Electronic bilge pump switch

Every boat needs a bilge pump, but a bilge pump does not make any use if you do not have Electronic Bilge Pump Switch installed in your boat. This is uually the case with small and older boats. If you buy a new Electronic Bilge Pump Switch today it will cost you quite a bit compared to how much you will spend to make a Electronic Bilge Pump Switch yourself at home.

A while ago I was contacted by the owner of manialabs.wordpress.com. He published a simple tutorial to make your own Electronic Bilge Pump Switch and asked me to publish it on my blog. I liked the idea, becouse it is a very innovative product and most of DIY enthusiasts will know how to build it. In fact it is very simple so I am sure anyone can build it.

Making a Electronic Bilge Pump Switch

Over the years, I have installed several submerged float switches in the bilge of my boat. They’re supposed to run the bilge pump when the level of water in the bilge exceeds a certain level and then stop the pump after the water level is lower. They usually work well for the first year or two but inevitably fail. Sometimes they fail simply because they’re submerged in water constantly and they had a very small leak. Other times they failed probably because I left them underwater over the winter and they were frozen.

To improve upon this I wanted to switch, pun intended, from a submerged mechanical switch to a solid state, adjustable switch. I wanted to be able to remove as much of the switch from the water, hoping to extend its useful life. Of course there are a few commercial switches available but they’re not always customizable. Also, buying a packaged switch wouldn’t teach me anything about the circuitry required or give me the intimate knowledge on how they work.

Read the whole article at manialabs blog - Electronic Bilge Pump Switch - or download the Electronic bilge pump switch schematics.

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Technorati Tags: Bilge, Bilge pump, boat, Float switch, pump

Boat reflection (Photo credit: Jesper Hauge)

Today I would like to share with you all how you can pick the right wooden boat plans to begin building a boat of your dreams. Did you know that building wooden boats is a becoming very popular and common? Most people think that one has to be very skilled to build a wooden boat, but in most cases this is not true. Personal wooden boats are easy to build and are also low on resources you have to spend.

You can start immediatley if you have just the basic woodworking tools and a place to work. By this I mean some kind of workshop or a improvised tent outside in your backyard. Everything else you may need you can get during your wooden boat build project is on its way. You may already have lots of the needed materials at home and you don’t know it yet.

If you are concerned that space could be an issue for you, let me tell you that any medium to significant sized garage should be sufficient room to build a boat as usualy personal wooden boats don’t have that much length

Once you’ve decided you would like to start building you may require some good ideas to look for the best wooden boat plans.

When looking for wooden boat plans, there’s a few things to have in mind:

• Price – You shouldn’t spend more than $50 to 100$ on a good set of wooden boat plans. You can even grab them cheaper if you dig around a bit. When you find one that fit your needs, grab them and start working. You can find some great wooden boat plans resources in the bottom of this page.
• Detailed Drawings – Wooden boat plans come in vairety of shapes and sizes. The most important thing is they include detailed drawings and instructions. This way you always know what to do next.
• List of Materials – List of materials will help you plan your budget and you will quickly see if you are capable of building a wooden boat. With a complete list of materials there will be tiny left for the imagination whenever you dig in to the project.
• Tried and Tested – Make sure you buy plans that are based on actual boats that have been built and tested.

I advise you to keep this few basic tips in mind when you are buying wooden boat plans, may it be in the store or from the internet. This way you will know you wouldn’t miss any major factors when you start building your dream wooden boat.

Wooden boat plans resources:

• Plans 4 Boats - This website offers you a ebook that contains highly detailed plans with great photo documentation. Author of the book is a very experienced  builder and he tries to reveal a lot of boat building tricks and tips in this ebook. All the plans are very well described – down to proper materials selection, plans and numerous details.
• Bateau boats - This is another website which has a little bit modern plans in my opinion. I like some of the designs really much. Specially those Caroilna style plans. I don’t know anyone who has build a boat using their plans but I read quite some posts on their forum and people seem to be very happy with them. They are supposed to be very well documented and easy to build.
• Wooden boat plans – complete list of wooden boat plans resources

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Technorati Tags: boat, boat building, wood, wooden, Wooden Boat

English: Canoe being built with the stitch and glue technique (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Boat building is very fun if you take it one step at a time. Beginning with small steps is crucial for your enthusiasm to last forever. I personaly think that a Stitch and Glue Kayak Plans is a great way to start building boats and start learning all there is to learn about boat building.

