Earning costumes & parking

Went to Pete's house to help with a play structure.  As the title says - we're earning pirate ship parking and help with costumes!

I think there were about 7 boxes of pieces.  Every type of wood got a sticky note.Andrew helped with the ladder.

Getting the structure in place...

 Spacing those boards was a major hassle!

The boys found a bunch of cool rocks! 
Geodes, crystals, lots of good stuff.Finally it was time wrap things up.  There's Marshall & Keving running trucks!

Assembly Starts!

Today we got several decks installed.  They're a multi-step process to glue so we've got it 1/2 done.

Soon we'll be working on the drive system!  Next work day:  Sunday, early.

Back from a Hiatus

Had to take a bit of a break from the project - day job & all.  Grades are done, swimming & zoo trip done, now it's back on track with the boat.

Drive system:  Got some great help from neighbor Bob - welding conversion pieces from a mountain bike to a weed-eater to a drive shaft to the propeller.  We're getting there!

Decks:  Today (Jun 24) Marshall and I are working on the decking for the ship.  Next we'll start final assembly of the structure and then it'll be time to do the hull.

Here's Marshall ready to spread glue:

Here's Armando, ready to spread glue:

Here's the dog, doing her part:

Partial Dry Fit

I've got most of the bulkheads done (ran our of printer paper before #3,4,11,12, 13, and 14 could be printed) and did a partial dry-fit. 

Here's the last bulkhead I did tonight:

The slots are pretty tight (I'll think about widening them for an easier fit) so I couldn't get them all into place.  I could force it but then I'd be smashing the cardboard.

Starboard-Aft View:

Port-Aft View:

View down the deck from the bow:

Cutting out the bulkheads.

Today's a rainy day so instead of yard work, it's time to cut out the bulkhead.

Taping the blueprints didn't work well so I ran down the hill to buy some spray glue.  That's working perfectly (but was $10).  It holds the paper lightly so I can reposition it & line things up.  Then holds well enough through the cutting.  Finally, it comes right off when the cutout is complete!

Oh - the propellers came in on Friday - is that all it takes to run a boat?

At the drawing board...

Ok, this one won't be interesting but it's very important!

Instructions for printing Solidworks to Designjet plotter.  New Best practice.

• Spent 3 hours figuring out how to make high quality blueprints from Solidworks.  It's important because I found a new PDF printer that allows custom page sizes (hopefully to work directly from PDF to the designjet plotter!
• Process: 
• In Solidworks, make the drawing paper size match the size printer (I'm using 48"x36" and 60"x36").
• In doPDF, the print driver, set the page size.  I developed a multi-step process to make it work, see below.
• Copy the pdf file to the laptop and go out to the shed and print!  Wahoo!  Hopefully I have enough paper left.  It's 6 pages of 60" (30 ft) plus 17 pages of 48" (68ft).

Here's my round-about process to make doPDF work right in solidworks printing:
Printing Blueprints from SOLIDWORKS:



• In the drawing creation, make the sheet full sized – 36” x 48”, 36”x60” etc.
• The program doPDF v7 which is similar to CutePDF allows you to make custom sizes – very nice!
• In Solidworks:
1. File, Print.  In the dialog, choose the doPDF printer then click Properties.
2. Set units to inches then Custom size to match page in Solidworks (48”x36”).
3. Back in the Print dialog, click Page Setup. Set the paper size to Custom.  Click Ok.
4. Back in the print dialog, go back to the doPDF properties and reset the page size to 48x36.
5. Print Preview
6. Finish up.

Ok.  That's the boring stuff!