Steel Boats and Welding

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by Yachts66

Actually I won't. Trying to enlighten someone who thinks he knows it all is....well.....not very interesting.

Thomas

Good because the only one around this thread who thinks they know it all is Yacht66, and you've already lost a lot of credibility. It clearly shows.

[Yachts66]

Which reviews are you referring to? Got the URL?

Thanks,

Thomas

[SaltyMonkey]

sww914 - anything on Mason, or is that out of the "commercial" spectrum?

[sww914]

Not anymore, lost that hard drive. I read them a couple of years ago.I think one was Practical Sailor.

[Yachts66]

My experience on this board has been overwhelming positive until now. I've found a lot of very knowledgeable people here and I've learned a lot. I've also added my views when I thought it appropriate and I felt I could contribute. That said, the dialog with the little monkey has been quite the contrary. His personal insults and attacks have become irksome and childish. He's not representative of my experiences on this forum. For that I'm very grateful.

Regards,

Thomas

[haidan]

Originally Posted by bangkaboat

So, looking back, if you did not have a partially built boat, Brent on site, & other boats in the immediate area, would you have been capable of doing it on your own? $30/hr. is a significant wage, not even counting the perks. how did you calculate your displacement & ballast requirements? How many firring tabs are you up to(lol)? Spatter can be a real pita when welding stainless and proper polishing is crucial. Sorry to read of your challenges with the wire. Like all welding, it is just practice, practice, practice to address most of these challenges.
Best of luck

On my own, maybe although the hull would be difficult doing the deck and trim wouldn't be too hard. There are some that have been built by people all over the world just like you were asking, I think trying to do it with out other boats to take ideas from would be hard.
30 bucks an hour isn't that significant of a wage, any trained professional will be double or triple that.
Why would I need to calculate the ballast and displacement those things are in the plans - things like this are why you buy the plans from a boat designer. And as I said before this area is the best place to build one of these boats, that's why those MOM folks drove all the way from Utah to build one, the steel is cheaper, the experienced builders are here, there's still lots of scrap stainless (though dwindling) and there's lots of other boats to take cues from.
I welded some tabs onto the cabin ceiling and for the rest just attached the wood to the longitudinal angle irons, I put some extra stiffeners in places like the stern, where I need them to attach wood to, drilling the holes for the self tapping screws took the longest to do of all the firring strip dooda. There are lots of places to attach wood to if you use angles instead of flat bar and leave the deck protruding inside a bit, just the ceiling that's missing them really
I can't remember what gas i used it was some mix of argon for stainless, which is another pain in the ass - changing all the bottles of gas and havng to stop when they run out in the middle of the weekend. The guy at BOC welding supply told me to spread anti spatter goo all around the work and tried to sell me some spray to keep the splatter from leaving little balls all over the boat but after buying gas and wire and consumables and spreading this goo or spray, it's just not economical using mig for stainless work, it's ok for mild but if you're going to need a stick welder for stainless work anyway why not just use it for everything, it's less lugging a machine around.

[SaltyMonkey]

I'm not insulting you Y66, just stating my observations and challenging your opinions since they rarely are backed up with solid reasoning. You seem to hedge and dismiss when some of the things you say are clearly pointed out are contradictory. You also seem to talk down quite a bit too when someone catches you at it. The He example is salient.

[haidan]

Originally Posted by sww914

I had the great pleasure of watching part of a new wing being built at Cedars-Sinai hospital. My son was in the hospital for 15 days as they were welding the framework together. BIG "I" beams, like 18" X 24" X 3/4" thick. I automatically assumed that they would be stick welding but they were not. In fact, they were mig welding the entire frame. They used flux core mig because it was too difficult and dangerous to haul gas bottles around. The mig wire was quite large as I recall, about 1/8" in diameter. I use .023 wire in my racecar building business, sometimes .035. They would lay a 12" X 36" X 36" fiberglass blanket over the joint to be welded and clamp a huge rosebud torch tip under the joint and heat it to 350 degrees before they started welding.
One of the welders was kind enough to spend his lunch break with me a couple of times explaining to me how they did everything.
One interesting part of it all was that when the joint was done they would drill and grind a 1 1/2" hole right through the middle of the thickest part of the joint and weld it up from the center out to be certain that they had complete penetration throughout.
He said that there was about 10 hours of welding per joint. Not counting cutting, fitting, heating, chipping, or grinding. 10 hours of the welder running.
Besides the part where my kid survived, he was the bright spot of the 2 weeks at the hospital far from home.

