Its been much too long since I posted here,  the past year has been not as much fun as one might like, but the health issues are somewhat under control and I'm more or less getting through the day.
I'm drawing again, have a project on the go in the workshop which although I'm not putting in full hours ( yet) is a sanity saver, and the medical guys tell me its just a matter of time and taking things very gently and I'll be as dangerous as I ever was.

A very big thank you to the two people who have been hugely helpful in maintaining my internet presence and keeping the ball rolling on forums and websites, without them things would have looked much worse from outside and inside.

I'll post separately with news, but this is really about saying, hey, while I am not as energetic as I might be,  I'm back on deck. 
And very glad to be ---

John Welsford

Christmas gift to myself

Well, no one else would do it, I usually get things like a bar of very nice dark chocolate, maybe a bottle of tawny port or a book or two, but no one dares to get me tools.  I'm picky you see, and the way I see tools may not be the same as the giver,  so they leave me to make my own choices which is fair enough.

Now a little while back I bought a Ryobi 18 volt 2 speed cordless drill, and in case you did not spot the blog  posting about it, its crap! Absolute rubbish, a complete WOFTAM!  ( Waste Of  %*&%ing Time and Money).
I bitched about the chuck, the way it fitted my hands, the charger and ---- Well,  everything, and my opinion has not changed since.  I mentioned that I'd be looking to buy something decent sometime, and recently when I was in at Robertson and Sinclairs local branch admiring the Festool range of tools manager Andrew Walton handed me the shops demonstration Festool CXS Li 1,3 Plus AUS driver drill kit.

Heres who they are, branches in Auckland, North Shore and Hamilton. 
http://www.rands.co.nz/?action=home

Brief specs, 2 speed, variable speed trigger, 10.8 volt, 8mm chuck. It has an unusual closed handle, lithium ion batteries ( 2 in the kit) , a right angle chuck mount, a standard three jaw chuck as well as a quick action hex chuck, and a small selection of drill mounts and such.
All this in a particularly nice box shaped case which stacks with any other Festool box, they interlock so they are secure, have a latch which is both secure and able to be operated by fingers that might be wet, numb or encased in gloves, and is very professional in appearance.

I took some pics on the digital camera, but then found these videos on it, they say it all and show its features very well.  Its worth watching, it shows the tool off much better than I can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5-l2EhGPI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCC2c9F2Oks

I used it, just a little, for some odd jobs around the shop and thought about it for a while, went back and used it some more, and after a bit more thought went back to Andrew.  I now own it!

Why?  In random order, quick action chucks which snap on and off by pulling a ring fitting back, it means that one chuck can have the drill, the other the driver bit and switching them back and forth is a matter of seconds.  Yes I know it would be ideal to have two complete drills, one for each, and I'll be there maybe next Christmas, but in the meantime its very very quick to change, much more so than switching bits in a conventional chuc.
Its nice to use, smooth as silk in operation, very good progressive speed on the trigger, fits the hand very well and with some of the injuries I've let myself in for my hands are not as strong as they might be so thats very important, and that dee handle both protects and gives good leverage when driving something heavy.
Remarkably small in size too, and  very light in weight as well, hanging the bigger cordless drills off the end of your arm for a day is a recipe for sore forearms, this is great!
Its powerful, way more torque in low gear than that Ryobi in spite of being 10.8v instead of 18v.  It lasts a very long time on a battery charge, and there are two batteries in the pack so there is no excuse for every running out of charge, I know thats Lithium Ion v/s Ni Cad, but the result is the same.

The right angle fitting for the chuck is helpful when working in close quarters, It just clicks on and off the same as the chucks do, pull the green ring back and its done.

To say that I like it would be an understatement, and I know the above sounds like a rant, and these are not cheap but its such a pleasure to use a really nicely engineered and built tool.  A guy who sells tea says in his advertising, "Try it, you'll like it"!  That applies here as well.  Anyone want a cheap Ryobi?

Thanks Robertson and Sinclair, good deal, good product.

John Welsford, who has his Christmas present already.

Back again after a long trip away.

Back on the air.

A word of warning, don’t expect your email to work properly if you have a local network set up with two computers which use different internet browsers!

But that aside, I’m recently back from 6 weeks in the USA,  visited the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival where I met a whole lot of very nice and interesting people, gave two lectures on boat design and the history thereof, participated in a lecture by small boat adventurer Howard Rice, gave talks to the students at the North West School of wooden Boatbuilding and a local Rotary group.

