This week’s “Tally Ho”..,

Wansworth

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There are a hundred and one things that are going to be needed for the boat,lots of lodging knees that were wrought iron,mast fittings,,goose neck ete etc which could be bronze cast as well.
 

AntarcticPilot

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The Port Townsend Foundry has been around for years and is well known. Right back in the very early videos (pre-Patreon) Leo was talking to them about bronze types and bronze components.

I am sure that there is a reason why things are being done in the way that they are. I don’t recall the lost wax method being used for large components but I may be wrong.

This isn’t any old boat. She’s the biggest surviving Albert Strange boat. If Fifes are the vintage Bentleys of the old boat world, Albert Strange designs are the Bugattis. Oh, and she won the first bad weather Fastnet.

I am one of the three thousand and odd and happy to be one.
Lost wax is used for casting statues far larger than these floors. And bronze floors are (as he notes in the video) a vast upgrade on the original wrought iron floors.
 

doug748

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.............

I am sure that there is a reason why things are being done in the way that they are. I don’t recall the lost wax method being used for large components but I may be wrong.
..............


I think you are correct. Lost wax is doable for small components but the larger they get the more high tech it becomes, the cost of aerospace items is astronomic (heh ) and only offset by batch production. In this case the making of wax patterns might be as tedious as the timber ones and certainly more expensive.

In the days before Health and Safety, I have seen lost plastic used to good effect. Polystyrene patterns can be fabricated and cut using hot wire, the results embedded in petro-bonded sand and the melt used to directly evaporate the pattern.
Very quick cheap and effective, not too great for the lungs or the planet. You might do it in a fifth of the time but leather underpants should be worn as the gas pressures would be unpredictable at that scale.

I don't contribute regularly but sent him a wedge when he was in the UK, told him to spend it on beer. I'll buy his team another good drink when the hull is wetted.

.
 

AntarcticPilot

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I think you are correct. Lost wax is doable for small components but the larger they get the more high tech it becomes, the cost of aerospace items is astronomic (heh ) and only offset by batch production. In this case the making of wax patterns might be as tedious as the timber ones and certainly more expensive.

In the days before Health and Safety, I have seen lost plastic used to good effect. Polystyrene patterns can be fabricated and cut using hot wire, the results embedded in petro-bonded sand and the melt used to directly evaporate the pattern.
Very quick cheap and effective, not too great for the lungs or the planet. You might do it in a fifth of the time but leather underpants should be worn as the gas pressures would be unpredictable at that scale.

I don't contribute regularly but sent him a wedge when he was in the UK, told him to spend it on beer. I'll buy his team another good drink when the hull is wetted.

.
I did as suggested and sent an email asking why they chose not to use the lost wax technique. I'll be interested to see the response!
 

DownWest

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.

In the days before Health and Safety, I have seen lost plastic used to good effect. Polystyrene patterns can be fabricated and cut using hot wire, the results embedded in petro-bonded sand and the melt used to directly evaporate the pattern.
Very quick cheap and effective, not too great for the lungs or the planet. You might do it in a fifth of the time but leather underpants should be worn as the gas pressures would be unpredictable at that scale.
ed..
Friend did a stint learning with a sculptor. He used styrofoam patterns and they worked very well in sizes similar to floors. Casting was in ally, but would be good for bronze.
Lost wax is good for precision stuff, but plain old sand casting is good enough for floors. Seem to recall that our friend's the Romans thought that one up. Another usefull idea they did for us :D
 
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DJE

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I enjoyed that one! But I was wondering where the money for this is coming from - he spoke of material costs of $11,000, just for the bronze floors, and I guess the foundry costs would double that quite easily, without taking the cost of making the patterns into account!
I seem to remember that the Live Oak for the frames was $80,000!
 

Keith 66

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I was a bit surprised at the video of the casting, Sure they wore fireproof jackets, but Jeans? & no face or eye protection! Get a splash of molten metal in your eyes & its white stick time. I have done metal casting & a face visor is or should be mandatory.
 

burgundyben

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Lost wax is hugely more expensive method of casting than sand casting.

You have to make the wax, then shell it, melt out the wax, then cast. If you get a problem, you need another wax to start again.

Sand casting with patterns such as he has done is lowest risk and cost.
 

ridgy

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I love Leo and tally ho and have seen every episode but Jesus wept it's taking a long time. With every possible machine and power tool available to him it makes you wonder how these things ever got built in the first place and how luke powell managed to make a business out of it. You could pretend it's because it's a restoration but this has been a new build for a long time now. I look forward to every episode but it blows my mind at how little progress there is every 2 weeks and frankly how he finds the strength to continue. But I'm glad that he does
 

Kukri

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Leo is doing something slightly different; this became clear when he decided to loft the boat. He is working to the very highest standards, and only recently has he had Pete, another time served shipwright, working alongside him. All his other helpers are what a good wooden boat yard like Luke Powell’s would charge out as “apprentice labour”.
 

DoubleEnder

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I love Leo and tally ho and have seen every episode but Jesus wept it's taking a long time. With every possible machine and power tool available to him it makes you wonder how these things ever got built in the first place and how luke powell managed to make a business out of it. You could pretend it's because it's a restoration but this has been a new build for a long time now. I look forward to every episode but it blows my mind at how little progress there is every 2 weeks and frankly how he finds the strength to continue. But I'm glad that he does
In a new build the designer or builder has the freedom to do as he or she pleases. To rebuild is very different. I appreciate that there is very little original fabric left but nonetheless this IS a rebuild and that means investigation, analysis, careful disassembly... before even beginning reconstruction. Add in the fact there is no deep pocketed owner behind this, just a bunch of small voluntary contributors, and no established build team. It’s basically Leo and whoever shows up to help. Then add the fact that he’s also simultaneously running a media operation - a pretty good one.
I had a much smaller boat rebuilt. It is not a trivial thing to undertake. if you were to look at comparable big rebuilds done by the pro yards in Italy, New England or someone like Fairlie you’d see a quicker result, sure. But a waaaay bigger budget. And I think in some cases a lot of compromises on materials and methods.
I think Leo Goolden is doing a very very good job and I am particularly impressed by his sticking to correct period materials & methods of construction. And by the quality of the execution. The progress is slow and I agree it takes some fortitude to stick to it. Impressive man
 

MikeBz

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The only other boat that I can think of that was rebuilt “for the next hundred years” is Boadicea, CK 213, originally built 1808. She is much smaller, at 30ft on deck, and she took Michael Frost seven years.

Apropos of nothing, Boadicea started out as clinker, and at one of the rebuilds (I suspect there has been more than one) changed to carvel.

Back on topic, Leo isn't approaching this as a build-a-boat-to-a-timescale project. Just look at the time spent making all the individual moulds for the floors and hanging knees. It's intentionally a massive eduaction project for both him and his helpers. There would have been much quicker ways of doing a lot of it but that would be missing the point. Plus he has spent a lot of time filming & editing videos when he could have been boatbuilding, that stuff is really time-consuming.
 

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