All information and materials in the Stitch and Glue Kayak Plans are (Copyright) 1997 by Doug Garmon. Non-commercial use is o.k., however, you may not reproduce this material in this or any other media

Doug spent a couple of days writing a comp prog to convert boat offsets into flat, ‘unfolded’ representations of the original data. That program generated the data from which I produced the representations you see here(.dxf, .geo) , the ‘unfolded’ dimentions(text, postscript), also. The actual lines of the boat took far longer to design than the program. The actual lines of the boat took far longer to design than the program. Clearly, the figures are created by transforming the 3d offsets of the boat into triangles that ‘grow’ outward from the first. Then perpendiculars are drawn from a (derived) baseline at intervals and where they cross the ‘unfolded’ figure, are measured. These ‘.gif’ images are much too lowres for anything but examples (I also cannot guarantee they are correctly proportioned).

Where to get Stitch and Glue Kayak Plans?

Click on the link to get the complete Stich and Glue Kayak Plans for free.

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Technorati Tags: Crafts, Cross Stitch, Kayak, Sea kayak, Stitch and glue, Supplies

Simple wooden grommets mounted on the side of a wooden boat.

Wooden Grommets Step-by-step Guide

	1. step - Cut three wood discs with a hole in the center. Hole saws are an excellent choice for this operation. The center disc should be thicker than material it will be placed through by slightly more than the thickness of the saw blade you’ll be using the split ti later.
	2. step - Glue together with a dowel for alignment.
	3. step - Trim dowel flush with the disc faces.
	4. step - Bore center hole with hole saw or Forstner bit.
	5. step - Shape the edges and sand the center bore to your satisfaction. On large grommets, a roundover bit and a router will do this job. More delicate grommets will require less aggressive methods.
	6. step - Split into two rings.
	7. step - Bore opening for grommet. Dry fit, trimming and sanding center of grommet to fit.
	8. step - Finished assembly.

You can download a full DIY Wooden Grommets Plan in PDF format here.

Also be sure to visit our other great tutorials like Making Accent Stripes On Your Wooden Boat or visit Free Boat Building Plans Category on Free Woodworking Plans Archive.

Technorati Tags: boat, bore, center, Do it yourself, Drill bit, fit, Grommet, grommets, hole, Hole saw, plan, plans, wood, wooden

Recently I found a great free accent stripes plan online that shows how to make accent stripes on your wooden boat, wooden paddle or any special custom made boat part that needs to look great Making accent stripes is a little more complicated than making a single strip that contrasts with the basic hull color. It takes some thought and a little extra time to spend to make it look good.  The free plan details making a three part stripe – that is, making three individual strips, that when mounted on the hull, form the perfect finished stripe. The technique can be used to make just about any sort of accent, from simple two or three lines to complex repeating patterns.

Finished accent stripe

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Technorati Tags: accent stripes, boat, stripes, wood, Wooden Boat, wooden stripes

See how to patch a small hole in your boat’s hull using West System epoxy kit and this fiberglass boat repair guide.. (Video Rating: 3 / 5)

Step-by-Step Fiberglass Boat Repair Guide

Step 1.

Examine the pattern and location of cracks in your boat’s hull to determine their cause. If the pattern or location indicates flexing, examine the interior side of the panel to determine the best location for additional reinforcing. If the cracks are a result of impact, examine the interior side of the panel to determine whether damage extends through the entire laminate.

Step 2.

Remove any surface contaminants such as wax, oil or mold release from the surfaces you examined in step 1 of the Fiberglass Boat Repair Guide. Wipe an area at least twice as large as the damaged area with a wax and silicone remover (Dupont Prep-Sol® #3919S), acetone or other appropriate solvent. Dry the area with clean paper towels before the solvent evaporate.

Step 3.

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Technorati Tags: boat, boat repair, cracks, Epoxy, fiberglass, fiberglass boat, gelcoat repair, repair

Video of the equipment on my 90 gallon SPS tank. could not fit it in on the tank tour video without going over 10 minutes. Please support these videos by visiting: www.limpitsreef.com

Tidepool Tim – aka Tim Sheehan founded and operates a biology specimen supply company in Eastern Maine. He and his wife and children collect and supply over 300 species of blueprintts and animals to colleges, museums, aquariums, and school laboratories under the name of Gulf of Maine Marine Life Supply Company. This video is an introduction to the founding of the company and the area where it operates

Video Rating: 0 / 5

Technorati Tags: Equipment, Gallon, tank

People who are restoring old boats often face the problem of rotten wood inside their boat’s core. One of the most frequent repairs on older boats is replacing or at least repairing a plywood cored transom. I had a similar problem when rebuilding my boat and since I didn’t find any good How-To’s I decided to write one and try to illustrate how to replace the transom plywood core on a boat.

Preparing for the boat transom replacement

The first thing to do, before you start to remove parts from your boat, you should take some pictures of how everything looked in the start, so you will have some guidelines for later on. Also you should take some measures of parts around the transom, such as fiberglass thickness of the outside skin, plywood thicknes of the transom itself, inside fiberglass skin thickness, stringer location and thickness and so on…

Be sure to support your boat’s hull well, becouse when you remove structural parts from the hull it becomes flexible and it can twist. You will end up with a twisted boat, and that can’t be undone. Keep in mind that the keel should be heavily supported.

