Two Things

Alright, let's talk seriously about all this business.
First, I want to say that there is an immense satisfaction in building anything.  To make is to tap into a deeper sense of ourselves.  That we use tools is what sets us in a higher order of nature.  That we use tools to make boats might be evidence that we take things too far sometimes.  Still, it is satisfying to make anything which we can then use.
Second, if at all possible, anyone attempting to make anything should find someone else to finance it.  Which I did... sort of.
Miller High Life is doing some sort of promotion where they will sponsor anyone living the high life.  If you go to their site, you can sign up for sponsorship and they will send you a contract and a check.
The details are on their site here.

I did it, and they fulfilled their end, so I guess I'm sponsored.
                                      

So, from now on I will try to include a can of High Life in my images.  A small price to pay for a corporate sponsor, I think.  I would also have more publicity if I would get on Facebook and do that business, but I won't.   I don't mind selling out to a beer company, but I draw the line at social networking.  A guy's got to have some standards.

Anyway, the other thing I wanted to post today was my rudder.
My pictures looked bad, but here are the images from the post that got my attention:

I found Ryan on the rivermiles.com forum in the buy/sell/trade section.  He was making these for a little over a hundred bucks, and to me that was a deal.  It's expensive in some respects, but considering how much of my time and money it would take to make one myself, I think it makes sense to go this route (besides now that I'm sponsored I can splurge).

In any case, that is one less thing on the list.  Today I am sorting out the gearing between the two shafts and should have a pretty good solution by the end of the day.  I will lose a couple of days for a reunion and travel, but will be back on it soon.
Stay tuned.

Ketchup

I have been gone for a week or so- away on business, actually- so I thought I would play catch-up on what has been going on.

Those of you familiar with the MR340 recognized the image at the top immediately.  I realize I haven't given proper credit to the organizers and participants of this great race.  To be honest, I am not sure I could.  It's a rare occasion when you stumble upon such a great group of guys and gals.  Scott at Rivermiles has put together an amazing program and is tireless in bringing awareness and improvement to the Missouri River and it's tributaries.  I recommend checking out the site www.rivermiles.com for all sorts of information and entertainment.
Also, I can't express how cool everyone in the race is.  I have communicated with many of them and they are always willing to help or crack wise or both (usually both), but they are always friendly.  They have built a community around these races, and often use it to do real good in the world.  Many teams have turned their effort into fundraising efforts and I encourage everyone to check out their cause and help them along the way if at all possible.  Here are some of them.  I apologize to anyone I missed and if you send me a message or comment, I will gladly add it to the list.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=9029600&fr_id=16894&pg=personal

www.todaysletters.com


http://whiterocknavy.wordpress.com/


www.beautiesbarnacles.weebly.com


www.DarkHorsePaddleSports.com


http://www.active.com/donate/paddle2battle


http://loshumungos.blogspot.com/ 


www.rivermiles.org 






Okay, there is some good reading in there.

I am going to put together my next post, since I just got some really cool stuff, like a sponsorship contract and some parts. Spent the last two days at a little local river and the eddies and currents made me very anxious to get all this together.

Never mind this last part.




Rivers have a pull to them, like that of a highway or dirt road as it moves off toward the horizon. They are the natural pathway promising travel to the great Somewhere Else, if only one way. And the boat is the supernatural carrier on the great journeys. It is flight, in a way, that we glide over a surface with little effort and can be transported at nature's speed through the world. How fortunate to be so near such a wonder.

The Buck

I have moved my operation out to my parents' barn, deep in the rolling hills and spring fields of the heartland. Being out here puts me a minimum of five miles from the nearest hardware store, and twenty miles from any place which might carry a decent selection of materials. Still, it is the only place where I can get enough space to construct something so large. Also, I have been working for a while to set up a shop, and it is adequate for my purposes. In a sort of immersion thinking, I am also using the barn as my living quarters, which keeps me focused on the project.

I picked up a small drill press to aid on this.

My first task is to get the mechanical portion set up. For this, I built a buck to use for placement, adjustment, and refinement.

You can see in the photo (bad as it is) that I have mounted the crank on the front of a ten foo

t post. Then I sat on it and got a rough placement for my seat. With that figured out, I was able to route the shaft so that it would be out of my way.

Getting this all dialed in has been more tricky than I thought, and I have moved the seat around quite a bit- note the large pile of sawdust from the drilling.

I am still having a difficult time finding an appropriate universal joint for the drive shaft, so I made a quick one from some half-inch rubber compressor hose and a couple of clamps.

The other components I have to mess with are going to be as tough. For now I am simulating the gears which will run between the front and rear shafts (input and output). The output shaft will have a free-wheel on the forward end, so I will need to sort out how that all works out. For now it's a couple of pulleys which roughly emulate the size.

A quick explanation of why I would insert a couple of gears and a chain into what could work almost as-is:

The shaft that is currently in place is not on center. By necessity it comes off the crank at an angle (to miss the back wheel of a bicycle) so, while I was able to use a universal to make it parallel to the major axis of the boat, I will still need it to step over. I am using this as an opportunity to increase the speed of the final output. By making use of some decent ratios, I can amplify the RPM of the front shaft.

The free-wheel is about making use of momentum. On a bicycle the weight of the bike and rider rolling forward lends itself as momentum toward moving forward. Unfortunately, boats don't get much use out of it. The friction between the water and the hull (plus drag and so on) are greater than the resistance in the wind. To improve this, I want to experiment with a flywheel placed on the output shaft, and I am going to do this by using a free-wheel. The result, if I am right, will give the prop momentum and help with the pedaling by balancing the propellor's resistance against the momentum of the flywheel.

We shall see.

