My Plan for April had been getting the motor and steering in place. Funds didn’t allow this so I’ve been working on the Cabin and Deck which I had planned to do in May and June. The important things is that I keep working. Funds are coming in again and I think I’ll be able to pick up the rear Axel in the next two weeks.

As of April 14th, 2010 This is what has been built on the Pirate Ship:

I also spent some time working on the 3d model of the Ship. Not knowing my building material I have been both designing the ship and building it at the same time. Sometimes construction gets ahead of the model. This has made for a very interesting project. Their are days where I will take measurements off my 3d model then go to the shop and cut material and and at other times I will take measurements off of the built ship then go back into the house and add things to the model. As chaotic as this sounds it seems to be working.

I have a lot more done on the Frame. The Captain’s Cabin is framed up. The triangular truss at the edges has been welded in. The wheel made a few revolutions before the spider coupler broke. It broke under a load much lower than what it was rated for. It was a defective part but I now have lost my confidence in that type of coupler. This is a set back but I think the new design will make for a more robust drive train, and it is better that things break early before too much is invested in their success.

This past weekend we built the main Truss work that supports the majority of the Pirate Ship and its passengers.

The box truss is over size for the load that will be put on it. The truss was built this way because the material was cheap, and with a project this big having something you don’t have to worry about is nice.

I also finished Milling the end of the drive shaft for the Spider Coupler and got the Gear Box mounted to the frame.

This week I finished a lot of the Drive Train Frame. This part will hold the electric motor, gear box, and the 10ft diameter front wheel. Welded onto the back side will be the Box truss that supports the rest of the ship.

I have the Dive Train frame welded up with the Cog and rollers mounted. Which means we are still on schedule for February. There will be a whole lot added to the Ship in March with the construction of the Ship Frame. I’ll need to sell 6 more Tripods to buy the rest of the material for the frame. Unfortunately it is the “rest” of the material that is needed first. I have enough material to keep me busy for a week, but after that without some help things will stop. Lets see if we can sell some Tripods.

Mounting the Cog to the Drive Shaft is a pretty big step.

I made two videos showing how I did it. I’ll let the videos explain.

The first piece of material cut to build the Pirate Ship was the Wooden Cog. I consider this huge Gear the heart of the Pirate Ship, it seemed a really good place to start the project off. There was a bit of math and a few books used to design the Cog. You might be able to call this type of gear a “internal lantern pinion”.

I after designing the Cog I made a model to see if all the curves where correct. In the video you can see the model where the white nubs would represent the Wheel.

The blanks for the Wheel were cut out on a CNC router table. In the final Cog there would be 9 pieces of 1/2″ plywood with two 1/4″ pieces of Aluminium on the outside.

The process of gluing the Plywood was tricky, in one half 6 sheet of plywood have to be glued together while keeping everything in perfect alignment, and within a 8 minute working time before the glue starts to set.

This video explains more:

We worked fast and got the two halves of the Cog glued together.

A hole or recess was routed into the Cog so that the Drive Plate which will be attached to the Drive Shaft is attached inside the middle of the Cog.

Last the Aluminium plates were attached to the outside.

I still need to file the teeth for an exact fit and drill the holes to mount it to the drive shaft. I am also playing with the idea of etched copper side plates partially covering the aluminium…so many good ideas….so little time.

The first of eight guide rollers is finished. These are the rollers that hold the 10ft diameter front wheel in place. There are a set of four that carry the gravity load of the front end of the ship and four rollers that carry the lateral load as the ship is turned left and right.

The inside of the wheel is made from 7/8” diameter round tube. To accommodate this, the rollers have a matching radius cut into them. Cutting the radius was not simple. I spent two days making a tool that would allow me to do this.

More photos of the Radius Turner’s construction.

The material the rollers are cut out of came from a counterweigh for a industrial robot. I torch cut them into rings then turned the outside edges to the right diameter.

The steel was then rechucked, holding the outside edge. From this position both the outer radius and the 1 1/2” internal bore for the axel can be cut without having to rechuck.