Visit to Mountain Boats

Six members braved the cold and made a tour of Mountain Boats, thanks to our member Pip Scharf.

Mountain Boats uses computer technology to design and build jigs so multiple boats of the same design can be produced quickly and economically. Pip demonstrated this by taking us through the design process for making a cleat, then used a laser cutter to produce it from a piece of 18mm mountain ash timber. There were also detailed discussions on using epoxy glues, especially the critical temperature of the mix. After we left, Pip sent some comments about the day.

Certainly a pleasure to host and I hope that the side quest wasn’t too much of a distraction from seeing how the boats are actually built. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt is that design iterations should be done immediately before forgetting nuanced details. The attached picture has versions 0.1 & 0.2 of the deck cleat. I’ve lowered the overall shape and added the subtle angle on the bottom of the horns that Jim mentioned. I also kept the curve going on top and beefed up the dimensions to make sure that grain is in the right place. Unfortunately I didn’t have my handy workshop assistant so it doesn’t have the mounting holes. Bob, my apologies I didn’t realise but the 5mm bit in the drill press is a blunt bit that I use more for reaming. Any other comments on design are welcome and if you’d like to test out some text or graphics on these ones I’m all ears.

• John Smith