The last bit of note is that I have found a lathe to use for the building of my prop, so I should have a chance at that next week. For now, I am heading back to the city for a few days and will postpone any further work until Thursday.

Hull Modeling

While I am sorting out the mechanicals, I have started to shape a hull.

The major problem with this portion is that I will only get one shot at the final. Unlike the drive train, I will not be able to disassemble and adjust the shape once I build it, so I will have to get it right the first time. To do this, I plan on building a few different iterations as the design progresses.

Initially, I am working from existing designs.

These are a couple of surf-ski hulls I found online. I am using them as guides on how to shape the co

ntours and determine a rough location for the seat and components.

This is a good case where I have decided to get to building before trying to model digitally. I can almost hear the cringes and gasps of some designers out there, but it really comes down two factors: time and information.

The fact is, I have neither. If I were to start modeling this in a boat building software or using Solidworks, I would no doubt come up with several really sharp iterations of hulls. I would still need to make a physical model of them, and so I would be adding a step which I don't need. Also, in order to build an accurate model, I would need to have the dimensions of all of my mechanical components, their placement and so on, before I got started. In working the two together, I will be able to adjust both builds as I make progress. I am counting on this to save me time and inform me as I go.

Self-informing. Brings to mind an interesting digression. In this workflow, I am using the process itself to complete the project. It's somehow a very crystalized explanation of how physical building can inform the design process. This is nothing new, really, but as I hear more and more about the advantages of "virtual" and digital models, I think it's important to note that programs aren't capable of doing this yet. No doubt they will get there, but until that day, there is still a good case for making as a form of thinking.

Back to the boat.

Some other good news happened yesterday. I have a guy working on a rudder for me, and he doesn't seem upset to be building a rudder for a boat that doesn't exist. Also, I picked up a bench top drill press. So, it looks like everything is progressing, and progress is good.

A final note: please don't hesitate to comment. I would enjoy the discussion, and it is more than possible you will add to the overall result.

Gotta Love McMaster-Carr

I have to throw out a big note of appreciation to the folks at McMaster-Carr and UPS. Yesterday afternoon I ordered up some parts for the boat, and it was here today at noon.

Keep in mind that I am nearly 3 hours from Chicago as I type. A small, sleepy little midwestern town. And yet, here it is.

What you are seeing is the steel rod which will become the drive shaft and prop shaft. The larger cylinder is the aluminum which will form the inner cylinder for my variable pitch prop. The other stuff is just packing material, and probably won't end up as a part of the boat.

Now I need to hunt down a drill press, lathe, and an acetylene supplier. On we go.

Getting it together

I think of this project in three parts.

Drive System, Hull, Race.

The hull and drive need to be built separately, but brought along together. Figuring out a fast hull is useless if I can't get the mechanical portions into it. Since I haven't started using any of the software options yet (and may not) I have no way of building either part independently.

But the real work isn't in the thinking, it's in the doing. So here's what I did.

This is the crank from a chain-less drive bicycle. I bought the bike off of Amazon for the purpose of getting this part. I hate to buy a whole bike just for a couple of parts, but my attempts to buy just the drive components proved useless (the manufacturer would

not sell me just the parts I wanted).

I wanted this for a couple of reasons.

First, in a situation where I will be in the water, a sealed component seemed better than the exposed components from a typical crank set-up.

Second, by changing to a shaft right away, I can reduce the overall number of components and simplify the mechanism. In fact, from here I could run the shaft back far enough to clear the hull, attach a prop, and be done. I have more in store, but that's a good example of how quickly I could get this thing done.

Next, I got some chalk and started getting a rough idea of how long everything would need to be. Also, the shaft from the bicycle is at a slight angle from center which will need to be corrected. I anticipated this and have a way to use this as an advantage (to be explained later).

It's a good start. I need a material list for components and I will need a tool or two for the workshop, so for now I am at a stand-still.

The bike frame is an interesting diversion. It has a shaft input and three-speed internal hub. As I was looking at it, contemplating how to make it useful, I got the feeling that it wanted to be made useful. Specifically, I get the impression it wants to be an electric motorbike. Oh good, another project.

It will have to wait, but won't that be fun?

Finish Line back

Let's go back a couple of years.

Let's go back to the finnish line so you can see where this all started.

2009. July. 70 hours after I had started, I was done. 340 miles of river, sun, pain, and hallucinations: all in all, a good time.

This was my ending for my first run at the Missouri River 340, the longest non-stop river race in the world. My cousin and I entered cause I was looking for something new, and he was... bored I guess.

Anyway, I had just graduated with my BFA in industrial design and being in the mind-set, I was thinking about how to get faster. I was treating the whole thing like a giant scenario where I evaluated the experience and thought of ways to make it better. Two years later, and this is what I'm blogging: my attempt to win the longest non-stop river race in the world.

There is more to it, I suppose, if I were to really probe. Something about validating my own ability as a designer maybe, or the combination of the things I love (bikes, adventure, boats, design, et al.) Of all of it though, it's the exploration of an idea which I can only express by pushing it until it is complete.

Most of us have had moments like what I had at the finnish: we are standing there and thinking, "I have an idea to make this better." We know it's a good idea. It is self-evident, or at least self-reinforcing. But to prove it would be too much. Too much work, too hard to accomplish, too far beyond our skills or training or ambition or whatever. I have spent a lot of time there, but I no longer trust that feeling of self-evidence. Now I have a different way of thinking: every brilliant thing we have ever seen is not the product of a moment of inspiration and insight, but rather the result of the effort and combined thinking which has allowed for progress. This is true of every achievement, or product, or accomplishment in history. Your toothbrush is as much an artifact of hard work and smart thinking as the space shuttle. And so is this boat.

So let's get started.