Gentry in Minnesota

[trisailor]

turned a 33" stern pole out of a nice chunk of Honduras and wired it for light. used a brass bullet catch for the base contact and made a little brass curved plate for the other connection. soldered both into place

[trisailor]

here's a shot of the finished pole

[SeaPea]

Great idea - looks very neat!

[trisailor]

quite a breeze blowing in the shop this morning. musta left a window open

[Paul Kinneberg]

Very nice!

[trisailor]

still lots of little details to finish up. today was spent on cutting and welding the stainless steel hardware to keep the front hatch closed. tomorrow I think I'll start to design the fold down windshield brackets.

[fergal butler]

Very neat and tidy..... and shiny.

[trisailor]

yup, a buffing wheel is a must for the shine

[Trackhappy]

That is very clever and looks great! I need some things for mine, can I send you a list????

[neel thompson]

Dean,,, Please retire so you can take her down to Tennessee in September. It just isn't fair to keep her hidden from other builders in your workshop!!!! Great job all around....Neel

[trisailor]

sounds intriguing, given the morning view outside my second floor porch. green grass seems so distant

[Lowka53]

A week ago my place looked the same today i have a yard

[slug]

Dean; I did all the stainless fabrication on my sailboat ( stantions and custom bases, cutwater, etc. ) and also all the stainless on the Titan. I plan on doing the same with the Gentry and wonder if you would be so kind as to share your polishing and buffing procedure with the rest of us ( ie. compounds used, from rough to finish, wheels used, RPM etc.)
I used a slow (variable speed ) buffer with a sanding pad and started rough contouring with 120 grit then moved progressively to around 320 before going to the buffer and compounds.
Very impressed with your finishes and designs.
I think a lot of builders would be pleased to know this isn't really rocket science...just damn fiddly

Thanks; Doug

[trisailor]

Hi Doug-

fiddly is a good description.
just like finishing in wood. don't want to see scratches, keep sanding!

My buffing wheels are very a very simple set up. left side is a harder spiral wrap, for the first and more aggressive go around. right side is a bit softer. the motor is a 1725rpm, stepped up a bit to probably around 2500 rpm.

good ol' McMaster has a good selection of compounds. I found their yellow bar is working fine for me on stainless:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#buffing-compounds/=lu1m4i

I'm fabricating my fold-down windshield brackets now, welding up the channel stock, using 3/4" x 1/8" flat stock to create the portion that will hold the bottom and center wooden support frame of the windshield.

I'll take that which I've welded with the MIG and grind it so it sorta looks like an extruded u-channel. I'll begin that removal process with a hard depressed center grinding wheel on my 4 1/2" angle grinder, being careful not to dig too deep. then to a 60 grit flap (blending) wheel, then to a 120 flap wheel. next comes a 3M conditioning disc (looks like a red scotchbright that I use on my 2" angle grinder.

when I see no more scratches, I go to the buffing wheel and buff away until it's nice and shiny.

all the above is for anything that is flat and has an outside radius.

inside fillets, I will either start extra weld removal with a carbide ball bur on a die grinder (size determined by the radius I want) or just get in there with a 24 or 36 grit sanding disc on my 2" angle grinder to achieve a nice inside radius. then same ol', same ol', of finer grits and then the conditioning wheel 'til I see no more scratches. Then it's the buffer.

All these processes that I use work for me and have gotten used to over the years. You machinists out there will probably say it's a lousy method, too inaccurate. You may be right, but for me....... My thought on any thing that gets posted on a forum like this is that it needn't be taken as the gospel. If it works for you as well, wonderful. If not try, something else. Different strokes for different folks and all that. That's what is great about a site like this.

no magic, no milling machines, just simple straight up fabrication, as putsy as it is.

I'll post the brackets when I an done. hope they will look OK and actually work.

[slug]

Thanks Dean; Very similar to the method I used, except I will build a buffing setup rather than use a wheel on my grinder (too fast...compound won't stay on )
Looks to me like you're a bear for punishment, but the results speak for themselves.

Doug