The home stretch

I'm down to it now.
Only 29 days remain between me and the race.
There is no boat, but it's coming.

This is one of the collars which will link the gears- donated from a crappy Huffy that someone found in the alley- to the the various shafts.  This one is for the main input gear that I am using to drive the flywheel.

This is the final drive gear fitted to the drive shaft.  Note the prop in the background.

This was taken this morning after a weekend of failure to make the huffy frame work.

The ID of this pipe is too small, so I turned it into a clamp and then used another section of the same pipe to create the vertical support.

This is me on the mill cutting a notch so that I can miter the two pipes together.

Here you can see the clamp I made and the vertical pipe which has been brazed on with silver.  I haven't cleaned them, so they are looking pretty rough, but they should work.











So, here is the schedule as I see it.

I need to buy the material to make the hull.  This means foam board, kevlar or glass (let's see what I can afford), and some epoxy resin.

I need to build the gear box, but I have a really good plan for that and anticipate it going pretty easy.

I need prop blades, but again I have the material and should be able to bang that out in a night.

My friend The Iron Goat will be building the flywheel (he can cast metal and turn things on his lathe) so I will need to collect that and then balance and install it.

I need a seat and some controls.  I have some ideas on the seat, but the controls are still a mystery until I have the hull.

Same for the out-riggers, though I know what they are and what they are made of.

I need to build the hull, which will take three days, maybe less if I can get the Meers-Cat to lend a hand.  So, all of this considered, I think I am more than a week away.  I could easily take 14 days.   That gives me a little less than two weeks to learn how to drive this thing.

That is a lot.

I will try to keep this blog updated.  Don't take this personally, but I will be keeping it posted to keep myself going.  I find that at the end of a day- after I have worked and then worked again on Fenrir- it is helpful to crystalize my thoughts in print.  I am, of course, glad that people are watching the progress, but I am doing it for me.  The story itself drives much of my action, so if I want this to be a story of triumph, I will need to keep on it.

Stick with me, friends, and I will make you all proud.

The target remains, the challenge is issued, and forward I go.