Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[ebb]

Agree. The IDEAL place for instrument is over the companionway, at the front end. For coast sailing at night I wonder if there is a better location for an illuminated sounder - certainly not in the cockpit well. On an Ariel there aren't too many places.

Tube Bending.
Looked up router bits for making mandrels. There is nothing available to make a deep flute for 7/8". It is possible to have a custom bit made. $$$. So we're stuck with a readily available 1/2"R cove bit.
Shaper bits is another story. If you have access to a shaper, you can more easily find an outfit to custom a 7/8" round nose bit. They would make an absolutely perfect cradle for the tube - While having to make two passes with the router cove bit makes it possible to have a problem with the curve.
So it is likely that 1" tube is what we have to bend.
Making the mandrels will take some doing and care. I would guess the most versatile material is meranti, or birchply. You can glue it up to create a mandrel that has thicker sides, maybe even enough for the flute bit to roll on. We can glue on stuff, fix mistakes no problem.
Another great material is polyethylene - just bought a piece 1" thick, not too expensive. It's cutting board. Can't glue it, but it's as close to wax as solid plastic gets. In the photo of the green bending ap, the white mandrel must be polyethylene.
[Do you notice a little extra radius bend at the bottom of the mandrel? Maybe to take care of springback, right? Give the bend an extra kick in there.]
Stainless tube will love to be bent in this stuff.

And then there is making the bender itself. Are you thinking of doing that?

Found a Utube bending video where the guy filled the tube first with water, then poured in the dry sand. Said to pack in better.

As to wax. Paraffin can't be all that expensive in Minnesota. And for freezing it, all you have to do is open a door and stick the tube outside.


Dono what I'm going to do.
Reinventing the wheel over and over (total remodeling) is taking FOREVER. I have run out of time. I just know that a tube bending guy can take the tube, bend it just right, hold it up in the air over the pattern or the boat itself, and come up with a perfect stern pulpit. - 5 grand!
I will have a full 3D ply pattern that took me a couple months to make, and who knows HOW LONG it would take me to translate into nicely bent double axis tube? Just having to trim 1/4" off the end of a tube seems a chore. (Dang...forgot about the sand!)

Go forit, Tony.