The Steamboating Forum

Hey guys,

Been pretty busy over the winter and now finding a bit of time to get back to the steam tug. Building the hull now. Check here for the build.

http://www.rogersmachine.net/Steamboat.html

Thanks, Ron

Wow Ron. Lots of progress! I wait with anticipation to see page 7!!

Tin boats must be "in" Here's another launched just in time for theNWSS 2009 Annual Steam Meet[img]



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Hi Ron - a great project and a very informative build log. Will follow with interest.
Thanks for posting, and good luck. John

oooh, I like that scotch in the above photo...

Looks like great progress on the tug.. I too wait impatiently for more progress updates.

Hi Ron,

I am looking at buying the plans for the Salty, and I wanted to hear from you about how they were.

Enough detail to build from without a lot of guesswork?

You are also building a larger boat then is in the plans. Do you think I could make the boat about 5' longer by spacing out the offsets?

Thanks,
Steve

With all that work into building the strongback, it would be a shame not to build a couple hulls and sell them to recoup some of your costs.

Steve,

The plans are pretty good, they aren't step by step directions. They provide the offsets for the hull of course, but the uppers are just dim'd out. Some basic construction technique is needed as well, which is available all over the web. For the price, they are a good deal.

I'm basically just using the offsets from the plans, I deviated and went with steel construction and then scaled everything up by 10%. It's an experiment, I may wind up with a big yard ornament, but I'm having fun with it anyway.

Stretching the hull 25 % without a rework of the stations would be extremely risky, It would be 31" between stations. Wood construction? I wouldn't try it. One could take the CAD drawing and redo the offsets, by simply cross-sectioning and adding ribs at closer intervals. I thought about it on this one, but I only increased the span by 2.4". Should be ok. This is my first steel hull, Steel is very strong. Just the frame at this point only welded conservatively to minimize distortion, is extremely stiff. I certainly won't have to worry about poking a hole in it. I've decided to skin the bottom with 12 ga and past the first chine to the gunwale, with 14 ga. I was going to use 13ga, but our steel place has only 12 or 14, ah well, 13 is an unlucky number anyway.

Wes, Yes I'm going to more than likely build at least one more, a buddy of mine is thinking about one for smelly long-chain hydrocarbon power.

I'm not working on it today, some hot automotive job came in today, It sucks when work gets in the way of my hobbies

Thanks for all the great comments..

-Ron

I looked over your website again Ron. Looking good, and gave me a better idea what i'm up against.

Also, that trailer looks monstrous!

Keep the site up to date! I'm definitely keeping an eye on your progress!

I must offer my congratulations on the way the hull has gone together. You seem to handle steel with more aplom than we woodchoppers manage with plywood!

Your trailer looks fine too, not unlike the Loadrite on which my shell was imported from Mr Beckmann. I have had some fun recently trying to get it in line with UK trailer laws, but my local trailer workshop (Towtal Ltd) have come up trumps again. I now have legal and waterproof lights and the reversing light connection to the over-run lockout is also fixed up. There was much tutting and chin scratching when they first saw hydraulic brakes and no parking brake (the UK seems to have settled permanently on cable brakes). Sadly they have not worked out how to rig a parking brake, but at least they could supply some nice light weight plastic chocks. Much better than the logs out of the wood pile that I had been using. If any of our UK members are thinking of importing a US built trailer, Loadrite now have a Euro compliant version for most of their range.

What I have been wondering is how on earth folks with the bigger boats (say 27ft) manage to manouver them, park them, etc. I feel that this trailer (20ft X 7ft) seems to fill the road. Empty it is moderately easy to shift with the Mr Shifta caravan mover, but the thought of manouvering it onto or off our drive with a complete boat on top is a veritable nightmare. How did folk learn to do that sort of thing without bending your boats, knocking down the hedges and denting you neighbours' cars? I would be interedsted to hear.

Regards

Pete

PS Still some way from getting the boat out of the garage and onto the trailer, but am now working on the saloon.