Pic of the Day

[Renegadenemo]

The choccie sauce I assume has two purposes, waterproofing and keeping disimilar metals apart. Was there an equivalent product used on the original build or was it a case of, bolts are tight so water should stay out?

Yes and yes - it also sticks like poo to the bedclothes. Back in the day they used chromate jointing paste (yellow yak sh*t) that only dealt with the dissimilar metal problem and was hopeless at keeping the water out. The boat has so many drain holes we have to assume it leaked like a sieve and I well remember Ken Norris telling me that the sponsons leaked so badly they had to be filled with expanding foam from day-one. We've gone to great lengths to make sure that everything is a close fit then properly sealed so she should be 100% waterproof.

[Terminator]

Looking good and I certainly hope we are 100% waterproof. However one things for sure the tolerances now are far better than when the boat was constructed in 1954. That's not a criticism of the work done way back in 1954 as they did a good job which saw K7 secure seven world water speed records over the years.
Good day yesterday in the workshop and hopefully the final piece of the flooring is prepped I think? Now ready for Bill to take off to the heat treatment people to return it to its original flat shape. However it was not easy fighting with a bit of tin covered in the pink stuff curled up like some king cobra ready to bite anybody not paying attention. Big thanks to Gillian and Rob for mucking in as it was a task to behold at the start of the day but we cracked it.
That's not a bit of woodworm I spy in that wood featuring today is it ?

Novie

[Terminator]

I knew that just teasing. It must be aluminum worm then
Novie

[no1traumanurse]

For those of us, might be just me, with no idea about metallurgy. Why are the floor skins going off to be heated?

[mtskull]

For those of us, might be just me, with no idea about metallurgy. Why are the floor skins going off to be heated?

I was about to ask a different (but related) question: Are the floors going to be heat treated again once you have got them exactly how you want them?

[Renegadenemo]

The floors are made of a ridiculous alloy (7068) it has the same tensile strength as steel and is near impossible to work with or weld in its hard condition so it's been annealed and furnace cooled to make it soft as butter and once we have it all back in one piece and straight it'll go back to be heated and quenched to restore its properties.

[no1traumanurse]

Will that take its strength back to original or is it just more important that it evens its properties after all the seperate areas of stretching, shrinking and welding?

[Renegadenemo]

Will that take its strength back to original or is it just more important that it evens its properties after all the seperate areas of stretching, shrinking and welding?

All of the above. There's just no dealing with it in its hard condition and once it's soft it would hydroform into the iner floor corrugations soon as we put any load on it.
We spent all of Saturday subtly shifting the front of the floor a quarter inch to the left to line up some rivet holes but this was only possible because it's so soft. Good news is it's coming back to us very quickly so it shouldn't be too long before it's back for heat treatment.

[mtskull]

When you say the breathing air bottle holder won't be used again, do you mean that you won't be putting it back, or just that it won't need to hold a breathing air bottle again? Was DMC using breathing air during the 1966/67 attempt?

[Richie]

And for giving him CO2 narcosis