Gain access to the transom

I started with cutting away the outboard motor well and removed all the fiberglass that covered the transom. In my boat, the whole top back end of the boat had to be removed, but this may be different in other boats.

Next I cut out the inner fiberglass skin that covered the transom in order to get to the plywood core. It was very rotten. In fact it was already in little pieces. I cut the the inner skin in one piece and used it later on as a template for the new plywood transom core. If your transom is not completly rotten, you should remove it carefully, becouse it will save you a lot of time if you can use it as a template for the new one.

Old plywood core must be completly removed. I used all sorts of tools to do that, but an old crowbar,a hammer and a chisel did the best job for me. If you have an air compressor, a small air hammer is a good investment.

After you remove every bit of the old transom, take a good sander and sand the outer fiberglass skin to perfection. If you make it thinner with sanding, you should add a layer of glass and resin over it and sand it again. You must end up with a completly flat surface to bond your new peace of plywood to.

Once the old plywood is removed, make a template of the transom using cardboard or cheap plywood or construction foam. You will use this template to cut your transom core and also to draw/cut the wide fiberglass pieces that will make up the new inside transom skin.

Old transom removed and outer fiberglass skin sanded.

Installing the new plywood core

You should make your new plywood core at least as thick as your old one was. I made mine thicker. Originally it was 38mm thick  and I made two new identical pieces that were 22mm each and were made out of waterproof marine graded plywood. I also took some measurements of my engine to see if it will fit thicker transom. Everything seemd to be OK so I started laminating the first piece of plywood in.

I positioned the first piece into the beat and started laminating. I used 330gr/sqm mate and 600gr/sqm roving (cloth) to do the job. When you place your first piece in the boat be sure to laminate it with one layer of glass mate and use a lot of epoxy on it. Install the piece while still resin is still wet so it will bond to the old skin. Clamp everything together and leave to cure.  Do not apply too much pressure when clamping! Epoxy is gap filling and extremely strong, you want the epoxy to remain between the plywood layers. Once the epoxy begins to squeeze out the sides evenly it is time to stop the clamping pressure. Do the same with the other piece of plywood.

First piece in place and two layers of fiberglass laminated over it.

Laminate new inside transom fiberglass skin

After you laminated your new transom you will laminate your  new inside transom fiberglass skin. The lamination schedule for each boat will vary, but in general, you will be looking to build up to the original thickness. I did a little extra on my boat, but this is optional.  The new inside skin will be much stronger, and better bonded to the core because of the superior materials (epoxy and biaxial fiberglass). Work slowly and precisely and be sure to remove any trapped air from your lamination layers, becouse they can start holding water in next couple of years and you will then have to do all over again.

Both pieces in place and the new inner fiberglass skin laminated.

Your new transom is now complete and the only thing you need to do now is to tie it to your boat’s stringers and at the end coat everything with gelcoat to make it really waterproof. Use heavy biaxial cloth to tie the stringers to the transom and repeat the lamination several times. This could be a big weak point of your boat if not done right.

Put it all back together

Now it is time to look at those pictures I told you to take in the beginning. They sould give you some directions where things that you removed belong. Laminate the motor well back in place, mount all parts back where they were, mount your engine and you are ready to go. Below are some pictures of how my boat turned out, although this is not the only repair I had done.

Technorati Tags: boat, fiberglass, plywood, repair, replacement, transom

Every one of you who are visiting this site, probabbly has an idea of what his dream boat looks like. Some of you will be or already are fortunate enough to buy or make the boat of your dreams. Well if you belong to the other side, that is to the people than can’t afford to buy a new boat, you should concern building one yourself.

Boat building used to be a difficult job that required a lot of skills and special tools, so it was pretty much out of your reach. So what has changed? I will tell you…

More and more people would like to enyoj a hot summer day on board a nice wooden day cruiser, or perhaps a small wooden power boat, or a canoe or just some sort of boat that sails. So when a lot of people want something, there has to be a way to make it cheap so everyone can enyoj it.

In this case, some boat building companies and boat designers started to design top quality boat plans, that are planned so anyone can follow them, no matter how many experience do they have. They are designed in a way to precisley illustrate the entire boat building process by simply following a plan and connecting the right “dots” together. It basically comes down to cutting different shapes out of sheets of plywood and than bonding them together in whatever way boat building plans tell you to.

But as everything in this world, there are some really good and some really messy boat building plans. I did a lot of research on this topic, and found a lot of cheap or even free plans thas seem OK when you first look at them. But when you start going deeper into design, you see that it is not so perfect. I read a lot of books on the topic (I suggest you buy and read this one – Boatbuilding Manual, Fifth Edition by Robert Steward - it helped me a lot and it is really well written), and only then I started to understand what makes a good design.

