making your own stuff

[letterman]

I was re-reading my old PBO's or something I found on the net got me going. It was a story of a guy who made his own blocks, both new looking and old. The guy waqs the best sailor around, he got them down to about $2.00 each for what we pay ten times that and more. Of course he was a Brit. I recently took apart a double block with a Becket and was looking to replace the sheaves. Cheapest price was about $15. So now I am looking for solid 2" nylon tube to make my own. And then on to finding cheap (read inexpensive) rope (to you purists, you have to search for IT under rope as only marine people call it line...means the same thing here) or line to replace halyards.So, what have you made for your boat/yacht/ship that you mde for cheap, that works like the big boys stuff that costs a fortune? One of mine will be to find stainless tubing, taking it to a plumber friend to thread after I cut it to length, and using it on my exhaust. Another is to replace a lot of my sheaves with home-made nylon ones.

 

[Robert Gainer]

A lot depends on what you enjoy doing

A lot depends on what you enjoy doing. I am the program director for Hudson Fisheries Trust and my job for the last four years has been designing and building boats for what is basically a museum. We teach boat building to high school children and most of what we build is built using older technology and that means few or no screws and bolts but instead we make copper rivets and cast bronze hardware. Before this I owned shops that designed (largest sailboat was 39’), built or repaired sailboats including jobs as large as doing the rig on a BOC challenger designed to do a solo non stop round the world race. I very much enjoy building things and am the only private person I know of that has a complete shop including my own hydraulic swagers just so that I can maintain my own boats.Now having said that, my hobby is sailing and since my first solo trans-Atlantic in 1974 on an engineless custom made 22 foot Sea Sprite I have enjoyed sailing. I do not make much of the hardware for the boat I sail because I spend my time sailing instead. I am going to Greenland this summer so I did a fair amount of work in preparation including replacing my engine and all standing rigging but the trip is my goal not building the hardware. Friends have built some of the hardware such as the windvane self-steering system but I bought most of what has been bolted down.Building hardware is very practical and can be fun but it’s an entirely different hobby then sailing. Not to say that you can’t have more then one hobby but most people don’t have the tools and background needed to make things like turnbuckles and other parts that require machining.All the best,Robert Gainer

 

[tom]

time is money

How much money is your time worth??? My time isn't worth that much about $20/hr. My wife's worth about $40/hr $80/hr if she's working overtime. My daughter(a lawyer) time is worth over $100/hr. If you enjoy messing around making stuff then time doesn't count. But if you have the choice of working a little overtime or trying to make something for the boat..probably it's more cost effective to work overtime. That's the whole idea of a modern society. People specialize and are better at doing some tasks than others. I do some stuff just because it's fun to do. But overall I'd rather go sailing than work on a boat project.

 

[Ross]

Tom Go to Mc Master-Carr and get Delrin

Much better than nylon for sheaves.

 

[Steve Dion]

Is there any value in safety?

[nm]

 

[Ross]

I'm gonna turn this a little and say that I make

things for the people on my boat. Things like biscuits, muffins, soup, yeast bread, stews, cakes, cookies. Almost never buy prepared food. With all purpose flour at 30 cents per pound I can make biscuits for four people for about 20 cents. With a jar of home canned turkey, an onion, a little celery and a handful of noodles and a jar of broth I can make soup for those four people for about a dollar. Muffins cost a little more than biscuits because they have an egg in them. When I can feed four people for a buck and a half per meal then I am making things for the boat and saving money.

 

[Landsend]

I like to make rum and cokes...

everything else I buy.

 

[tom]

Landsend that's too much work

Try the single ingredient drinks. Beer, Wine, Scotch if pressed you don't even need a glass!!! Tequila is always appropriate on a boat. Margarita is a lot of work...just cut a lime and use the saltshaker. As for the cooking you can't let the crew lay around in bikinis attracting the rifraf. Put them below to cook and fetch cold beer. I guess even a rum and coke isn't too hard if someone else makes it.

