Built two anchors for my boat that I am doing up

[Ed.]

Built a anchor for the boat, made it out of 316 8mm plate with a 50mm x 16mm shank, cut out the bits and joined some as I didn't have a big enough plate. Made the curve on the fluke on my home made bender using a hydraulic bottle jack that I used from a 12 ton pipe bender, one of these day I will get a 16 ton jack as it will give me more grunt. It was struggling a bit on the 8mm thick plate.

Today I made another anchor, as a spare in case the first one gets snagged or I get caught in a storm and need a bit more holding power, again made out of 8mm 316 plate and a 50mm x 16mm shank with a 19mm round bar for the top of the flukes, I TIG'd the bushes on to the shaft then reamed it out to make it the right size, drilled a small hole in the end of the shaft so that I can push grease in to it later on, the rest of it was MIG welded using 316sli wire.

My welds aren't as good as I would have liked them as it bucketed rain here today and with the sudden temperature drop the hood lens kept fogging up, so I had to wing it for most of the welds, hate it when I can't see the weld pool, the beads were larger than I wanted them to be. Anyway they should hold.

So now that completes the anchoring gear and next job is to work on the electric winch setup, some more boat cleats, and 2 seat bases.

Cheers

Ed.

 

[troppo]

Very nice job mate, how did your material and time costs compare to bought ones? You could have a market if the price is right

 

[chunkolini]

Nice stuff
can I have the curved one please.
Chunko'.

 

[Robotstar5]

can I have the curved one please.
Chunko'.

Carriage costs may be an issue!

 

[Ed.]

Very nice job mate, how did your material and time costs compare to bought ones? You could have a market if the price is right

Thanks troppo, about $80 in stainless steel from a recycling yard and a days cutting and welding, my time isn't a factor anymore as I am retired now, but commercially I couldn't compete against a production based concern, commercially they would just waterjet or plasma cut out the shapes by the hundreds, in the case of the curved anchor they would just have a big press which would stamp it in to shape in about 30 seconds or less, robotic welds and most likely spit them out in about 5-10 minutes, polished and all.

Commercial ones new in stainless and sized about the same as mine are about $800-1000, but the commercially made ones are nicely polished, and there are all the taxes, distributorships and markups involved. I didn't want to get too hung up and spend a lot of time polishing mine up as once you used an anchor and drag it through the ocean rubble, coral and grit it won't take too long to scratch the polish off. I also had to spend a lot of time working out all the angles sizes ect. and making sure that they are right, haven't made any anchors since my last boat and that was about 12 years ago.

So long as it holds and doesn't look to much of an eye sore I am happy with them. I also couldn't afford to buy them new.

 

[nodeward]

great looking work, lovin your little press brake , a few more pics would be nice as im planning on making something similar

 

[Ed.]

I only have a few pics of the bender as I built it, I used the 12T bottle jack out of a pipe bender I have ( I just now use the jack in what ever frame I need) and built the frame out of whatever scrap I had lying around, which meant a bit of channel for the base, some 6mm x 75mm SHS for the the pillars, top was from bits of 100mm x 10mm flatbar sandwiched and bolted a 125mm x 12mm flat bar, and some old galv 16mm Bolts to keep the top together. The blade was just veed both sides to make the edge, I should have made a rounded edge for this anchor as it made some bend marks on the flute but didn't have the time to devote to rounding off a plate and drilling the holes for the bolts. I think one of the legs was made from two shorter bits which I welded together. The "V" part itself was from bits of 10mm flat bar welded at 90 degrees and then welded to a another piece on the bottom and some more smaller flat bar for the sides, together with a small but thicker piece of flat bar with large a hole in the center to fit over the jack bottle ram to keep the top from moving and welded it to the bottom.

So nothing flash but it does the job, later I added the two 1" x .75" solid bars from the base near where the jack sits to the sides on the piller, had to do that as that channel was bending upwards like a banana. As for a rounded bar edge, I would just weld a round bar to the side of a bit of flat bar.

If I was to do another one I would probably make a shop press as it would be more versatile, I would also use a 20T or 30T jack. But as this frame was from the scrap I had at the time so that is what it ended up as.

