Almost-A-SCAMP Progress Report #6: GOALLLLLLL!!!! . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

Been dragging my feet a little on the Almost-A-SCAMP project, working out a quandary.
The conventional thinking in the SCAMP Community is to follow the build manual and do all the inside stuff first.
Centerboard and pin assembly, ballast tank drain, then cockpit sole and any required doublers and filleting, followed by bench seats, then deck, sides and cabin top.
Then you flip the hull over and do the bottom glass and skegs (SCAMP sits level on her skegs; useful for people who don't pay attention to tide tables)     and also fillet and paint the exposed cabin top underside, etc.
If you are however, of the Nailed-Glued-Screwed-Blued-and-Tattoed boat-building persuasion,  putting screws through the bottom of the hull into the skegs is problematic.   

My main concern is the bow eye U-Bolt. 
You can't hardly get up in there to install it after the deck is done, unless you're a left-handed, double-jointed, albino Dwarf.   
Plus, you really need to glass and paint and bed the bow (and transom) BEFORE you do all that stuff.
So my inclination is to invert the hull first, glass the bottom the sides the bow, the transom, install the skegs and THEN finish the inside of the boat.
Doing it that way would also make it much easier to install wiring and odds and ends while everything is still open, including installing the bow eye.

So while I was dragging my feet struggling with indecision,     I decided I would construct my own trailer goal posts, instead of paying the Hideous Prices they seem to want, nowadays.
The ones I bought 30 years ago for Urchin, were MUCH more reasonable!
How tough could it be? I had Urchin's goal posts for an example and a model! 

Got a 10 foot length of schedule 40 electrical 1½" PVC from my SIL electrician and promptly cut it in half.
I decided NOT to try and use a heat gun to bend 90º sweeps in the lengths since the heated PVC has a tendency to kink when trying to form 90º bends.
So I got some pre-fabricated sweeps and some couplers.
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Cut a short length for the trailer U-Bolts and inserted it into a coupler(to hold shape on one end)  while I heated the piece with a heat gun and clamped it in a vise to create squared-off sides
Got two 90º angles and two curves.
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Rotated the piece in the vise and repeated, to get all four corners squared off.
This is so when the goal posts are clamped to the trailer frame, they won't slip fore or aft.
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With the squared-off end clamped in the vise I was able to glue/set the sweep properly to be at right angles to the squared-off sides.
Otherwise, the posts would lean fore or aft, instead of straight up, when bolted to the trailer.
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I like having my trailer lights mounted on top of the goal posts, for three reasons:
1) It keeps the lights out of the water and I never have to worry about water intrusion in sockets and wiring, etc.
2) I don't have to take them off like transom bar mounted lights, etc.
3) It puts the tail lights right in the face of the driver behind me. 
I can't help but note that the only trailer I have (kayak trailer) with conventionally positioned tail lights, has been rear-ended three times in less than three years.
Mostly, by Dolts in Dodge RAM trucks.   

While I was at it, I fabricated a license plate holder.
Cutting down to near the inside tangent and then making a vertical cut between the two horizontal cuts allows you to unfold the PVC with a heat gun.
A 2" piece of PVC fits nicely over the 1½" PVC posts.
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Mounted PVC Goal Posts on trailer. 
You might zoom in and note that I drilled and tapped for ¼-20 bolts at 90º to help get shearing stresses off the glued coupler joints.
And now you can see why the U-Bolts need to bolt up against a squared-off piece of PVC.
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The sole drawback to goal post mounted lights is you have to have some means of lighting up the license plate; and when mounted to the goal posts while launching, the hull beats the license plate up pretty bad.
(And vice versa.)
So you have to have some means to rotate the license plate out of the way for launching and retrieving.
A 35 year old example is shown here, on Urchin.