I enjoyed all of those, and will write up more on the show as well as the rest of the trip later.

But first, huge thanks to our hosts Peter and Helen Leenhouts, we feel that we’ve connected in a manner that has gained us lifetime friends, great people who made our stay there memorable.

Thanks also to Anika and Josh Colvin of Small Craft Advisor magazine,  Howard Rice with whom I’ve been corresponding for years but met for the first time at the show, and so many others who made the show such a pleasant memory.

Like I said, I’ll write more about the show, and about the rest of the trip later, I’m still in catchup mode after the trip away and will be for a while yet, so I’ll just touch a highlight here.

That Highlight?  A relatively small thing, and by no means the most important one but one which will remind me of the show and my new friends every time I use it.

“It”?   During a rare few quiet moments Denny and I were browsing through the many exhibits at the show and came across the Lei Neilsen tool stand in the end of the Maritime Centre building,  I was explaining just what it is that makes their tools special and so much better to use than the standard hardware store product when she surprised me by asking “ If I were to buy you one, which would it be?” 

Ever been faced with a choice like that?  So many treasures to choose from and only one allowed?

The second most used hand plane in my shop is a Stanley 60 ½, a little low angle block plane which I use for light work, it fits one hand perfectly, cuts end grain as well as rounding corners and smoothing small areas, its versatile and very useful.

I’ve two, one is near new but I much prefer the very old one I bought from a junk shop and rebuilt.

 Comparisons between the old Stanley 60 1/2 low angle block plane and the Lie Neilsen of the same size and configuration.  While the differences may not be obvious, they are quite different to use.

However even the old  Stanley one is not as well made as it might be, and the steel in the blade provides an edge that is only moderately durable, the mounting for the blade is not properly machined so the blade is not rigidly held in the body and consequently the tool is not quite as good as it might be, so I pointed out the Lie Neilsen equivalent and bingo, later that day I became the proud owner of one.  http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=60_5 

Back at home in my workshop, I tried it.  Even straight out of the box it cut beautifully, and with a very light hone on a 4000 grit waterstone it made silky transparent shavings even from curly grained beech.  Ahhhh!

I’ve taken some pics below, you can see the blade bed in the Stanley is not machined, the adjustment ok but not brilliant, and the blade very thin in comparison to the new one.

The weight of the LN plane is considerably higher, the tool a better fit in the hand, and the whole function much improved.  The old one did the job, but the new one is a real pleasure to use.

Worth the money? You bet!

John Welsford

There isn't a recent photo of me about on the net, so for those who'll be attending the several gatherings where I plan to be, this is who you're looking for, or to avoid as the case may be.  Me, John Welsford at Kathies Cafe in Tauranga, ( very very good food!)

Travel and visiting friends.

Its only three sleeps until we’re  off in the big silver bird on the 6th. 6 weeks travelling in the USA, visiting friends, going to interesting places and events, and talking to people.

All about boating, apart from some of the scenery of course and maybe a few side trips to pursue my wife’s interests as well as a some of my non boating activities.  ( Walking is one, cant walk on water! At least I can’t in spite of what some people think of boat designers)

We’re starting off with three days at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat festival across the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle, its 12 years since I was  last there and I’m sure I’ll see lots of improvements and changes.  We’re to be guests of Peter Leenhouts, a director of the NorthWest School of Wooden Boat Building and I’m to meet the instructors and students there to talk boats, I’ve two talks to give at the festival itself and hope to make it to a meeting of the local chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Soc. Lots of talking, some listening too as this trip is in part research for future design work.

This is going to be interesting for me, Russell Brown and Richard Woods, both renowned designers of multihull sailing craft will be there and meeting up with others who practice the same craft that I do, ( even if their boats have more hulls than mine) is a rare treat.

Anyone wanting to catch up with us during the show should go to the Small Craft Advisor magazine stand and ask Editor Josh, I’ll be around there a lot, and if not then wont be far away.  Just ask. Talk to him about SCAMP and the magazine while your there.

From there we travel right across to the other side of America to Maine, and the WoodenBoat magazine offices where we’ll be guests of Editor Matt Murphy and Publisher Carl Cramer. As well it’s been a while since I was there and I’m looking forward to renewing old relationships, talking boats, writing, teaching, sailing, and checking out the scenery so different from the other coast.