 

[Shox Dr]

I picked up a 50ton ram of eblag for 50quid a while back, for a shop press/folder etc ,so far it's seen every corner of the workshop, waiting on steel to build it

 

[Ed.]

Well done, but you will need some decent heavy steel for those sort of tonnage. I also keep looking to see if anything like that pops up on Ebay locally.

Cheers

Ed.

 

[Shox Dr]

...and that's why it's sitting waiting for steel. really need someone to advise me on stock size to cope with the tonnage

 

[Drains]

...and that's why it's sitting waiting for steel. really need someone to advise me on stock size to cope with the tonnage

You want this mate.

http://www.superbeam.co.uk/pswdemo.htm

 

[Shox Dr]

You didn't read what I wrote . I said I want someone to tell me

Seriously though I do have that SW just no time or spare money to make it happen

 

[Ed.]

I would go to a couple of shops that sell that sort of equipment and have a look around and see what the commercially built ones in that size are made from, although having said that, I did see one in a shop which was Chinese made and was thinking to myself that there is no way that I would build a 50tonne shop press using the materials that it was made from. I would have to double the steel size just so I would feel safe using it. Either that or their 50 tonne is different to my 50 tonne.

 

[Ed.]

Made some 200mm cleats for the boat.

Made four 200mm cleats for the boat, got some more scrap stainless 316 steel to make these, had intended to make the top bar also out of 19mm bar but couldn't find any scrap anywhere, new price was about $100 so ended getting an offcut of some 16mm 316 plate for $15, cut out the strips and shaped them, turned up some short legs on the lathe, tigged them to the top plates then used my large vice to press them in to the base plate in which I drilled some slightly undersized holes, flipped them over and tigged the bottoms together, still need to give them a light sand and polish but otherwise good to go. Another thing done towards getting the boat into the water.

 

[Shox Dr]

That must have taken an age to grind through that plate
Are you just making the SS parts or have you built the rest of the boat.

 

[Ed.]

I used 5" thin (1.6mm) cut off disks and used about 8 disks to cut out the strips and remove the unwanted sections, before hitting them with a grinder and then a flap disk, takes about 2-3 minutes just for the straight cuts, just as well I buy those disks by the box .

The boat is a 23 year old boat but the only reason I bought it was, that it had a 2005 Merc motor and twin prop stern drive leg fitted, (Don't like real old motors in boats on the open ocean) otherwise I wouldn't have touched it, I figured that if for some unknown reason the boat was a lost cause, then I could take those out and build a boat if I had to from scatch and refit those into the new one with out losing too much in the deal.

The missus and I are planning on an 8 week holiday up toward Northern Queensland with the boat in tow for our 25th anniversary next year and we will be visiting a lot of the Islands off the coast and the Barrier reefs, staying on board the boat in many cases, so we may as well be comfortable. I was initially planning on building a boat from scratch, but I ain't getting any younger and the old health isn't was it used to be, I didn't partically want to lose another 2 years building one from scratch, so this is my compromise. Not quite the type of boat I wanted or was after but we can make it do. I used to own a smaller 23 foot version of this boat so I know how they handle, and it is also towable... Just

So anyway I am just customizing it to suit our needs. Any boat that old will need bits replaced and a lot of TLC, so whilst I am in the mood replacing/building things I might as well get what I want or need. I have well and trully gone over budget on this project so what the hell, I might as well have all the latest electronics ect. So just need to try and keep the costs down by building things myself, still need to build boat seat/live bait tank bases, 320lt fuel tank, gunwhale handles etc and then I start on the boat itself, respray parts of it, fit new seats, electronics, winch, carpets ect.

It's a work in progress but getting there one slow step at a time.

 

[Shox Dr]

All good fun eh.

My father in law was into his boats, only small Shetlands etc. The first time I went out with him, I asked where the Ship to shore radio was. I was told it was in the garage I then asked where the spare outboard was. "Do you know how much they cost" came the reply. He was Scottish

"OK" I said where's the flares" "In that box" came a terse reply. Upon looking the youngest was 10yrs out of date

"WTF these are no good. Even new ones don't always work" I replied.

He had no answer for that one

This was shortly after been told we were making through one of the worse cross tides (I think that what it's called) in the UK. And he had seen boats anchored fishing too close to this and they had been pulled down within seconds

Needless to say I didn't go out with him any more