 

[Ross]

Back to the intent of this thread

Last summer I made a whisker pole from a piece of bamboo and a couple of turned ends. It worked well but I left it out in the weather and it split. I will make another and take better care of it. I made the companion way door and the sliding hatch. Made all of the large cleats, built the icebox with extruded Styrofoam and epoxy on fiberglass lining. Made the binnacle with engine room ventilation and engine controls built into it. Steam bent the boom gallows from a piece of white oak. Made the stern rails from one inch copper tube and served them with 1/8" line, painted.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Knowing how to make stuff could save your life

As was demonstrated by some Aussie sailors who lost their rudder off Anarctica and made one from a cabin door. Prob'ly not of much value to sailors who never get out of sight of land...but if more sailors who go offshore knew how to craft or jury rig replacements for equipment that breaks, there'd be a lot fewer people "rescued" off boats that aren't sinking and that turn up on a shore 1500 miles away a year later.

 

[jackhartjr]

Ya'll folks makin'...

...these whisker poles, go to Lowes and get some 'stair railing', comes in oak or poplar, the poplar may not be stiff enough, the oak will be.Hope that helps.JackPS...note I didn't say go to Home Depot; I figure a company that can give the CEO $210,000,000.00 to leave doesn't need my money. I chose to spend it more wisely than that!

 

[CharlieH]

Not so much made, as remade.

Spent last winter gutting and redoing the interior of mine. Made tabernacle for the mast, watertight lockers under all the settees and v-berth, cabin's stern bulkhead watertight, mast crutch for cockpit, lowered sole for wife to have standing headroom in cabin and moved the head to centerline forward.Still need to finish fuel/propane locker in lazarette, galley area, reinstall all deck hardware, figure out if I want lifelines back on or not, make new cushions for interior and cockpit, make curtains for ports, install opening ports, figure out ventilation and apply bottom paint.CharlieH

 

[Abby Normal]

Time, time, time...

Yes there must be something in the blood about the thrift of our British friends. There is an ex-patriot Brit who keeps a 28 ft. ketch at the same marina I do. He has fabricated his own conversion from tiller to wheel, a clever self-tacking staysail which uses a hitch and tongue from a garden trailer he cut up for scrap as a boom, a roller furling system for his headsail that cost him all of $7.00 in materials and consisted of a cast off riding lawnmower front wheel for the drum and some odd casting which came off a piece of equipment at his business.I never thought of what my time was worth until I owned my own business restoring antique motorcycles. I would either contract by the hour or a flat rate based on how many hours I figured it would take me. I have a variety of skills, some of which I'm more proficient or better equipped to do than others. I had a really great set up for powder-coating smaller parts, but when it came to paint, I figured it took me two to three times as long to turn out the same product the body shop across the street from me could do. I could machine smaller parts on my "toy maker" lathe and mill, but larger parts were easier to send out, etc.Where I work now, I've got access to mills, lathes, sheet metal sheers and brakes, tons of good scrap metal, etc. However, I figure it makes far more sense to purchase a block than to spend four hours making one. My wife also appreciates that approach.I understand the sense of accomplishment and pride in making something rather than buying it. I have the ability to do my own woodworking and can do bottom jobs, etc. But when it comes to making hardware, I don't really see the point since there's better tested and more proficiently manufactured parts out there.

 

[Ross]

There is much to be said for being productive

rather than watching the tube or endlessly participating in forum discussions. Things as simple as sewing whippings on new lines or using old small line for making mats. Reading the methods used by others for jury rigging when disaster has struck.I once read of an Azores bound boat that was dismasted at the spreaders. They rigged a small jib with the foot to the mast and sailed into Horta three days behind their expected arrival time.

 

[oldiesrocker]

Time is money

To Tom, Yes, time is money and technically (according to those talk radio guys) my time is too much money - I'm a teacher! I have tried it both ways - do it myself and pay someone else. Doing it yourself if in your own capabilities is more satisfying than paying someone else for the job. Sometimes the job seems too big and you hire someone else that's supposed to be a professional. How many of us have hired a contractor that botched the job at $400-600/day labor(no offence to those reliable residential contractors that show up on time and finish the job when promised that may be listening)? Since I have the summers off and finally, after of 35 years teaching, don't need to work 2 part time jobs in the summer in addition to performing in nightclubs for what i made in the '70s I will usually do all the work myself.