Bob Hicks of Messing About in Boats magazine is driving up from Wenham to spend a day with us, I suspect that we’re going to talk classic racing motorcycles, a passion and experience we both share.

It’s a bit of a wake up call when the machinery one sweated to pay for, got hands greasy while mechanicing and raced is suddenly considered a classic, a sign that the years are flickering past at an alarming rate.  Anyway, Bultacos, Aermacchi HD racers, BSAs and so on will be where we’re at.  Oh, and a little bit about boats.

It’s a long way from Maine to San Antonio, three flights rather than the two from Seattle to Bangor, and we’ll be travelling from 25deg c days to 40deg c days,  hard after coming from early spring in New Zealand where a 16 deg day is about normal but no doubt we’ll manage. Cool drinks, light clothing, big hats  and shade, should work.

Leo Hill ran my jwbuilders yahoo group for years, he’s a good man and will be picking us up and hosting us for a few days and showing us around San Antonio,  he’s bought a Suzuki Vee Twin  cruiser, yes, two wheels again, and we’ll be out having fun on that as well.  I’ve no doubt that the breeze as we ride will help us cope with the heat.

We meet Chuck Leinweber of www.duckworksmagazine .com at Canyon Lake small boat messabout on 24^th Sept,  and will be talking to anyone wanting to come and say hello.  It’s my second visit to that venue and I’m very much looking forward to seeing some of the characters I met last time.

If you miss that one there is another gathering the following weekend at the Centex messabout at Inks Lake, another chance for me to talk to interested and interesting people.

Chuck and Sandra host us for nearly two weeks, then, with Chuck at the helm of the car and a boat on its trailer behind we head off on the long drive up to Lake Eufaula for Sail Oklahoma where Jackie and Mike Monies will be our hosts during the Columbus Weekend  event.  Although only in its second year this has attracted an entry of close to 100 boats and twice that number of people, and hosts the Puddleduck racer world championships.  I’m told I’m entered in that latter competition in a “Kiwi PDR” of my design and am looking forward to it even though it’s a very long time since I was a competitive skipper.

This too will be a chance to meet other designers,  Graham Byrnes and Jim Michalac will be there, and between the three of us we cover a very wide range of boat designs, different techniques of construction and design theory.  Its going to be a busy weekend but I do hope to get a chance to sit down and swap ideas with these two.

From there it’s back on the road to San Antonio, back to Harper TX and Casa Duckworksmagazine then back to Leos where we plan on just blobbing out for a couple of days before the long long series of flights back to New Zealand.

There is a more detailed itinerary “here”  with times and places plus links to events.  http://www.duckworksbbs.com/jwboat.htm

This trip, being blunt, is a big chunk of money, and its only been made possible by the very kind support of Sandra and Chuck Leinweber of Duckworksmagazine and  boatbuilders supplies.  Thank you so much guys, it will be great to catch up with you again.

Thanks also to the others who have volunteered to host us or help us along the way, it’s a humbling experience to find that people who only know me through my work and my writing think enough of me to pitch in and help.  Thank you everybody, thank you.

John Welsford

Chips new Pilgrim sailing dinghy

Its the interaction with the customers that makes this job so good, lets face it, if I was only doing it for the money I'd be better off mending roads, but the people who have such confidence in my work that they commit years of spare time and a lot of cash to build my interpretation of their dream make me feel very proud.
I'd had a few exchanges of emails with Chip Matthews about the boat he wanted, and he bought plans for my Pilgrim design  http://www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/plans/pilgrim/index.htm  .  That was late 2009, I think he started the build about Christmas, and I had the occasional question and progress report until he launched her a month or so ago. 
Just great, I dont need to go on about it any more than I have, his photo album tells the story. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chipspilgrim/

Thanks Chip, that makes the late nights and inky fingers worth it.

John Welsford

Winter jobs.

Man overboard.  Another winter job.

Winter jobs, I’m not doing much sailing at present, the weather here in New Zealand never gets so bad that its out of the question but I’ve a heap of other things to do plus a multitude of little “improvements” to do on the boat.  Some to do with comfort, some with the boats function and, some with safety.

While falling over the side of your boat is something that we avoid where possible, it happens.  Getting back aboard is an issue.  Even the height of the sides on a small dinghy can be a barrier hard to scale when cold, tired and weighed down by soaking wet clothing, and a bigger boat is just impossible.

