Cockpit Arch and Solar Panel Installation - Part 2
19 12 2010 Posted by Daniel
Installing a cockpit arch and pair of solar panels onto an Allied Princess 36’ Ketch - How I saved over $5,000 and had a great time doing it myself.
This is the second post in a 5 part series on how I literally saved somewhere between $5,000 and $9,000 installing a cockpit arch and a pair of solar panels onto Aletheia, my Allied Princess ketch rigged sailboat. I’ll be posting this series over the next few weeks, so keep checking in for updates. Here is the previous post.
After receiving the materials, I pretty much just sat around for a while pondering the right approach to fabricating the arch. Battling “analysis paralysis”, I finally decided I’d had enough “thinking” and needed some “doing”. The first bit of doing involved bending two sections of pipe into the “bow” or “U” shape which forms the basis of the frame.
I took a test section of pipe to a local fabricator and asked if he could bend that to my specified radius. Now, I have to tell you a thing or two about this guy. He’s got a reputation for not caring about the “little folk” like myself who come in for random jobs. He’s got a fantastic machine shop, but his rates are pretty high ($100/hr) and he doesn’t commit to a time to complete a project (e.g. he’s been known to charge people for his lunch break, if you catch my drift). Also, he upcharged my friend on the spot after quoting him one price 5 minutes earlier and my friend agreeing to it. So he’s got a bit of a reputation. Nevertheless, he’s the only guy in town who can likely do a good job. So I went to him hopeful that with precise specifications in hand, more like a professional than a “little folk” he’d do it right and we’d be done with the least amount of pain.
Long story short, after taking the parts back to him after the first time wasn’t correct (and getting charged 100% extra for him redoing his own work) I was pretty much through with going to this guy, BUT the pipes were bent to the proper shape and ready for welding, so I was at least glad for that step to be over. However, it ruled him out for the welding process, and man, let me tell you, after what I went through to get this thing welded up, I am SO glad I didn’t use this guy. I was WAY underprepared for the welding…. Read on (click continue below) for the rest of today’s post.
This is the second post in a 5 part series on how I literally saved somewhere between $5,000 and $9,000 installing a cockpit arch and a pair of solar panels onto Aletheia, my Allied Princess ketch rigged sailboat. I’ll be posting this series over the next few weeks, so keep checking in for updates. Here is the previous post.
After receiving the materials, I pretty much just sat around for a while pondering the right approach to fabricating the arch. Battling “analysis paralysis”, I finally decided I’d had enough “thinking” and needed some “doing”. The first bit of doing involved bending two sections of pipe into the “bow” or “U” shape which forms the basis of the frame.
I took a test section of pipe to a local fabricator and asked if he could bend that to my specified radius. Now, I have to tell you a thing or two about this guy. He’s got a reputation for not caring about the “little folk” like myself who come in for random jobs. He’s got a fantastic machine shop, but his rates are pretty high ($100/hr) and he doesn’t commit to a time to complete a project (e.g. he’s been known to charge people for his lunch break, if you catch my drift). Also, he upcharged my friend on the spot after quoting him one price 5 minutes earlier and my friend agreeing to it. So he’s got a bit of a reputation. Nevertheless, he’s the only guy in town who can likely do a good job. So I went to him hopeful that with precise specifications in hand, more like a professional than a “little folk” he’d do it right and we’d be done with the least amount of pain.
Long story short, after taking the parts back to him after the first time wasn’t correct (and getting charged 100% extra for him redoing his own work) I was pretty much through with going to this guy, BUT the pipes were bent to the proper shape and ready for welding, so I was at least glad for that step to be over. However, it ruled him out for the welding process, and man, let me tell you, after what I went through to get this thing welded up, I am SO glad I didn’t use this guy. I was WAY underprepared for the welding…. Read on (click continue below) for the rest of today’s post.
But I am getting ahead of myself. I’d found the welder through a friend, and arriving at his shop I realized he was the real deal. I walked into a shop full of CNC lathes, milling machines, welders, grinders, pretty much everything. This guy’s main business was custom fabricated motorcycles and frames, and from the organized layout of the shop, I could tell he was a meticulous type of guy. So picture me, walking in with my two precisely bent frames and a handful of rough-cut aluminum pipe into this shop full of Ducati’s, BMWs, etc. He wheels over a cart and says, in a cheery English accent, “let’s get to work!” And so, in between him finishing up a Ducati repair, he and I got to work assembling the frame and prepping it for welding. Now, this guy was giving me “mate’s rates”, which in American English doesn’t mean the rate he’d charge his partner but rather a rate he’d charge his good drinking buddy or pal’s friend. So he’s giving me a considerable discount, and in exchange, I’m doing a lot of the work with his very specialized equipment. After I’d demonstrated that I knew what I was doing with a few tools, he stopped watching me so closely and went to finish up the Ducati so he could get to the part only he could do: the actual welding.
