The Bluebird Project

Richie wrote:Checkie.... Cars and bikes have suspension.... Boats don't.

Quicksilver does ...

I mention this here because it's bound to crop up at some point in the future and I don't want the usual naysayers saying, "Oooh! They've got problems. They're messing about with suspension now."

We've been working on the idea of a suspension medium for the boat since 2005, and I mention this in many of the talks I do around the country.

Before anyone pipes up with, "That's illegal! There are restrictions on moving surfaces," consider this. If moving surfaces were banned altogether, water rudders would be banned and the WWSR boats of the world would have no way of steering. It's certain aerodynamic control surfaces that aren't allowed to move during a run. Our system only has influence in the medium of the water and no influence in the medium of the air.

"What if it doesn't work, though?"

We lock it off and call it an experiment that didn't work but was well worth trying.

Nigel

Finally Dawn and I are on the home straight riveting home those Dzus fasteners (pronounced Zooss) after previous weekends of preparation work. Dawn although light in stature has proven a real asset to me on the riveting gun these past months. It never stops amazing me how many little problems you encounter along the way. I was hoping that we would have completed the engine cover on that particular session but as Bill said to me when posing questions you are the first to attempt rivet those Dzus Springs back into position and its a learning cure". And after using multiple tooling which Bill machine not once, not twice but several times before we were happy with the result. But even then you still have obstacles to overcome and all doesn't go according to plan but Dawn and I have a system going now. The original springs have come up really well not to mention the screw heads we cleaned months ago,they look rather nice back in there original place.

Dawn did a little bit of research on the Dzus fastener and it turns out that William Dzus was born Volodymyr Dzus and was of Ukrainian origin as I am myself. The racing colours of Bluebird are Blue and Yellow the same as the Ukrainian flag colours,Blue for the Sky and yellow for the golden fields of corn as my late Father often told me.
Many thanks for that Dawn it brought a tear to my eye Lass when recalling the above knowing that although K7 is a British Boat it is nice to think the Ukrainian ancestry has a small part to play in her construction.
"Tail cover next" bring it on
Novie
"I've Gone"

Mike....

The T60 steel mounts for the main spar had to be incredibly strong....Can you give us an idea about the strength specifications of the material?

J-D
DFW/USA

3/16th thick, 60 tons tensile, fully heat treated, six of them - just the usual Norris over-engineering, but get out to the ends of the spar and the 10-inch-tall turrets that attached the sponsons were made of 16swg stainless and 'finest larch'. I cannot wait to go to the wood yard over the road and ask if we can have some of that. It must be 'finest' because that's what it says on the drawing.
I did a spot of blacksmithing on the steelwork that mounts the steering last week, it's the same stuff, and it was tough indeed. Even when clamped solidly to an inch-thick slab of steel to force it into shape then heated to white-heat it still took a fair bit of shrinking to get the kinks out.

Incidentally, when Ken came to inspect the wreckage at our place he wasn't pleased with those angle attachments. He told me he'd never been happy with how the spar had been mounted when it was raised. Lew, on the other hand, was flabbergasted at how heavily built it all was and reckoned they could have got away with a lot less. I'm with Lew on that one.

Renegadenemo wrote:
I did a spot of blacksmithing on the steelwork that mounts the steering last week,


...coming very soon to a picture of the day near you!

Try and choose a good one then - blacksmithing in a dark corner of the garage down the road with an oxy-propane rig that had to be held in a particular way to stop the oxy hose spewing and a torch that blazed from every joint like a convention of halitosic dragons didn't make for ideal metalshaping. Will tidy it up when time allows.

Dude I have a perfectly servicable oxy propane rig you could have used..... Dingus

Dude I have a perfectly servicable oxy propane rig you could have used..... Dingus

I know but Bullfrog wanted the job NOW!

I guess the whereabouts of F20, steering box, column and steering wheel are not known?

Shame they couldn't be traced and put back where they belong

Keep up the good work lads!

The ultimate fate of the rest is unknown.

And if it turns up at this late stage there'll be some serious gnashing of teeth because we'll be duty bound to put it all back!

Where did you eventually manage to find the steering box? Is it an exact match, or a very near substitute?
Superb progress, either way.