Eland 36

A bit of a milestone today, after much teething troubles. Got the first of 24 ply sheets cutout that makeup the frames. A lot of these consist of multiple pieces spread across at least two sheets and they are joined with jigsaw “teeth” and epoxy.

this is part of transom outer (two layers 12mm ply ) and then two layers of the ‘frame’ that is shown in #1 so all up it’s 48mm thick.

the holes near centre are from left, a tiller hole , four step holes to climb aboard from swim platform, and on the right are cockpit drains.

As long as the tapes are about 3 or 4 inches apart (75 to 100 mm) and roughly parellel, then the next step is crucial in the process, and that is to scan the whole workpiece, with its tapes on, with the router’s cameras and it stores the scan in memory. Every domino on the tape is different so it knows exactly where it is by creating a map and uses it a bit like a gps. It’s uncanny how accurate it is down to thousandth of an inch. When you are routing you need to be sure that the camera has a good view of dominoes even down to brushing away sawdust etc. When routing you are obviously going to cut through some of the tapes so then those dominoes are no longer valid but as long as others are in view.

Camera is on board router. Actually router is a bit clumsy description. Bit like comparing an axe to a circular saw. The camera has a window of view about 12 x 15 inches. Yes workpiece must be exactly planar. Can be any shape you want as long as it’s flat and has domino tape on. Device becomes a little unsure of position sometimes and it has clarity display on-screen. Sometimes you need to stop and blow away sawdust or “add to scan” by adding more tape then rescan. But that’s not too often.

This is a full ply sheet I did the other day of the next frame. Took about 3 or 4 hours from setting up ply to finished. I don’t how long it would take doing with tracing pattern, cutting with a jigsaw and sanding/planing to the line but I’d reckon it’d be measured in days and no where near as accurate. These pieces all get arranged/glued into the frame which is about 11 feet by five.

Hi Cheese, , it’s slowed down a little. I’m currently cutting all the frames which is just more of the same over and over. So rather than posting each frame I’ll wait ‘til I’ve got something a bit more interesting to show. It could be a few months at current pace. Thanks for looking in though.

Purchased a stack of ply and douglas fir with epoxy etc to make a start. But it’ll be slow at first because I have to finish last build as well.

I’ve started building all the frames starting with the transom and working forwards (Dudley Dix recommends setting up from frame 0.5 first) so once I get the shelter setup and building stocks I can start from the first frame. Some of the frames are actually bulkheads and have various pieces of trim glued on. Cleats, door trim and hand-holds etc. I’ve added some of the drawings from Dudley’s website here.