Three hours go by as we machine the aluminum pipe to the right angles, make jigs to hold everything together, test fit and re-shape in endless cycles. We were working like crazy, him cutting something, me drilling something - I had NO IDEA how much additional preparation it takes to get something ready for welding. And on top of it, I hadn’t realized aluminum was actually so tough of a material - apparently when its 1/4” thick its pretty formidable. We used plasma cutters, all kinds of air-powered grinding bits, a specialty pipe notcher, and his entire array of belt sanders and polishers. FINALLY, its 11 PM and we have everything shaped right and ready to weld together. The only thing we didn’t count on was how to get the [much cursing redacted] thing square and held at a precise angle so as to make it drop into place on the boat perfectly the first time (you don’t exactly get second chances with welding). After some wrangling, I came up with a quick cross-check based on dimensions we could easily measure, plotted a few long arcs on the floor to help guide us in keeping the feet square, and pretty much crossed our fingers. It took him about two hours to weld the entire frame, feet and all, and in between we ran into a few more problem spots where we had to re-grind a bevel or put an edge on a pipe that we’d forgotten about in the chaos of getting everything ready. I have to admit, though we were both working very quickly, getting very tired due to the late hour, and quite numb and slightly deaf from all of the machinery we were using, it was really a lot of fun.
And then — sort of like laying a building’s foundation and waiting and waiting and seeing nothing for months until POOF the whole thing is built in what seems like a few days — we suddenly had an actual, 3-D frame welded together in the shop. He and I looked at each other, checked a few dimensions, and pronounced it ready to go. After paying him generously for staying so late to help me in my ill-prepared situation (lesson learned, but at least he was very gracious about it) and helping him clean the shop up from the insidious metal shavings that seem to migrate into unbelievably unexpected places, I strapped the frame to the back of my pickup and headed back to the boat. Though I was grinning with the success of having finished such a marathon construction process, the one thought nagging in the back of my mind was “will it actually fit when I drop it in place”?
But I would have to wait until the morning for that.
(To be continued in Part 3)
Categories : How To, My BoatThree hours go by as we machine the aluminum pipe to the right angles, make jigs to hold everything together, test fit and re-shape in endless cycles. We were working like crazy, him cutting something, me drilling something - I had NO IDEA how much additional preparation it takes to get something ready for welding. And on top of it, I hadn’t realized aluminum was actually so tough of a material - apparently when its 1/4” thick its pretty formidable. We used plasma cutters, all kinds of air-powered grinding bits, a specialty pipe notcher, and his entire array of belt sanders and polishers. FINALLY, its 11 PM and we have everything shaped right and ready to weld together. The only thing we didn’t count on was how to get the [much cursing redacted] thing square and held at a precise angle so as to make it drop into place on the boat perfectly the first time (you don’t exactly get second chances with welding). After some wrangling, I came up with a quick cross-check based on dimensions we could easily measure, plotted a few long arcs on the floor to help guide us in keeping the feet square, and pretty much crossed our fingers. It took him about two hours to weld the entire frame, feet and all, and in between we ran into a few more problem spots where we had to re-grind a bevel or put an edge on a pipe that we’d forgotten about in the chaos of getting everything ready. I have to admit, though we were both working very quickly, getting very tired due to the late hour, and quite numb and slightly deaf from all of the machinery we were using, it was really a lot of fun.
And then — sort of like laying a building’s foundation and waiting and waiting and seeing nothing for months until POOF the whole thing is built in what seems like a few days — we suddenly had an actual, 3-D frame welded together in the shop. He and I looked at each other, checked a few dimensions, and pronounced it ready to go. After paying him generously for staying so late to help me in my ill-prepared situation (lesson learned, but at least he was very gracious about it) and helping him clean the shop up from the insidious metal shavings that seem to migrate into unbelievably unexpected places, I strapped the frame to the back of my pickup and headed back to the boat. Though I was grinning with the success of having finished such a marathon construction process, the one thought nagging in the back of my mind was “will it actually fit when I drop it in place”?
But I would have to wait until the morning for that.
(To be continued in Part 3)