For going down the road:
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Prior to launching:
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It's held in position by dropping the notched end onto a sheet metal screw at the bottom of the holder.
There's another notch at 90º to hold the plate in the launch position.
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In practice, one end of the license plate holes will bolt normally through the provided holes, the middle of the license plate will have holes drilled to match the left side holes.
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Holder rotated for launching.
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Made good on my threat to get a far better winch, than the one that came with the trailer frame when I bought it.
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Not too shabby, in bright sunlight!
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All that's really missing is the hull support method.  Obviously a center roller at the end of the frame, but everything else is still kind of up in the air.
For example: Do I use conventional bunks to support the hull curvature, (like on Urchin) or do I install some kind of platform for the skegs to rest on?
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Here's one guy's (intriguing!) solution.
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I like the extended platform sides to make access and egress easier, during setup/launch.
Have to mull that over, while I'm mulling over whether to ignore conventional SCAMP build thinking and go my own way, like the loose cannon I truly am!   
Open (as always) to ideas, suggestions, etc.

Charles Brennan

[Wolverine]

left-handed, double-jointed, albino Dwarf.

So...you want my sil's phone number?

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

I sort of prefer bunks because of the bounce of the road.  It just seems like holding the hull off to the side a bit puts less pressure on the hull than setting on its bottom.  I have no science behind that; it's just a feeling.  So, voodoo.

[Charles Brennan]

Noemi, Good point and Food For Thought.
Tradeoffs are better "roadability" versus easier launching.
Definitely going to have to mull that one over  . . . . .

Thanks Chica,
Charles Brennan

[Frank B.]

Hey, nice, but the only picture I don't see I need.  Rewiring trailer lights now, already have the elevated goal posts that I put up primarily because I could not see the trailer without the boat on it so backing was a guess. Lights did not work when I tested a week ago or so, so decided to start with a new harness.  Fished the harness through the trailer and low and behold the lights work perfectly, all functions.  So how did you mount the lights to round tube.  MIne have a set of bolts oriented in a horizontal plane.  Some kind of backer plate on the tube? And, is it required that the plate be under the light even if you don't run at night, can it be in the normal position?

[Charles Brennan]

Frank, My kids always say: "Ask Dad the time, he'll tell you how to build a watch!"   
So remember, you ASKED for this!
Firstly, let's start off with why I dislike #1157 incandescent tail lamps for trailers.
Two filaments, a tail light signal and a turn/stop signal filament and the tail light draws less current than the turn/stop filament, but together, they draw a little over 2A of current.
(2.1A  up to 2.4A depending on manufacturer, but to keep the arithmetic simple, we'll call it 2 Amps.)
Turn on your lights at night and step on the brakes and you need to get 4 amps of current from your tow vehicle to the extreme end of your trailer.
12 V automotive system and Ohm's Law (E=I X R) says you can have no  more than 3 ohms of wire and frame resistance, or those lamps will either be dim or non-existent.
Personally, I've always felt that relying on the trailer frame as the ground return path was a Mickey Mouse solution.   
Get a little corrosion on the bolt for the trailer tongue to apron connection and you now have all kinds of weird intermittent problems, which are a PITA to figure out.

One of the cool things about LED lamps for trailers is that they draw 1 tenth of the power (200 ma versus 2 A).
So now you can get away with THIRTY ohms of crummy frame resistance before they too, flake out on you.
Converted to LEDs decades ago and never looked back.
Those 18 ga trailer wire harnesses that just barely accommodate 2A incandescent lamps, wake up and shine when wired to LEDs.

THEN some guy decides to put his trailer lights on a PVC goal post! 
An insulated PVC goal post.
Forget all about your trailer frame ground.
What I like to do is visit a big box store and get their cheapest 50 foot outdoor 3-wire extension cord.
Don't spend the bucks for a heavy-duty 12 ga or even a 14 ga extension cord.
Hold out for the 16 ga cheapie.

Cut the extension cord in half and run it through each side of the trailer frame. 
You can tie your crummy trailer wiring to the extension cord to make it easier to pull through the tongue, etc.
There are three wires inside that cord: Black, White, and Green.
For a flat-four trailer connector the colors are:
White = Ground.
Brown = Tail light
Green = Right turn signal
Yellow = Left turn signal.
I used to mix those last two up all the time, until I realized that gReen had an R in it, like Right and yeLlow had an L in it, like Left.

