Wordless Wednesday

Tech Tip Tuesday

I really hate to sound hypocritical, but at the risk of sounding that way, my Tech Tip Tuesday advice is the following:

Do what you're doing while you are doing it.

Ok. That sounds pretty simple, but it really isn't.

It came from a lesson that we taught to Engineering Freshmen in a study skills class. What it really means is to focus on your work, not what music is playing, or the other things drawing your attention. In boat building, it is a bit different. When working in the shop or on your project are you really focused on what you're doing? Are you thinking about the bills, the kids making noises in the background or the next step of your project. It's hard to work while your attention is divided and not only will the quality of your work suffer, being distracted can make you miss a safety issue.

Now, why do I seem to be a hypocrite? Well, I'll let you judge for yourself. Here are a series of pictures from the class I taught this past weekend.

The interior of a Wee Lassie II getting sanded in preparation for a coating of fiberglass.

A Wee Lassie getting some epoxy.

An Osprey kayak getting deck strips.

Peruvian Walnut being ripped for stems and patterns being installed in the background.

A new pattern being made to replace a flawed one.

The new "lightweight" box beam being assembled for the Ranger canoe.

By the way - I had been concerned about the strength of this beam - 13' long and supported at the ends, it only deflected about 1/2" with my full weight applied to the middle of the beam! I'm very pleased with the result.

While I say above that it sounds hypocritical, even with all of these different things happening in my class, I'm still "doing what I'm doing while I'm doing it" - I'm there to teach people to do build canoes!

BWWAA-HAA-HAAAA!!!

I must say that although the learning curve is a bit steep at work, I'm enjoying my new job immensely. One of the things that makes me enjoy the job is the fact that both my new employers and co-workers understand that you need good tools to do a good job. They even take the time to make sure that you have the right tools and equipment to do the job.

As a mechanical engineer, one of the more important tools that I have at my disposal is the 3D CAD software that I use to design product. In this case, the software is Dassault Systems' SolidWorks. It's very much like ProEngineer "light" or Solid Edge CAD software. Basically, you can model the parts in the way you would manufacture them, assemble the models of the parts, evaluate and animate the assemblies and create part and assembly drawings. It's generally very user friendly software. Because SolidWorks is a very large piece of software that is highly graphics intensive, it is very resource hungry. The faster the processor, the better the graphics cards and the more RAM, the better.

At my last job, we'd been running the same computers and the same version of the software for the past 2-1/2 years. They really weren't up to the task and had some "issues" with crashing and waiting for the computer to actually do it's job. It didn't make for productive or happy people in the engineering department.

My co-worker at my new job was pushing for a capable computer before I was hired to replace an older machine that had been around for a bit - a 3.6 GHz single core 32-bit machine. Still, we didn't expect the machine that arrived last Friday.

It's a Dell Precision T7500 with dual quad-core processors (yep - that's 8 processors!) and is a 64-bit computer. This is good because the next upgrade to the CAD software looks to be optimized for the 64-bit machines from what I've read. It also came with 4 GB of RAM - a bit on the light side, but certainly upgradable. What was really nice, however, was the dual video cards and dual 19" displays. They're even thinking of upgrading one of the monitors on the two computers that we use this software on to an even larger display. Still, having two monitors is fantastic as I don't have to keep switching back and forth from my CAD software to other windows with calculations or technical information as I design. This should really be great for productivity. Physically, the computer is a monster of a thing and barely fits under my desk - it actually sticks out from underneath it by a few inches. Can you say "Behemoth"? Take a look:


It's nice to work with and for people who understand the importance of good tools. So now, I can be the evil genius in my cubicle working away without waiting for my computer!

Regrets

I've got a few regrets in my boating life. Some are simple - I didn't get to go paddling with friends up in Maine this summer or the summer before. Some are a bit more complex.

When I was 15 years old, I had the canoe blues in a big way. My Boy Scout troop was planning a wilderness canoe trip to the Grand Lake Stream area in Maine and we'd been training and paddling in preparation for the trip. We'd even done a troop activity where each one of us made our own wooden canoe paddle for the trip. It was a really neat project. Building the paddle only fueled my desire to have a canoe of my own. I really wanted on in the worst way. My dad had gotten a canoe from my mom as a Christmas present and we'd been working on our assistant Scoutmaster's BN Morris canoe to get it ready for the trip. I really, really wanted my own canoe.

This summer, my brother had been working at our local Scout camp for the summer. Before our trip to Maine, I went up one evening with my parents to drop him at the camp after a day off. While there, I went into the camp's trading post to get something to drink. Above the door to the trading post was a 16' long Old Town canoe. The camp had switched from wooden canoes to aluminum canoes in the years before and this was one of the last of the canoes. This canoe was the last of the wooden canoe livery. What I found out was that this canoe was basically being offered to the highest bidder. All you needed to do was to write your name, number and bid on a slip of paper and throw it up into the boat.

I got a chair that I could stand on to see into the canoe. The forest green canvas looked great. The shape of the canoe was great. The woodwork was in nearly immaculate shape with the exception of one cracked rib. In my eyes it was gorgeous. I wrote my name and number and bid on a slip of paper and threw it up in the boat.

We got back from out canoe trip and I had seen a red fiberg!@$$ canoe with beautiful ash woodwork. The store wanted $550 for the canoe. It was glossy beautiful and new. I went up to the camp and withdrew my bid as I was going to buy the red canoe. The cracked rib in the wood canoe made me nervous at the time as I thought it would be difficult to repair.

Later, I found out that I had been the only bidder on the Old Town. I'd bid $50 for it. It would have been a wonderful boat for me and I bet that I'd still have it. Only later did I learn just how simple that replacing a rib would have been. Still, you've got to live with the regrets.

Wordless Wednesday

Mik Storer Visits

Michael ("Mik") Storer is a well known Australian boat designer. Mik has been on a self-described "shoestring" tour of sorts in the United States for a bit and has been posting about it on his own blog here. Some of his more well known designs include the PDR Racer and the Goat Island Skiff. In some regards, I tend to think of Mik's work very much in the same vein as Phil Bolger's designs. They're simple on the surface and very approachable with plywood construction. While they may occasionally look somewhat boxy, they're actually fairly sophisticated designs in their simplicity. Most of these designs can also be made without having sophisticated shop tools which also helps their approachability.

I really can't do justice to his tour - you really need to read it over at his blog as it looks like a fantastic time and the pictures alone are worth the look! He's finishing up his trip with a whirlwind visit up to see Carl Cramer and the folks up at WoodenBoat before heading back to Boston to fly home.

As part of the tail end of Mik's tour here in the US, he gave a talk in Portland, Maine at the workshop of Clint Chase. A nice summary of the talk is on Clint's blog. This talk was followed by a nice bit of a row, paddle and sail on an unusually warm day for the 1st of November! Clint himself is also a very interesting guy. On top of being probably the tallest person at most gatherings regarding boats and boat-building, he is a boatbuilder, designer and the director of the Compass Project in Portland. The Compass Project provides young people with personal growth and teaches responsibility by building, sailing and rowing boats. Truly a fantastic undertaking!

Vote. Please.

Well, it's not a national election, but it's still important.

Educate yourself on the issues and vote.

Please.