 

[Ross]

I have a fiscal philosophy that is radical

but works for me. In Macro economics the term gross domestic product is used to define the value of all of the goods and services produced by a financial entity. I take that down to my personal level and say that all of the earned income and all of the investment income and all of the work that I do is added together to form the total value of my work for the year. Example; if the marina wants to charge 400 dollars to paint the bottom of my boat and I do the job myself then I credit myself with four hundred dollars minus the cost of the paint. That is money that I don't have to earn and pay taxes on. If I do all of my cooking from basic recipes instead of buying prepared meals I count the savings as value for time expended. The possibilities are endless and some things have practical limits, but for the most part applying your skills is worthwhile unless you are in the top ten percent of the working public.

 

[Tom]

Limited Time on Boat

My wife and I still work and have family obligations etc so we have only a limited amount of time for the boat. So time at the boat is precious and expensive. So if I spend my weekends at the boat working on the boat I am not sailing which is the reason I own a boat. When we retire and have more free time I can satisfy my desire to sail and have time to work on the boat. I've observed many people at the dock working on their boats many more hours than they sail. Many just sit around the dock eating and drinking and that's OK. But for me and my wife it's all about sailing. A weekend spent tied to the dock is a wasted weekend. Maintnenace is unescapable and we do most of it ourselves. I should do more stuff like rebuilding our alcohol stove at home after work. But we are weak people. If we get to the boat and there is a nice wind blowing we usually load up and go sailing. Rarely is it over 30 minutes from the time we arrive at the boat and the time we are raising the sails. When we are through sailing and everything is secure we go home..unless it is a multiday trip. At home there is always work to do mowing the yard triming the hedges, painting the wood trim, walking the dog etc etc. Just getting home after a 30 minute commute and cooking supper and cleaning up the kitchen usally means its 8 pm. Watch the tube for an hour or two and it's bedtime. Then the alarm goes off at 5:30am and we start it all over again. By the weekend I just want to raise the sails and imagine that I have an interesting life.

 

[sailortonyb Allied Mis]

What is worth more?

This post ought to be renamed.."what is more fun, working on your boat or sailing your boat"? For me, my time off on my boat is worth a whloe lot more than my money. I'm with Tom on this one..." if I spend my weekends at the boat working on the boat I am not sailing which is the reason I own a boat." Ever wonder why so many people buy boats and you never see them at the marina? Could it be that they live 4 hours away or further and everytime they came to their boat, they worked on it and never sailed it? Then one day, they got tired of driving to "work" when they really wanted to sail. There were times that I would have a project that i expect to take me 3 days due to lack of experience and lack of tools. If I hired someone capable it would only take them 1 day. If they made twice what I earned , that means I would only have to work 2 days to pay them off as opposed to 3 days if I did it myself. So, since I always have O/T available to me, I actually make more of a profit by hiring the work out or break even by sailing the 3rd day. Everyone has a different economy of scale, and also, somepeople just love working on boats more than sailing them. I personally know someone of that type. Its neither good nor bad to go either way, its just a matter of preferences. There are still some things that I do enjoy doing and that I will rarely hire out. IMHO Tony B

 

[Fred]

When I was younger and lived aboard

I did everything I could do myself. My boats in those days had solid spars and galvanized rigging. I had time to work on the boat, work on other peoples boats, go to Mexico every winter, and sail up the Inside Passage every Summer.It was a great life and lifestyle in the 70s and 80s. I never had a steady job and there was a wonderful community of cruisers and liveaboards.Now we have a house and a great 10 year old daughter. Still no steady job, but a bit more money coming in.I have learned that it's OK to let other folks do some of my work for me (for pay), and that some of the expensive rigging hardware is worth the price.Projects facinate me. I'm working on a couple of inventions that I couldn't find for sale, and I often make something if the price seems too high or I think I can do better myself.Now I do the projects that I want to do. I just paid somebody to change the oil in my car yesterday. I could have done it myself easily, but I'd rather work on my boat!

 

[r.w.landau]

Chuck, next time you are doing a project,

Let us know. That was alot for your real spinnaker pole. It is nice, but ask nexttime. I am sure we all could have saved you a few bucks!r.w.landau