Since I'm bringing three conductors to each light on each side I can wire the lights up and have a ground return wire that goes directly to the lamp.
GUARANTEE that sucker's gonna light up, no matter HOW much corrosion is on your trailer!
At the vehicle connector end, my chart goes like this:
Both white wires (one each side) goes to white ground wire on connector.
Both black wires go to brown tail light wire. 
(Colors are close enough for gummint work.)
My wife thinks I am hopeless with colors, but then, she thinks beige, taupe and ecru, are three different colors.
I keep telling her, they're ALL the same color: Light Brown.   
Green from the right hand side of the trailer is a no-brainer, goes to the green right turn signal.
Green from the left hand side of the trailer goes to the remaining yellow right turn signal.

Now to mount the lights on the PVC posts.
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Drill a 9/64" hole from front to back, through the PVC pipe about where the ¼-20 bolts on the back of the lamp are situated.
Don't drill so high you can't pop the PVC end cap on top, later on.
DAMHIKT.   

Next drill a ¾" hole in the front side of the post, where you just drilled. This is so you can get a 7/16" nut driver or long socket wrench, on to the bolt.
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When you drop the nut trying to put it on the bolt, it will slide down to the 90 sweep bolted to the trailer.
A short, stiff, wire with a hook should be sufficient to snag the nut out and try again; if not, a magnet taped to a wire will accomplish the same job.
 Aren't you glad you didn't pull the wiring in, yet?

Next, get a small right angle bracket and bend one side of it to roughly conform to the curve of the PVC pipe.
Holding it up against the light, mark the bracket where you will need to drill another 9/64" hole in the bracket.
Then attach the bracket and screw in some short self-drilling sheet metal screws.
This keeps the bracket from rotating and/or falling down to one side or the other. 
In about 30 years or so, it will look like this:
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Almost forgot.
Notice the small pre-drilled hole for the trailer light wiring.
If your lights came with wiring leads as short as mine did, you can snag them out the big hole, and when you pull the wiring through the PVC  post, you can wire the wires together and push the wire nuts (which contrary to popular belief, is NOT an Electrician's Disease)     back in the hole, one at a time.
It DOES fit, eventually.
Some lights have the wiring exit the fixture towards the bottom, others towards the top.
On Urchin's lights, the wires reached out the top easily.
Just sayin' take a look at where yours are before you start drilling the mounting holes, it might influence the position.
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If you want to get REALLY Fancy, (I didn't) you can pop for a ¾" grommet to dress up your front mounting hole.
Notice how mounting the lights to the outside of the post keeps the lights clear of the hull, when launching/retrieving.
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As to your final question: "And, is it required that the plate be under the light even if you don't run at night, can it be in the normal position?"
I haven't a clue. I can't find any requirements anywhere saying one way or the other, except that at night, the license plate must be clearly visible.
Think it depends entirely on your relationships with your local LEOs.

Hope this helps,
Charles Brennan

[Timm R Oday25]

Okay Charles ,this post like all of your others are filled with great advice . I do have a question however . I noticed you have a lawn sweeper .. Don't you need to have a lawn first ?           Come on up here and I will show you what a lawn is supposed to look like       
Of course I'm kidding keep up the great work.

[Frank B.]

Thank you, just what I was looking for.  And yes the LED's draw a lot less and last a lot longer even if submerged, the current set is three years old, never got but one out of incandescent. 

The bracket to offset the lamps to the outside as far as possible with stability is what I need to do.  I don't have a lot of clearance so get them out of the way.  I have some 10Ga stainless bar that I think I can form into brackets for that purpose. A ground that is not dependent on a couple of trailer attachments is also a good idea since the current failure had to do with corrosion at the attachment points. But this harness is installed so next time on that.

With regard to what the local LEO's have to say about tag placement, in Mississippi, I think having a working set of lights and a tag and boat registration that is not expired probably will put me in the minority, so I'll take my chances.

And responding to another post that talked about can you have too many motors, the answer is yes, you could be tempted to build another boat just because you have an extra motor.

[Frank B.]

Not sure what went wrong with the pics?

[Charles Brennan]

Frank, just a guess, but based on having made the same mistake myself, I'd say you might not have clicked on the "Insert" button after you uploaded the pics. 

