instead
  
• Switched the hand pump feed to where the old pump went in (so there is now a gage on it)
  
• pluged unused connectors (one where the feed water is distributed and one where the water goes into the boiler)
  
• made the injector more accessible
  

Current Mood: productive

11:45 pm - I'M BACK!!!!

well i'm back from wheeler... and now i have a bunch of work to do on the boat... some repairs because two boats were not properly tied to the dock and when the tide switched, they rubbed my hull pretty good... but one of the boats has two grey stripes down it's side... so i think i might just make something to put on the boat so that if someone brushed up against it it would leave some mark (maybe spikes or a paint brush with lots of paint!).

also, i think that my injector is working, i'll try it again sometime this week, and if it does work then i'm getting rid of the pump thats on there and doing a bit of repipeing... plus i need to re work my inlet water (i have a check valve to help keep the system primed... but that didn't work, so i have to replace it with a ball valve)...

anyway... here is my list of stuff to work on:

- check injector (if it does, get rid of my steam pump)
- put a ball valve on the water in and make a hose for it
- repair paint damage
- vacuum out the inside of the boiler (see about opening it up and sealing the cracks temporally)
- move the motor board up and fix the reverse lever
- make and install the seats

well... thats about all dad and i want to do right now, we'll try more later after we do another shake down cruse..... hopefully dad and i can make a smaller boiler and an air condenser so i wouldn't have to carry over 7 gallons of water for a 2 hour run. Also i am seriously thinking about using bio diesel and do some sort of gravity feed evaporating burner, or pressurize it with steam or help it with a small jet of steam... i'll just have to make it and see what happens...


well... off to bed with me... time to sleep some and work on the boat tomorrow...

10:13 pm - yaaa!!!

it steams!!! my boat steams!!!

i got all the pipeing done today (need to tighten a couple more fittings)... and i ran my engine for a few minutes... it is one smooth running engine... i think that once it's in the water i'll be quite happy with it....

on the bad side of things... it'll only have one bench, which means it can only carry 2-3 people (me, morgaine, + other)...

so the plan is that i leave tomorrow morning, after we get the bench done, and then while i'm down there steam around for, oh, 4 hours or so... maybe more... depending on how hot it is, if it's way too hot, then i won't be doing much steaming.... mostly morning and evenings...

well... of to finish packing and get to bed... ta!

10:40 pm - we almost made it!

ok... so we got the boat done (by 'done' i mean it can float, not steam) today and its ready for it's first launch so we can find the cg... well we get about 2 blocks from the house, dad pulls over, gets out and we find out that the trailer lights don't work....

so we turn the boat around, head home, and we found out that this wasn't a simple trailer light.... oh no they went and made it a SEALED trailer light... which means we would have to cut the leads, then splice in some new light modules... oh and then we found out that the wireing in the REST of the trailer was bad... so now we have to redo the entire trailer....

so after discovering this dad and i went to wal mart, got a new trailer light kit, AND we found a water bottle (7 gallons) that I can use on my boat!!! yaaa for me =)

so now dad and i have to wake up tomorrow at 6 am, completely rewire the entire fucking trailer, and float it by 8 am so we can get to grandpa's house at 9, install the boiler, take my engine and anything else we might need, and high tail it back to my house where i spend the next 3 days piping and testing.... which also gives dad 2 days to get the seats done...ya for me....

11:14 pm - boat work

well, the motor mount is almost done... dad just needs to do some welding to close up some extra holes, but right now its 'perfect' as far as being at right angles. so now we just need to stamp everything, paint it, then drill the holes in the boat and put the thing on.

so as it stands right now we are still on schedule to launch this sunday! I still have to get the graph paper out for the moments so after we launch the boat and get it back on the trailer after finding the center of gravity we can take it to grandpa's house to put the boiler on it along with the engine and do some preliminary pipeing (have to do some interesting things since i have to remove the engine for trailer transport).

well, thats all for now... i might be revamping all of the website, it depends on if i still want to go with thumbnails... which i might, i just need to find some easier way to make them from the main pics.

well... off to go work on that, ta!

04:37 pm - boat update

well... i got the cleats on the boat, and got almost all the mettle for the motor mount cut, and got the bolts for it as well... so all dad has to do is a couple of welds, some drilling... well lots of drilling...

so, here is the plan... the 8th will be the float test, then after the float test we take everything over to grandpa's, and i'll do the math as to how we place things, and the boiler goes on... after i drill and seal the deck holes...

but after the boiler is on it's just a matter of piping and a quick test on the trailer then off to the boat ramp for a wet test... but while i'm working on the boiler dad is going to be working on my seats, and even though they wont be painted, they will still be on the boat....

i just got the back of the bench coated in resin and the top of the boiler board, just have to sand them and recoat them to make sure that they are completely sealed.

well, dad's home now, so off to work on the boat again.. ta

10:40 pm - whew!!!!!

what we got done today:
- got almost all plywood for the seats cut out (the ends and middles).
- got all the aluminum cut for the backing plates for the cleats
- trimed the boiler board so now

things that i have to do tomorrow:
- sand ends and coat them with resin
- coat the 2x2's with resin on one side
- drill and coat one side of the boiler board.
- install cleats
- make boards for the tie down straps

after all that is done, i just weigh the materials for the seats, then launch the boat, find the center of gravity, and sit down and do a shit load of math... fun

11:22 pm - paint/boat update

well... ALL THE PAINTING IS DONE!!!!!! yaaaa!!!!! so now we have to let it bake for a couple of days, and will float-test it possibly tomorrow or monday when dad gets back =)

now the todo list for the boat has really shrunk:
- drill and prep board for boiler and water pump
- drill holes in deck for said board
- drill holes for the motor mount
- make the motor mount
- take the boat to grandpa's and attach the boiler and pipe
- attach the engine and do a dry dock test
- once the first test is done, and all bugs worked out, do a wet test =)

so not much more to do... and not much time to do it in... but all will be good and run in the end =)

11:18 pm - paint update

well... dad and i put on the coat of anti-skid paint on the deck, and it looks nice, especially in the back =)

we also put on the first coat of thinned resin on the two pieces of 3'x4' plywood that we will glue together (back to back) to form the platform where the boiler will sit. so tomorrow i'm going to glue both of them together and then when dad get's home he'll spray the deck one last time (to lock in the anti-skid) and the painting will be done! then we just have to hope for really hot weather to bake the boat, and while that's happening we are going to work on getting the boiler board ready and the seats, once both of those are done and we have done a float test to find the center of gravity, we take everything over to grandpa's house and bolt it together =)

well... tomorrow is going to be a long day, my girlfriend starts work at 9 am tomorrow and i get to drive her to work =)

so i best be off to bed, ta!

Current Mood: tired

11:15 pm - another paint update =)

well... dad got the first of three coats of color paint on =)

so now we have to add one more main one... then we add a coat with the anti-skid stuff in it... then we let it bake for 2 to 3 days... and then we put the boiler on, the engine, and the benches and we are done! yaaaa!!!

well... off to bed with me... ta