I believe the heating is called stress relieving, something one might do if welding the tempered shank onto an anchor.

[SaltyMonkey]

Haiden - how long did it take to build your craft? Can you give us a breakdown?

[ConradG]

sww914,
good to know everthing turned out well with the hospital!

They use mig because pennatration is best. Preheating is probably spec.'d also to improve penatration and help control "cold cracking" of the weld. When the whole area has some room to contract there is less stress on a small area of weld. Something you need to pay attention to in large work or materials like aluminum that conduct quickly and move alot. Welding bronze caprails on railings is another example. A 10 foot section can grow 1/8 of an inch when you take it outside of the shop into the sun. If you weld a joint without preheating the very local contraction cracks the weld.
Structural steelwork can also have a higher carbon content. Avoiding stresses in carbon steel is really important. When a high carbon steel knife is hardened for instance, it is extremely brittle and can shatter almost like glass untill some of the hardness is removed by tempering, producing more toughness. Old RTS (rear truck spring) was a comon steel of choice for it's availability and I used to make many tools out if it from more brittle engraving chistles for cold steel to flexible swords. But try arc welding it without anealing the weld and it would almost surely crack showing it's high carbon crystaline structure just beyond the weld.

[haidan]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Haiden - how long did it take to build your craft? Can you give us a breakdown?

Oh let's see...
moved the boat to the farm jan 3rd 2008 spent several months welding and grinding, seems like more grinding than welding looking back built most of the other stuff like anchor winch and finished putting down the trim and put the ballast in. Then winter came again and I went away for a few months built the windvane and the mast fittings and then I think I blasted and painted in april and launched in early july 2009, put up the rig, cut the sails down to fit and wintered over at the dock where I built the interior and put in the electrical this last winter so the boat was ready to go to a point where I could sail around and live in relative comfort by the beginning of march 2010 not much has changed on the boat since, I've been lazy. Over the past couple of years I've spent about 40k some of that is living expenses most is boat, though I haven't had to pay rent since I moved back to the farm to built the boat. Having a location to build is key, with welding equipment is even better.
I think Brent said he put my boat together in a three month period in the state that I got it in.

[SaltyMonkey]

Wow, so about 9 months to get the hull in shape (jan to winter).

About 4 months in additional "fittings" work etc.

Then about 3 months to get painting and some externals done (Apr-June 2009)

Then since then fitting interior as needed - say 6 months.

Roughly 2 years.

40k only!

[haidan]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Wow, so about 9 months to get the hull in shape (jan to winter).

About 4 months in additional "fittings" work etc.

Then about 3 months to get painting and some externals done (Apr-June 2009)

Then since then fitting interior as needed - say 6 months.

Roughly 2 years.

40k only!

Yep that's what the bank account/credit card tells me. I'd probably do it in half the time now that I know more of what I'm doing. Brent, since he's done hundreds of them can do it even faster.
Sandblasting sand painting took a whole week of long messy days.
There's another guy out here a shipwright, Tony who has done the interiors on many of these boats he's also really fast and cheap and does really nice work.
If I were to start from scratch I'd do as brent recommends and build all the deck hardware and trim that you can before starting the hull, it'll teach you how to weld and really speed up the time when you need to rent a building location for the boat.

[haidan]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Wow, so about 9 months to get the hull in shape (jan to winter).

About 4 months in additional "fittings" work etc.

Then about 3 months to get painting and some externals done (Apr-June 2009)

Then since then fitting interior as needed - say 6 months.

Roughly 2 years.

40k only!

there we go I knew I wrote it down I lauched the boat 546 days after moving from fanny bay to the farm, then went sailing in the middle of the next march with an interior and all that.

[SaltyMonkey]

So, let me ask, if you had the funds. What do you think the optimal number of workers would be needed to get the hull, fittings and basic interior welding complete before sending to the interior guy - the fastest time? For example, would 3 people working on it be more optimal than 4 eg. after a certain number, communication breaks down and you also end up getting in each others way without actually saving time.

Curious on how many people it would take in a yard to get the job complete in the fastest time.