Either that, or you lost "browser focus".  That's what the High Priests of Web Dev call it when you click on something else, so the program is no longer paying attention to what you're looking at.  You need to click on the text part of the screen where you want the pic to go and make sure you see a blinking cursor.
Then you go down to your uploaded pic and click on the Insert button and it knows where to put the pic (where the cursor was). In cases where browser focus was lost, clicking on the Insert button does nothing, because the program no longer knows where to insert the pic, so it just doesn't do it.

Ya gotta keep these computers down, or they start getting uppity! 

Hope this helps,
Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

Good job on the goal posts! Imma have to see if the "new" trailer might accept them. The old trailer had 'em for a while until I raked them off the door of the "cathouse". (Shoulds made that door wider!!) I see your choice of slip-joint pliers is also wise. I've always contended that money spent on anything other than Channel-Loc brand is wasted.
I did the outside of the boat first to keep from having to flip the boat multiple times. I also fitted the skeg. I first scribed it in and cut it with the band saw. Then put a light behind it and sanded and sanded until the light coming through the crack was pretty much gone. The skeg is a structural member connecting the transom with the centerboard trunk on my boat and I wanted it as near perfect as I could get it. I drilled and installed the skeg and bedded it with 5200 IIRC. The rudder attaches to the skeg too, so as close to perfect as possible here wasn't a wasted effort.
The bow eye wasn't a big deal but FINDING one long enough was. I peened the threads on the eye inside the  boat after running the nuts down. There is a fine line here....you want to booger the threads enough that it won't back off but not so much you can't EVER get it off if necessary.Those nuts backing off could ruin a day and yes, it's a problem to get to.

[Frank B.]

Frank, just a guess, but based on having made the same mistake myself, I'd say you might not have clicked on the "Insert" button after you uploaded the pics. 

Either that, or you lost "browser focus".  That's what the High Priests of Web Dev call it when you click on something else, so the program is no longer paying attention to what you're looking at.  You need to click on the text part of the screen where you want the pic to go and make sure you see a blinking cursor.
Then you go down to your uploaded pic and click on the Insert button and it knows where to put the pic (where the cursor was). In cases where browser focus was lost, clicking on the Insert button does nothing, because the program no longer knows where to insert the pic, so it just doesn't do it.

Ya gotta keep these computers down, or they start getting uppity! 

Hope this helps,
Charles Brennan

I think it has to do with being an XP-Pro dinosaur in a Windows 11 world.    I got a new laptop and it fights with me constantly.  My old one ran on ten but at least it had a 7 cheat page which I used for most functions.

[Riley Smith]

 I think I identify with that! My daughter gave me a brand new HP that she didn't use so I've been trying to get it going. The old Lenovo is on it's last legs. I've managed to get another account going and synced it to everything but she is listed as administrator and I can't add any programs. However, it works lightning fast and I'm beginning to believe maybe I WON'T add any programs. And a big bonus is now I can keep Sonya off it and her hard drive clogging stuff

[Captain Kidd]

Nice "post". No pun intended. I'm taking notes. Goal posts would probably help me retrieve Disciple Ship, especially when I have to deal with a cross wind. Anago's trailer has posts.

[Charles Brennan]

Timm, Your statement:

I do have a question however . I noticed you have a lawn sweeper .. Don't you need to have a lawn first ?           Come on up here and I will show you what a lawn is supposed to look like       

FIRSTLY: We are SAILORS. Sailors don't HAVE lawns, they may have periodically leveled off weeds.
But not often.

SECONDLY:  Take a look at the East side of my front yard:
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Now look at the West side of my front yard:
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Donwanna even get into the back yard!
15 Laurel Oaks, 6 Drake Elms, 6 Crepe Myrtles and a Loquat tree (Loquat's a Florida Thing) to deal with, My Man.
When the leaves get ankle deep (or worse!) twice a year, do you really expect me to tackle all that with a RAKE!?!??   
GET REAL, Dude!! 

Maybe YOU can get all smug about your lawns, up there in Wisconsin, but we ALL know your lawns are hiding under snow, like, 8 months a YEAR!!
So THERE! 

Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan