Creuzer – Page 155 – Random things Creuzer

Cutting the 4inch bar stock in half.

I need to cut this in half lengthwise. I am not really happy with how I ended up doing it. It worked, but It didn’t feel safe. I think that for the money, I am just going to buy a bit of 1″ flat stock and not worry about my fingers.

Doesn’t this look like a stupid thing to do? It was all I could think of doing.

This is how I ended up cutting the flat bar in half. I just used my jigsaw like it was a scroll saw or bandsaw. The aluminum wanted to jump up and down if I pushed to hard, I also had a courser metal cutting blade installed, so that might have been some of it. I cut half the length, then flipped it, and cut the other half. I went REALLY slow that last quarter of an inch so when I cut through, my fingers didn’t go sliding into the blade. I am rather attached to my fingers. I use them a lot, being a web developer and all.

I clean up all my edges with my Dremel rotary tool and an emery cut off wheel. I use the flat side like it was a sanding wheel. I picked up a file tonight to see if that does a better job or is quicker.

Assembling the pieces for the second half of the Kayak

I figured out that if I stack the stringers and braces up to 4 tall, add my hole template, and a back board, I can drill my holes straighter. I think it is because I am taking more time to make sure I get the holes straight. I am also aiming for the bottom piece, which seems to help too. Lowe’s has drill presses for $100. I might see if I can look around for one on sale somewhere.

I cut the braces and brackets all in one fell swoop with the jig saw. I am so glad I dug that out of storage. I even cut one extra little bracket to replace the one I screwed up the other night. I cut all the 2 inch pieces first. It is so much easier cutting the little pieces when you have a handle to hold on to.

I have marked this piece for drilling. I didn’t have enough aluminum bar stock to make the other one like it. I made one out of a bit of 2″ plywood. It worked for getting everything assembled. I picked up a new stick of 2″ wide, 1/8 aluminum. The only piece Lowe’s had left was 8 feet long! I only needed 5 and a half inches for this boat! Oh well, I got lots for the next 2 boats I am going to make.

I wasn’t the only one making a lot of noise. Helicopters have been going around and around like they are lost for the last 2 days. This blimp happened to move slow enough that I could grab the camera and take a photo of it.
I was thinking… Zeppelins are a skin on frame construction….

Free to a good home

I am cleaning out some of the unneeded stuff I have.
I have this really nice, not working, iMac DV SE 400mhz- the graphite colored one. Yes, I am giving my baby away! I will give it to whomever asks for it first, for free, you just gotta figure out how to get it there. You will get just the computer, no hard drive, no RAM.
It powers on, then powers right off. I don’t know what is wrong with it. The slot loading DVDROM drive is… weak, it doesn’t like to spit out discs.

It would make a good parts box. The case only has 1 scratch on it.

The computer will not move to Tampa with me for one reason or another.

Snap link previews

I am trying something new on the website today. I am adding Snap link previews. Now you can hover over a link and see a preview of the page that the link links to.

There are a couple options, I basically turned it “all on”. I can have the little icon appear or not appear, I can have the preview only show when you hover over the icon, or the icon and the link.

What do you think? Useful? No? Should I make any changes?

[UPDATE]
It doesn’t work on IE7? I loaded this page in IE7 and I don’t get the snaplinks previews. It works fine in FireFox.

Half the frame – unfolded

Here is a top view of what I have done so far. I must say, i am really enjoying this DIY boat building experience. I never thought that an hour a night would see the boat coming along so fast. Granted, none of the pieces are finished. I will have a lot of work to do going back and beveling all of the pieces and rounding corners and so forth. I am NOT looking forward to sanding all the edges of wood on this kayak.

An angled view of this half of the frame.

This is looking down the frame with me squeezing the end together. There is a piece of rubber and some snaps that does this when the boat is finished.
I am going to have to remember that for final assembly, I want all the exposed joints to overlap with the outside towards the front if I can get away with that and still have it fold.