Friday, August 10, 2012

Traveller jig and support mold plates

Here's a picture of the completed jig I built to locate the traveller at the proper location and angle:


I measured the angle as best I could from the plans, ending up with 57 degrees from horizontal...hope it's right but I doubt a few degrees either way will make a difference.   

Making the support mold plates seemed like it was going to be really difficult, since the two planes of the support meet at odd angles.   It turned out to be not so bad though.  I first clamped a piece of wood to the underside of the traveller, then located another piece of wood (roughly trimmed to fit) against the bottom of the first piece of wood to form the rough mold blank:


I then added a bog fillet and a single piece of glass to lock the two pieces in this position:


The rest was easy; let the glass cure, remove the mold plates, trim off the excess, make a gentle transition curve, and voila:


Obviously the above picture is for the port traveller support; there is a similar one for starboard.

The temporary jig for all of this is a pain to maneuver around, but I decided not to tear it down and set it up again later - too much wasted work.   So it will stay up for a few days until both traveller supports are fabricated and attached to the boat.   Stay tuned...

No comments: