Mercury

Canvas covered foamies (Thrifty Alternatives...)

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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Wed May 25, 2016 5:00 am

GPW wrote:Ps. As one who painted his new house with a “paint eater” ... We got the one that you could hook up to a “fiver” and kept the job rolling smoothly ,otherwise , every minute , you have to put more paint in the small cup ( Good for painting small things like birdhouses ) .. The bigger paint eater wasn’t much more and was worth it ... After the job was over and done , I sold it to my carpenter for half price ... :thumbsup: :D Thrifty !!!

Actually the paint eater is a paint removal tool, with a scotch Brite pad that removes paint and epoxy, but not wood
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Re: Mercury

Postby GPW » Wed May 25, 2016 10:37 am

“ Wagner makes the paint eater, you can find it in almost any paint department. “ ... Thought you were referring to one of those Airless paint guns that really sucks up some paint ... :o :thinking:
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Re: Mercury

Postby GPW » Wed May 25, 2016 11:38 am

Row, Apologies , But I’m not quite sure about the hatch hinge business ... Do you have a sketch of the profile , how it works .... I’m not getting much from the photographs (sorry ) :?
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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Wed May 25, 2016 6:01 pm

If you look at the picture of the double spars with the plastic bag in between, You cut between the two spars. one becomes the aft spar/top of the frame around the galley hatch opening, and one becomes the top frame of the hatch, these are what you attach the hinge to.

By cutting straight down either side of the tear walls, from the saw blade width gap between the spars, you separate the hatch from the teardrop.

I then glued another 1x3 to the bottom edge of the aft spar, making a right angle between them. This second 1x3 extendeds aft and creates the lip that the top frame of the hatch rests on when shut.
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Re: Mercury

Postby GPW » Thu May 26, 2016 7:28 am

OK, Thanks Row , I sorta’ “get it” ... :NC
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Re: Mercury - Gama Seal windows

Postby mvankanan » Thu May 26, 2016 10:10 am

[quote="rowerwet"]Since Wiley windows are not a good idea for a forward facing window, I came up with another simple widow design for the forward cabin.

I asked this before and got no answer. Will wiley windows work on a slanted wall, 10,12 degrees, like most pick up caps?

Thanks Mike
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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Thu May 26, 2016 2:33 pm

I don't see why not, you may want to have the glass be an inch or so taller than the window opening, and be 110% sure that the bottom of the drip channel slopes outwards, and that the drain holes have a steep angle downward so no water can pool in them.
Also make the inside lip of the drip channel an tall enough that even if parked at an angle, the inside lip will still be taller than the window opening, just in case a drain hole gets plugged
Last edited by rowerwet on Fri May 27, 2016 4:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Thu May 26, 2016 2:35 pm

GPW wrote:OK, Thanks Row , I sorta’ “get it” ... :NC

I added hand drawn pictures that should explain it better, they're in the Mercury album, and the generic foamie thread
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Re: Mercury

Postby GPW » Thu May 26, 2016 4:57 pm

OK, Thanks !!! :thumbsup:
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Re: Mercury

Postby CanuckShooter » Wed Jul 06, 2016 5:15 am

Are there any updates on this build? I am real curious about the removable upper sections????? :thinking:
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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Thu Sep 15, 2016 6:39 pm

