[C38] Need vote for dodger design

[les]

Ok, here are the drawings.  Remember I am not an artist, so this is just
my best effort.
	
	Problem to be solved: mounting solar panels without a hard dodger.  
	Materials at hand:
	stainless tubing
	various mounting hardware
	tubing eyes
	nuts bolts etc.

	Available mounting points: dodger top, deck, fore deck, life rails and
any other available area.

	After looking at all available options, and leaving out the development
of a hard dodger, I checked the tolerance for wind of the various panel
mountings available on websites.  It turned out that most were actually
mounted on 1" stainless rails in most locations.  In fact most panels
come with clamps for that size rails.  I turns out that the dodger on
our boats is roughly 1" (at least on Jace).

	So how to clamp something onto the dodger frame?  Checking several Tee
top and bimini mounts, there are commercial fittings, but they only seem
to ship with commercial products.  I examined them carefully and this is
my analog off those products.

	I purchased a small sheet of stainless steel.  I cut out 2 strips about
4" wide, and 10" long (too long as it turned out later.)  I fabricated a
bending jig from my vise and a piece of spare tubing.  I wrapped and
hammered on the stainless until I got a good fit of a "U" shape around
the stainless tubing.  

	Then I fabricated 2 matching blocks 4"x4" approximately from 3/8"
marine plywood by epoxy gluing several pieces together (two and a bit.
I got the bit by sanding down a slice cut parallel to the top surface of
the plywood using my big table saw.)

	I closed the strap around the tubing and the block, then drilled three
1/4" holes through the whole thing on both sets of stainless strap and
clamp block.
	
	I didn't have teak, so I epoxied two strips of 3/8" plywood to give me
the initial stretcher.  I cut the ends at 45" degrees leaving about 2"
int the middle so as to "blunt the corners" to prevent injury from
hitting the stretcher, and to help keep the sheets from snagging on it
on the forward end of the dodger.

To this I mounted two rail supports, checking the spacing so that the
forward edge of the solar panels would be about 3" shy of the forward
end of the dodger.  I ran a 1" stainless tube through these clamps and
drilled one to give me a "lock" on positioning the tube.  I installed a
1/8" stainless bolt and nyloc nut to hold this in place.  I did not
drill the ends of this as I needed to fit this on the dodger. 

I took the whole works to the boat.  I opened the zipper to get access
to the frame at the rear of the dodger, and used two large C clamps to
hold the assembly together, with Nancy helping me to get it all centered
and located.  The C clamps held the stretcher, which was on top of the
dodger cloth, the U strap around the bow inside the zipper area, and the
block inside the U strap infront of the bow.  I then drilled through the
stretcher using the prior holes in the clamp as a guide.  I inserted the
screws from the top and put nyloc nuts followed by acorn nuts on the
bolt ends.  I think I had to cut the bolts to get the right length, but
I don't remember now.

With the aft end secured, I rolled up the window on the front, opened
the zipper and repeated the whole process on the forward end of the
dodger.  Now the dodger was a bit unstable with the new weight, and I
was worried about the whole thing collapsing.  Clearly I needed struts
at the front.  So I took measurements from the bow down to the cabin
top.  Then went home.

At home I looked up some eye fittings and found that seadog made some
niceones that would clamp around the dodger frame without requiring me
to disassemble the whole thing. I am adverse to work after all.

I purchased 2 those, and some 2 mounts for the cabintop and 4
corresponding eyes for the tubing.  I measured the eye depth, the clamp
and cabin top depth and subtracted that from my earlier measurement and
cut the tubing.  I put the eyes on the tubing, and held them with their
set screws.

Back to the boat.  I added the clamps to the bows and positioned them
behing the cloth of the divider on the window.  I mounted the tubing to
these and measured the location for the deck mounts.  Then I drilled
through the cabin top with a 3/8" bit, and epoxied the inside of the
holes (this  prevents water seepage into the wood laminate), after the
epoxy set up, I drilled thru with a 1/4 inch bit for the mounting bolts.
Then I applied some caulk, and added the deck clamps.  Finally I bolted
the eyes in place on the cabin top.  I had to loosen the set screws on
the eyes to get them aligned correctly.

Finally I had it all set, and I tightened the set screws.  But I was
worried that set screws wouldn't hold here, but since I don't weld and I
wasn't sure about epoxy or other glues on stainless, after installation
of the other components and being certain of the alignment, I thrubolted
the eyes onto the tubing by drilling through the whole thing, installing
1/8" bolts and nyloc nuts.

That's it.  Here is the diagram in case it helps:




	
On Fri, 2012-01-13 at 13:45 -0600, Max Soto wrote:

> Hey Les and everybody, thanks a lot for the tips!
> 
> I just started the dodger project. Frames have been fitted. Les, do
> they look familiar?? I made them according to the template we took
> from JAce's dodger a few years ago!   
> A starboard trim piece was added aft of the traveller, on each side in
> order to attach the snaps. I'm making the patterns tomorrow, hope I
> manage to do a good job and don't screw up with this small, but
> expensive project!
> Max
> 
> 


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