I spent several hours today on the water in a 2.3mt R.I.B breaking in the new 5hp Tohatsu outboard, man that dingy is small, by the time you put all the safety gear in, fuel tank etc, there is barely enough room for one person let alone 2. Should have gone for the bigger one, ... bugger!
Anyway I had to make myself a little anchor for it out of stainless, I actually went into a store here in Oz first to buy one as they are only about $16 there and at that price it wasn't going to be worth making one, or so I thought but I was wrong!! When I saw it, I could not bring myself to waste my money on that crap piece of metal they call an anchor, it just went against the grain. So it cost me about $20 in stainless steel and about 5 hours to make it, still worth it though, at least it should do the job. The quality of this particualar retail store group was never high and seems to be getting worse to the point of... how does all the metal stick together? I was hoping to find some flat bar for the shank but didn't have any, so made the shank out of 19mm round, the top bar out of 16mm and the flutes out of 4mm plate. It weighs 4Kg and is pretty small, then again the 2.3mt inflatable wont strain it at all and should grab better than the crap one I was going to buy. My TIG work is not the greatest, (neatness wise) as I do very little of it and only started TIG'ing about 18mths ago, as I am mainly a MIG person, but it will hold without problem. The main shaft is welded to a bush I machined on the lathe.
Anyway I spent the first 2 hours just trolling at half throttle but called it quits after that, as my legs and bum were going numb, have to do another hour at that speed before I can go to 3/4 throttle for 2 more hours and then it's good to go full bore after that. Used about 2-3 lt's of fuel for over 2 hours of motoring, so after the motor is run in I shouldn't need the external fuel tank and can just use the internal tank. At half revs it is almost at the point of planing so it should move along nicely on full throttle.
Cheers
Ed.
Anyway I had to make myself a little anchor for it out of stainless, I actually went into a store here in Oz first to buy one as they are only about $16 there and at that price it wasn't going to be worth making one, or so I thought but I was wrong!! When I saw it, I could not bring myself to waste my money on that crap piece of metal they call an anchor, it just went against the grain. So it cost me about $20 in stainless steel and about 5 hours to make it, still worth it though, at least it should do the job. The quality of this particualar retail store group was never high and seems to be getting worse to the point of... how does all the metal stick together? I was hoping to find some flat bar for the shank but didn't have any, so made the shank out of 19mm round, the top bar out of 16mm and the flutes out of 4mm plate. It weighs 4Kg and is pretty small, then again the 2.3mt inflatable wont strain it at all and should grab better than the crap one I was going to buy. My TIG work is not the greatest, (neatness wise) as I do very little of it and only started TIG'ing about 18mths ago, as I am mainly a MIG person, but it will hold without problem. The main shaft is welded to a bush I machined on the lathe.
Anyway I spent the first 2 hours just trolling at half throttle but called it quits after that, as my legs and bum were going numb, have to do another hour at that speed before I can go to 3/4 throttle for 2 more hours and then it's good to go full bore after that. Used about 2-3 lt's of fuel for over 2 hours of motoring, so after the motor is run in I shouldn't need the external fuel tank and can just use the internal tank. At half revs it is almost at the point of planing so it should move along nicely on full throttle.
Cheers
Ed.