I hate it when a great build thread with interesting ideas goes dormant, especially if the thread never gets updated again. So to not leave anybody following this hanging....
I tried to have the camper upstairs ready for the camping trips we had planned for this summer, but life gets in the way. Mostly my main job. I had to travel for work enough that it cut into the limited building time I had.
I also had some foamie kayaks to finish for my parents, the people I designed sawfish for, and my kids. Then I had a friend ask me for two more, I already had one half built that I was going to sell him, but after I tested it in the water I realized that it was too tippy for me, and not safe to sell to anyone else. So to keep my word to him, I whipped out two more Sawfish, meaning I launched 8 new kayaks this summer, which I had not planned on.
One of them was a kayak that my daughter had been working on, off and on, over the past two years. She really wanted to get it done before our Adirondack camping trip, and we test launched it the day before we left for the Adirondacks.
I actually did a bunch of work on the foam walls that the upper cabin will be made from, mostly glueing on the plywood strips that will be the "spars" of the roof, and the plates that will be the channels that lock the wall sections together.
I was still turning the problem of how to lock the upper walls together once the whole structure is in place, and believe I have visualized the way to make it work. It will be a combination of velcro straps with one end glued deep into each panel and the other end sticking too a velcro strap anchored into the panel next to it, as well as locking notches in certian overlaps, and possibly some straps tied off to the roof of mercury running up over the roof of the upper cabin.
After all I don't want my girls to wake up outside when they fell asleep inside the upper cabin, because it blew away in the night.
:lol:
Once the end of June hit we were in camping mode and that lasted until the end of July. With one week of camping in the Adirondacks (which turned out to be a bust, we picked the one place in the northeast US that got rain, thunderstorms, and finally 55 degrees and howling wind, NONE of which was predicted before it happened) Sleeping in Mercury, we were nice and comfy, my kids were camping on an Island out on the lake in tents and woke up wondering if the tents would be blown flat, or even blown away. My Brother in Law said the wind came in massive blasts that you could hear coming long before they hit, and then after they passed it would be quiet for a few minutes, just long enough to start drifting off to sleep before the next blast could be heard aproaching. This started at about 2AM and when I paddled over to see how they were making out at about 6AM the wind had settled into a continous cold flow. The kids were up huddled around the campfire trying to get it hot enough to keep warm. We abandoned the campsite on the Island and my sister and her family headed home...
Mercury came through the thunderstorms, and evening rain (like clockwork, just before dinner, almost every night all week) without any issues, the cool nights were no issue, and even the howling wind on the last night didn't even shake Mercury or wake me up.
Mercury hauled 6 kayaks on her roof, up to the Adirondacks, and returned with only four on the roof. Which is exactly what I made that big flat roof for. We also brought six bicycles.
The next week we went camping in North Conway, NH, in the Mount Washington valley. We were at Eastern Slopes Camping Area. The Campground is right on the Saco River, and has two beaches on the river, with enough distance inbetween them to make tubing between the beaches a fun activity, with a short walk back up to the upper beach.
Mercury hauled four kayaks on this trip, and six bicycles inside.
The last camping trip for the season for Mercury was to a church campmeeting in the Adirondacks, only this time the wife and I stayed in a cabin, and the four kids stayed in Mercury.
For the first two trips in Mercury, my wife and I slept in the main cabin the normal direction, and one child slept in the forward cabin crosswise. The Girls slept in a tent, they would have like the roof cabin, but that will have to wait until next year.
For the campmeeting I added a shelf to the main cabin, the shelf is free floating for now, I plan on adding brackets for it to rest on when we want it up out of our foot and knee space, but currently it rests on the tops of the wheel well boxes. This allowed our three girs to sleep in the main cabin cross wise, with two on a double air mattress on the floor, and one on a single mattress on the shelf. A few nights we were there it was cool, but with the foam walls they were comfortable. My son enjoyed having the six sided room in the nose. The area between the doors in just enough for an adult to sleep in, and the space in the point of the nose is perfect for keeping clothes in so they are nice and warm when you get up in the morning.
Once July was over, it is firewood season, I need to have six cords of wood to make it through the winter, I came through last years excuse for winter with 4 cords still ready to burn. I am currently working on the huge pile of rounds I have cut but not split or stacked, and also scrouging as many more rounds as I can get. Firewood prep season runs until daylight savings ends, then I will be back to boat building, as it will be too cold to do much work outside on the teardrop at that point.
I will post up the pictures of the work I did get done to Mercury, and from our camping trips, and any final prep work to get Mercury ready for the winter.
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Re: Mercury

Postby rowerwet » Thu Sep 15, 2016 6:44 pm

I made an instructable about Mercury and the foamie build process, I entered it in two contests, and won first place in one contest, and the judges choice prize in the second contest. THANK YOU to everyone who voted in the contests, and Thank you to GPW and all the rest who gave the whole foamie concept a place to root and flourish. We all might have a different way to build our teardrops, but you all are the coolest people on the internet!!!
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Re: Mercury

Postby GPW » Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:36 am

Glad you’re having Fun !!! :thumbsup:
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