Plastic Fantastic

an area to discuss dinghy developments
Post Reply
davidh
Posts: 3166
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:43 am
Location: Ventor Isle of Wight

Post by davidh »

Ohh dear oh dear.

For those following the 'downhill all the way saga' it ended when someone 'for now name less - but you can look for yourself' who wrote the following......


"Oh Jeez.....THAT Omega!

mmmmmmm........

one of the early boats came down here to Roadford.

I know it is cheap.....but mmmmmm......

Not going to get carried away.....but let me say that my impression of looking at it on the water was less than good. Maybe Stu will fill in what I really mean....he doesn't mince his words.

ps....in the early days of this forum.....Neil Stu and I thought it bit of a giggle to use the 'offensive words' functionality of the forum to change anybody's posting from 'thermoplastic' to 'tupperware' . we didn't think it would be a word that came up really...but of course it did...and we had a slightly miffed 'user' so we had to change back."

THis raises another interesting topic that came up during todays chat with peter milne. How many boats these days are 'self built' at home?

PM wondered if this was the demise of the Mirror 14.... all of a sudden spending the winter months out in the garage 'stitching and glueing' just fell out of favour. Now many here on this website are avid cascomite users - but rebuilding rather than building anew but..... whatever happened to the ilk that 'did it themselves'???

You see - to my uncultured mind...one can't get much further from a home glued XYZ to the Omega......Fairy Liquid comes as standard

David
David H
Rupert
Posts: 6255
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 pm
Location: Cotswold Water Park

Post by Rupert »

Apparently, we all became "cash rich but time poor" at some point. I'm still waiting for the former bit...and the latter is only because I spend too much time on the internet! I enjoy rebuilding older boats rather than building from a kit new because as a child I hated airfix kits. I think I also like the feeling of a boat having a history.
Rupert
last man
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:26 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by last man »

Home built
Whilst my ent is not home built with the amount of replacement work I am doing soon it will be home replaced....lol Stephen
Getting as bad as the rest. Two boats and two tenders
Rod
Posts: 123
Joined: Fri May 06, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: USA

Post by Rod »

Whoa! Not so fast lamenting the demise of homebuilding.

In the U.S there has been a huge response to the kit built kayaks (stitch and tape, plywood). Chesapeake Light Craft, one of the original kit makers, has sold thousands of kits; most within the U.S but a fair number worldwide. With many repeat customers. There is probably at least ten kayak kit firms in the U.S.; most have jumped into this market within the last five years. Part of this is attributable to the proliferation of relatively inexpensive CNC router tables capable of precision cutting. It is amazing the number of one man boatbuilding shops in the U.S who have purchased these CNC routers. This is not something I would have predicted.

Granted, transitioning from a kayak kit at $800 US to a sailboat kit designed for racing increases the complexity and expense which may take it outside where this homebuilding market wants to spend. Still if you only attracted 3-5% of the total kayak market, this would not be something to sneeze at.

Rod Mincher
Rod M
Annapolis MD USA

http://www.earwigoagin.blogspot.com
http://cbifda.blogspot.com/

Classic Moth: 105
PK Dinghy
davidh
Posts: 3166
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:43 am
Location: Ventor Isle of Wight

Post by davidh »

Rod,

Fair point about the canoe building BUT........ go back to the late 60's - early 70's and there was a whole cottage industry revolving around self build dinghies. Peter Milne was 'the man' - with the Fireball and then the Mirror 14 and even well into the 1980's people were building competitive 14's at home.

But whatever happend since then to Bob the builder? Fitting out for most these days means a scrub down with JiF (sorry Rod, a non abrasive bathroom cleaner) a hose off and (maybe) Grp plosih on the underwater sections.

One thing that is for sure active in the association is the glue pot and varnish brush - and hooray for that!

Did you get the pictures through okay?
D
David H
Brian E. Evans
Posts: 127
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2004 6:31 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by Brian E. Evans »

Dont forget
there is a whole little sub culture of people who put free boat plans on the internet for stitch and glue boats, like Nick Schade with Guillemot Kayaks, or Gavin Atkin with his many weird and wonderful designs some useful ,some not. Also in the UK you have Selway Fisher who is doing very well producing some very nice looking plans for all kinds of stitch and glue boats. The Stornoways look very good.
Brian Evans.
last man
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:26 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by last man »

Well for me the glue hoof glue has been replaced by epoxy but varnish is still a big factor here. I am still trying to do some work on my girl but the weather has been to cold to do a thing.
Stephen
Getting as bad as the rest. Two boats and two tenders
stu
Site Admin
Posts: 404
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 1:47 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by stu »

Omega?........Blanked that from my memory, far to scary to remember ! :D
The only canoe sailor in MY village too !

8) OK K1958
8) Mirror 34459

http://www.stuandliz.co.uk

****************************
make bow waves not chat
****************************
last man
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:26 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by last man »

plastic boats, I look at the tupperware boats out there and even our scout safety boat and wonder what the heck we are going to do with then when they reach their sale by date.
People like us here keep the classics alive as long as we can but in the end a wood boat can at least have a fitting finish as a good fire on a beach.... what of the plastic boats.. will there be a classis plastic boat wing in twenty years time of will our land fill site be full of unwanted non biodegradabe plastic boats... Stephen
Getting as bad as the rest. Two boats and two tenders
JimC
Posts: 1721
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:24 pm
Location: Surrey
Contact:

Post by JimC »

The tupperware boats should be OK - grind 'em up into pellets and recycle them as platic bags. Its the hi tech carbon/epocy/polyurethane foam exotica that presents a problem.
Mark
Posts: 457
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Post by Mark »

Last man, no problem, a bunch of enthusiasts will collect them a talk endlessly about the "good old days"......
RC Laser 898
Mirror 67423 Dawn Run
British Moth730 Moneybox
http://karencollyer.net
Post Reply