A boarding ladder is the ideal, one of the folding ones that bolt to the transom, but in my case the budget does not stretch quite that far just yet so I had to come up with something workable, just in case, I’m not planning on falling in the ocean but, like I said, just in case.

Back at the after end of the boat are a pair of good sized bronze cleats intended for tying the boat up to a wharf or whatever, and they are accessed through closed fairleads ( chocks in “American” ).  These fairleads and cleats are big enough to have more than one rope in use, so for each side I spliced up a length of rope with a good sized loop on each end, threaded one loop through the fairlead and  onto the cleat< I threaded it  through between the cleats legs and doubled it back over so it cant slip off .

The rope and free looped end sit nicely on deck just inside the little bulwark, out of the way, and I leave the end of the free end loop just through the fairlead so I can grab it from outside, pull it out, put a foot in the loop and with hands over the bulwark I can stand up in the water enough to get my upper body over the rail and with a bit of flailing around get a leg up and lever myself on board.

Not perfect, but a great deal better than nothing.

Yes I have a safety harness.  It will when I go sailing next, be clipped onto a jackline.  Have I a jackline rigged yet? That’s  another job to do.  Hopefully by the time springtime comes around, the long list will have check marks beside most of the items on it.

Being winter, its dark early, at least thats my excuse.  So I finish my day by doing some digital mooching around looking for something of interest. 
Dylan Winter has just posted a really lovely 25 minute video doco on an amazing yacht race with a difference.  No Liquorice Allsort ocean racing wetties ( thanks Annie Hill) no screaming surfing runs in the southern ocean, just gentle and gentlemanly sailing up and down rivers and in ponds on the Norfolk Broads in England.  Beautiful boats, whiskery skippers, pipes alight, trousers with braces to hold them up and straw hats, not a lifejacket or curseword ( There might be one in the whole 25 mins I think . This is the annual Three Rivers race.
Well worth watching.http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/  Do go and have a look before he changes his homepage again, its the third one down with that mass of sails, white paint and varnish maneuvering in a small river,

John Welsford.

After work relaxation

A really nice place to relax.

Like most of us I spend a few minutes browsing the net after checking my emails each evening, looking for something entertaining and relaxing to end the day so I can leave the work part of my life with its annoyances and aggravations behind and enjoy the evening in a reasonable state of mind.

Some of the things I find are anything but relaxing, some really make my hackles stand up,  and generally I’ll avoid those “places” in future so I have a little list of regular “favourites” that I know will work.

Right at the top of that list is Dylan Winters site http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/

Now Dylan is a gent of a certain age with a pleasantly crumpled visage, clothing the same, and both boat and car not so rich that it’s hard for me to identify with him.  He’s undertaking a voyage around the British Islands,  not the biggest or the longest in terms of boat or distance, no Cape Horn in midwinter type adventures, no palm trees or dusky maidens, not even encounters with smugglers or rum runners.

But I don’t get to have those sort of adventures, they are generally wet and uncomfortable, way out of my budget and don’t leave enough time for me to live the other parts of my life so its creeping up creeks, hopping from harbour to harbour and finding new crinkly bits of coastline to explore that interests me.

Dylans voyage is a whole lot of that, he sailed his little sloop out of his home port, turned left, and will keep doing that until he gets back to where he started from. It’s going to take years, he’s exploring the myriad tiny ports along the way, putting his boats bow into every river, sailing up each of the estuaries he comes across and stopping at the towns at the head of each.

There is a great deal to be seen in these places, and Dylan is an exceptional maker of video documentaries, applying his skills to this endeavour so we can share his observations on the history, the wildlife, the other boats and ships he comes across and the scenery.  I must say too that his choice of background music adds greatly to the imagery.

Dylan Winter, in "crumpled" mode.  I feel like that a lot of the time.

He uses Google Earth to show you the bigger picture, his camera for close-ups, and music for background and his commentary for flavour, it’s a combination well worked and it works well.

There has been commercial shipping on the English coast for over two thousand years, way prior to the settlement of the “New World”. Many of us have roots there and for me as a New Zealander of UK ancestry its like a home I’ve only briefly visited, these tiny documentaries with their exquisite camerawork, dry humour and piquant  observation  are a real treat.  Yes I can identify with them, the budget is similar to my own, the age of the presenter similar, he likes the same things that I do, he grumbles about the same things that I would  and it all feels very much like home.  Yes there is a small subscription, but it’s really worth it.

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/

The view over the bow of Sea Slug,there is a perfect anchorage up that river.

John Welsford