I then saw that if I wanted to build a good solid boat that will serve me for many years to come, I need to find top quality boat building plans. Whit all the things in mind, that I learned in R. Steward’s book, I started looking for the ultimate set of boat building plans.

I must admit that I found quite a few, but only one really stood out. I found this great set that includes everything an amateur boat builder needs to start building boats of any shape and size. I found the perfect set of boat building plans.

I know, that when you will come to this site, you will say to yourself, that this is another internet product and that it can’t be good, but let me tell you that I tought the same when I first visited it. But in time, when almost all my searches on Google ended on this boat building plans website, I figured, what do I have to loose. I ordered the complete package and I must say that I am very satisfied. I alredy built two boats according to these boat building plans and I must say it is really simple. You should just try it out!

The best thing is that you get tons of free stuff in the package, and by far the most usefull thing is (naturally right after the boat building plans themselfs) a very cool 3D Boat design software.

You also get a lot of books on boat building topics, but those are not as good as the site promises. I think they are badly written, at least if I compare them to Boatbuilding Manual, Fifth Edition by Robert Steward.

So if you are looking for a set of boat building plans you now know where you can get them. I am telling you, in my opinion they are worth every cent.

Technorati Tags: boat building plans, boat plans, plans, plans for boats, wooden boat plans

The summer time is starting here in Europe and all boat owners are preparing for the new season. All the boat shows around here have already passed by so I can now put together some great new yacht designs for the year 2011.

Some of the best yachting companies introduced some awesone futuristic yacht design, that are worth looking at. So enough of this small talk and let’s see what they introduced for this year.

2011 Sunseeker Predator – The new design
Specs Builder: Sunseeker Dimensions LOA: 52′ Beam: 15′2″ Displacement: 54,560 Engines Engine Brand: Volvo Penta IPS Engine Model: 900 Tanks Fresh Water Tanks: 165 Fuel Tanks: 565

Watch a short video on YouTube.com - 2011 Sunseeker 52 Predator

2011 Azimut 53 Yacht
Specs Exterior styling & concept: Stefano Righini Interior Designer: Carlo Galeazzi Dimensions LOA: 16.7 m/54′9″ Beam: 4.74 m/15′7″ Displacement: 27 t Draft: 1.35 m/4′5″ Material: GRP Engines Engines: 2 X 715 mHP (526 kW) CAT C12 ACERT Compact Max Speed: 31 knots Cruising Speed: 28 knots Tanks Fuel capacity: 2,340 l/618 gal Water capacity: 590 l/155,8 gal

Watch a short video on YouTube.com - Azimut 53 flybridge

Riviera 3600 Sport Yacht SII
Specs Builder: Riviera Sleeping Capacity: 5 persons Dimensions LOA: 11.73 m/38′ 6 Beam: 3.83 m/12′ 7 Displacement: 8,900 kgs/19,621 lbs Draft: 0.95 m/3′ 1 Engines Engines: 3 x Volvo Penta IPS, 221 KW, 301 HP each Tanks Fuel Capacity: 800 l/212 gal Water Capacity: 390 l/103 gal

Watch a short video on YouTube.com – Riviera 3600 Sport Yacht

Bavaria 28 Sport Yacht
Specs Builder: Bavaria Sleeping Capacity: 6 persons Dimensions LOA: 8.95 m Beam: 2.99 m Displacement: 4000 kg Draft: 0.90m Engines Engines: Mercruiser, 6,2 377 MAG, 320 hp Tanks Fuel Capacity: 520 l Water Capacity: 120 l

Watch a short video on YouTube.com – Bavaria Sport 28

SeaRay 450, 520, 580 Sedan Bridge Series Yacths
Specs Builder: SeaRay Sleeping Capacity: 10 persons Dimensions LOA: 17.88 m Beam: 4.88 m Displacement: 23360 kg Draft: 1.30m Engines Engines: 2x MAN 900 V8 diesel inboard Tanks Fuel Capacity: 2649 l Water Capacity: 568 l Holding Tank: 257 l

Watch a short video on YouTube.com - Searay Sedan Bridge 580

Azimut 45 Fly Bridge Yacht Design
Specs Builder: Azimut Max. Capacity: 12 persons Dimensions LOA: 13,78 m Beam: 4,38 Draft: 0,86 m Displacement: 17000 kg Engines Engines: 2xCummins QSB 5.9 480 Hp Tanks Fresh Water Tanks: 1300 l Fuel Tanks: 500 l

Watch a short video on YouTube.com - Azimut 45 Flybridge

Technorati Tags: 2011 boats, 2011 yacht, 2011 yachts, hot yachts, new boat designs, yacht, yacht design