Continuation of the education angle at Commercial Lumber cc

All pictures taken by the pupils teacher,Briget McKee

When we ran as Commercial Lumber cc,we had premises in the heart of the city,just a few blocks up from the Cape Town Parliment and behind what was the Roeland Street Jail, its now the State Archives,the premises were said to once have been stables for the Cape Town Castle at one time,our old premises are now demolished and gone forever,the address was 34 Glynn Street.We were not so far from the German School which overlooks the city bowl and hosted a group of pupils who were keen to learn about timber and its use,so here we are showing them around one morning.

The BCMS kids build our Didi Mini Transat kit

In this case the pictures say it all?

Look who has just turned twenty one!

The map of Denmark!

Hello,

Yes,its CKD Boats cc,today we recived an order from Gert in Denmark making his country the twenty first export country order,thats a big day for all at CKD Boats!

Perkins 4108 diesel engine wiring harness and diagram

The front face of the original Perkins 4108 control panel,which is fitted with VDO gauges,oil pressure,rev, counter and water temprature,charge warning light,I have added an instrument light on/off switch and a remote cockpit 12volt supply plug.



My own boats engine is a tried and trusted Perkins 4108 diesel engine,its done around 1750 hours,which is not a lot for an engine around 25 years old? I service it on a regular basis and alway use the correct grade of diesel engine oil,this in itself doubles the permisable hours you can run between service over conventional oils.

My engine has what I think is the standard switch panel and related meters,the start switch had been changed for a non marine quality one,I put a new switch in,which in my case has the optional key position to warm up the Lucas fuel pre heater device used for cold starting.

The wire loom is original,it has two cable bullet connectors at each end of the loom,which in my case is about five meters long ( 197 inches) my connector blocks show some degrade from its previous service life,the 4mm brown live supply connector has corroded right away,requiring a reconnection.I also find a few stray wires that seem to connect to nothing,plus wires that are in the loom and are not required.

In my case I have decided to remove and re make the loom as close to what it should be as possible but to remove the bullet connectors, those unused wires and make the loom diameter smaller and easier to feed.I have sourced all the various cable thickneses and colours and will re make the new loom in the next few days,this will lead to a description of what each wire does and what its colour should be,the new loom then has no breaks in it,checking the connections at each end is an easy job and no worries will exist about faulty bullet connectors.
Note,if you do a circuit check your self using a meter will not begood enough,you need to use a large load such as a light from a car which is in circuit with the test cables,if the light does not show full power,you have a bad connection?

Note: the original loom had a Generator,mine now has an Alternator,some of the original wires to this connection will have been changed,please also note that in parts of the original loom,2.5mm diameter wires become 4mm diameter after the connection joint,some colours also change too,making it impossible to track where that wire comes out when using the colour codes only!

Wire colours:

This is what goes where,you may well find (you will) that a certain wire stops and its connected to nothing,plus some small gauge wires become larger gauge once in the main loom,some colours may change one end to the other too,its nonsense when trying to work from the switch panel to the engine what wire feeds what?The standard loom I had was seven meters long,thats about 23 feet.

Key Switch

Brown 4 mm gauge
Blue/Purple 4 mm
White/Red 2.5mm
Black 4 mm
Brown/Yellow 1.5mm

Revolution Counter

White/Green 1.5mm
Black/Blue 1.5mm
Black/Brown 1.5mm

Water Temprature

White/Green 1.5mm
Green 1.5mm
Black 1.5mm

Oil Pressure Gauge

White/Brown 1.5mm
White/Green 1.5mm
Black 1.5mm

Your engine may also have oil and water temprature sender units,these wires will be 1.5mm and in any different colours,probably two wires to each sender but some senders have just one terminal and use the block as an earth,so just one colour in that case.

Note,we can supply the correct colours (as above) in kits and in wire lengths of ten meters,thats about 30ft long,please email me for prices,we can ship world wide.

Roy kits@comlumber.com

Stepped Scarphs are a speciality

Didi mini transat cruise bulkheads,left click on either picture to view full size and see the details.


From the very first kit we had cut,the stepped scarph was seen as a materials saving device,on one boat it saved 4 sheets of 9mm marine plys,enough to cover the CNC work alone,the steps,plus the 9mm dowel pin holes ensure each bulkhead is glued to perfection,no bumpsor wavy lines in your production!

The Hillman Imp 998cc racing engine

This was my own cars engine,all parts were imported from the UK and the Rootes Competition Dept,Des O Dell was the manager then? based on a std Mk 1 block,fitted with 998cc steel liners and pistons,the Mk 1 Imp head was developed to take a set of very large valves from a Mini Cooper S,the car was tested on a rolling road just once,it gave an impressive 86hp at the wheels,so a lot of power from a 1 liter engine unit.

