Before I glued in the centerboard weights I put them on the scale to see how far off my target of 22 lbs I ended up. I found they weighed 20 1/4 lbs, which was not too far off. However, I decided that at this stage I could easily get closer than that, and by doing so I wouldn't always have a nagging feeling that I was a little light in the centerboard!
I had gathered up a bunch of the lead shavings from the initial machining (see one of the first posts in this blog), and I melted those down with a propane torch and a little cast iron ladle I picked up at an antique store once.
I drilled two test holes with Forstner bits, 3/4" and 1", and filled them with lead. I then weighed the slugs and calculated how many I would need to make up the 1 3/4 lb deficit. I ended up needing about 20 of the larger size, so I drilled 10 holes in each of the two halves of the centerboard to a depth of about 5/16".
And poured them full of lead. I had shavings enough for only about half the job, so I melted the remainder off of one of my leftover ingots by putting it in the flame and catching the drips in the ladle. That worked out smoother than I expected.
One job for tomorrow is to scrape these down to level, and then these halves will be ready for assembly.
No comments:
Post a Comment