An exhausting time

Richard with our full race manifold suitable for the Hillman Imp engine in its normal position in the engine bay.


Richard with a very special Imp engine manifold,this one went to the USA for a sports special using an Imp engine,but reversed and upright,rather than at the angle Imp engines are normally.

We had Richard visit us a few weeks back,he was here on a holiday,just the right thing to do to miss all the snow in the UK,he checked out our fabricated Hillman Imp Full Race inlet and exhaust manifolds,he liked the quality and coming from a recoginised Imp Club member and trade supplier that meant a lot to me.

Whats packing today?

That may be a boring looking box but it has a very high value content,we pack to a high standard,the steel strapping ensures it will arrive as we packed it,our packing is an extra to the cost of the kit but I think you can see the value we offer is worth the extra cost?


We took advantage of a little empty space to pack the glass cloth and tapes,plus teak wood flour for epoxy fillets,in the crate,it stablises the rudders and foils very nicely.


This is Mike wrapping Daves Didi mini cruise drop keel foil we made,it will be packed into the crate behind,along with the two rudders we have also made for Dave.

We are lucky to have a busy time right now with packing all the orders we have recently been working on,following the Optimist to Spain yesterday,it was a Didi Mini Cruise to both Austraila and England today,no complaints mind you!

Optimist kit by air freight

Packed and steel strapped,we have worked hard to get the weight when packed inside our 75kg weight estimate but failed by some nine kilos,I do hope the client understands and agrees to pay the extra airway charges?the three parcels make up one Optimist kit.


This is another Optimist kit we have ready for collection by another customer,note that the building jig does not have the cut outs to save weight,basicaly what you see is what is in the large flat pack we have ready to ship to Spain.


The Optimist kit being prepared,note the circular cut outs in the chipboard building stocks,we saved some 3.6kgs in weight by doing this.

Our customer Federico in Spain took the faster option to air freight his Optimist kit,saving him the time taken for a vessel to sail to his destination,the kit was packed yesterday,we are now waiting for it to be collected pending fumigation,it will then be on its way to Madrid.With this type of packing we needed to save weight,so this kit was freed off from its 'mother board' as its no use shipping the scraps?

There is nothing so nice as messing about on boats

The TBA logo that Pat Frazer has such a hand of designing.

left click to fill your screen and see all the details!


Photograph by Roy McBride using a Canon FT camera and a 1.4 50mm lens,film Kodak 100asa.

This is the Endurance 37 'Ocean Cloud moored at the V&A Waterfront for a Traditional Boat Easter Regatta (what happened to those?)thats my dad,Robert Henry McBride with his back to the camera in conversation with ex TBA commodore and founder member, Pat Frazer,with my mother trying to follow what they are discussing? Pat clearly has a Castle Larger in one hand,looks like the braai has been busy too.

Thats Tara alongside (now Squire)note those period winches and long Hyfield Levers! with Kalahari Sands in front with Brat of Dunkirk alongside her,these were the glory days for the TBA.

Wood-Epoxy versus GRP catamaran value

Last week a customer asked what was the price of the Proteus 106 cataramran
kit (35ft),the reply was R180,000 plus vat,if thats applicable to you(not on exports) we then discussed a similar sized vessel (34ft) but in GRP (glass reinfored plastic) a local yard offers a set of mouldings for R410,000 plus vat,which in effect means if we add in the Vat portion on both boats we are spending R262,000 more on the GRP version,which if added to the ply/epoxy kit means you have enough to euip the boat you have just built,its this kind of saving that makes our kit such good value when you do the build youreslf,our Proteus 106 looks better too!

Proteus 10.6m Sailing Catamaran
This Lavranos Marine Design is a perfect small family ocean cruising cat. It is designed to offer a sufficient load carrying capacity to do ocean crossings with a family, at low cost and capable of amateur construction with a minimum amount of labour and skill. This simple, strong, fast, comfortable and cheap boat is also aimed at being practical & enjoyable for local use. She is also small enough for easy shorthanded use.
The interior consists of four berths
(two doubles + 2 singles), a saloon settee, a practical galley, and a toilet compartment, all with standing headroom.

She is configured with two machinery and keel variations; A 4 stroke 20HP outboard on a hinging nacelle is fitted for economy, as is tiller steering, with "kick up" rudders. The other choice is that a saildrive "single cylinder baby diesel" can be fitted, as can fixed mini keels.

The rig is the simplest possible