Tuning up the Lead Keel

       

As at continuation of the keel saga, we were giddy after finally getting over 5 thousand lbs of lead into a molten state and into the plywood form, with no disastrous floods

and no one being hurt.

We could hardly wait to remove the form and see what we had.....

better than Christmas morning!.....

Richard moved the keel into the garage, as the rain has started to

really come down here, in Western Montana.
 He rolled it 90 degrees into the correct orientation for positioning under the boat.

You may be curious about how he moves around this heavy hunk of lead...

no pushing or pulling....just using two pallet jacks. One near each end.



Then Richard started the long process of removing all the brackets

that provided support during the pour.

A hundred 2x4s, rods and nuts, then a zillion screws

keeping the layers of plywood together.

When the first layer of ply was removed it showed no real leakage thru the joints

where he had used the high temp stove caulking.

The section in the center is the edge of the blocking that created the slit for the centerboard.

Of course, since he had strengthened the side joints by alternating top and sides,

he couldn't get to the screws holding the inner top in place....

get a bigger hammer and chisel!...We can't wait!..... 

Finally... a tiny spot of lead! Keep ripping and chiseling...

Wow....I was surprised by the matte, rough look to the metal...

Not sure what I was expecting!

This pic shows the only tiny bit of shrinkage in the entire keel.

This is a natural process as the lead cools....that is why the guys kept topping off the mold during the pour. Richard had heard that the rate of shrinkage is about 1" over 6'....we only had about 3/4" over the entire 14'....it probably happened here since this is the smaller, thinner end. No worries....we are very happy.

More brackets....more prying plywood. Bigger hammer...

And we could finally start to see what a beautiful pour looks like!....

I love the wood grain effect.

Lots of back slapping! After four attempts and lots of backyard engineering

 it looks like we have a keel for Beckon!

Jane even got the thoroughly stimulating job of removing all the

nuts and washers from the rod in the 2x4 brackets.....

I think there was some sort of "white picket fence" scenario going on...

Oh No!   What is this? A HUGE void on the port aft side of the keel!

The lead never got near the mold....what the...???

The surface of the non formed area was rough and bubbly appearing...

remember that is the side that was up during the pour.

After removing more of the side form, we could see that a long smooth void was down the surface of what had been the top of the mold.

It went from 1 1/2" deep to nothing over about 40".....The rod is set at about the zero mark.

The lead appeared to settle in a flat layer at the angle at which the keel was sitting....

it just couldn't get to that area.

Ahhh! The culprit!...... A well charred shim!!.....

we figure it had fallen into the mold, probably hiding under the center board blocking...

then it floated up on all the boiling lead and by pure chance fit perfectly and got stuck crosswise on edge, preventing the lead from reaching the entire "upper mold".

                                                                                                                                                                    

 

 Otherwise.....an overall beautiful pour!

 

 Richard spent the next couple evenings cleaning the remainder of the forms off, and cleaning all the stinky plywood out of the garage. Kind of a wet charred smell....

More hammering, chiseling, and sawing while contemplating a fix for the keel.

He estimated the port side of the keel would be light by at least a couple hundred pounds.

Not so good for Beckon's balance!

Options would be.....

A repour (and remake of the entire mold), or add more lead onto the area of the void.

Trying to add more lead after the lead was cool poses problem with adherence....

Richard and Eric decided the best option was to combine braising, soldering of the lead...and using mechanical fasteners if needed.

Steel forms were applied along the sides of the keel.

And while we were at it, we felt that the little pin hole type voids at the fore section

looked kind of suspicious....how deep do they go?

They seemed structurally sound, but how much weight was missing?

After clean up, it appeared to be swiss cheesing due to those boiling gasses....

Trapped up under the lid of the mold.

Richard completed the perimeter form....

and cleaned all the oxidized lead off the area with a coarse wire brush on a drill.

Eric came over to do some serious lead melting....

The large flame weed burner was used to soften up the existing keel

 while the intense flame, high BTU burner was used to melt the hunks into the molten keel.

 

Richard got another 230 lbs of lead in ingots, dive weights, etc....

then used the wire brush to remove all the oxidation and impurities off of them....

Some of the lead was in big slab form and really filled in the void quickly.

Jane got roped into torch work, handling the large torch...

Lots of flame and heat to ward off the cool Montana weather...

Eric did lots of roughing and scrubbing with a small rod to the molten lead

 to promote adherence.

Beckon's view of the keel work.

Richard had Eric keep slowly filling until the level was higher than needed...

he plans to shape the area after it hardens.

Then Eric attacked the swiss cheese area.

Some lead was added to a void type crater at the fore end...

then little bits were dripped into several of the small deep holes.

Adherence should not be an issue with the thin deep fills.

As it was heated,

one small swiss cheese area opened into about a 3" wide by 2" deep hole, expanding to about 16" long....Yikes...that darn trapped gas!

It must have been light, since more lead was needed.

Richard had to scurry to try and get a ~120lb hunk cut up to keep feeding the melt.

After helping him lift the chunk up to the cutoff saw,

I watched anxiously as the blade got thoroughly stuck in the solid mass.

The big hammer method finally freed it.

Here are close ups of the melt and scrub method for promoting adherence.

The rod was used vigorously....

And the chunks were moved into the molten lead.

The entire keel was hot to the touch.

All visible weak areas were repaired. 

It appears to be a big save!

 All patched and ready to shape.

Richard moved it under the keel to assess for any adjustments needed

to make the fit flawless.

 The shaping went really well with the electric plane,

but generated huge amounts of lead shavings.

In all, a couple 5 gallon buckets....can you imagine the weight?

 All shaped up cleaned up.....

Richard measured every part of it and to make sure that it fit the shape of the hull exactly.

A thing of beauty!  

And a great weight off our minds to finally have it complete,

and for Richard to have done a "self pour".... 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Of Men, Fire, Persistence, and a New Keel for Beckon

After the original quick unsuccessful attempt at melting 5000lbs of lead in mid November,

 the wooden form for the keel was moved back into the garage,

and snow was allowed to pile over the melting pot....

Early January 2015 saw some nice deep storms and

 the dark asphalt was not seen for many weeks.

In late January we were anticipating a winter visit from Mark Smaalders....

planning a little skiing and keel pouring...

Fortunately for keel pouring, but unfortunately for skiing,

we experienced a very warm weather window, in the low 30s-40s, for a couple weeks....

Richard managed to dig out and uncover the melting pot,

as well as clear packed ice from an area of asphalt around the pour area.

On Sunday morning, the weather was predicted to be dry and in the 40s....

the form was hauled out of the garage and re-setup. Let's see if we can pour a keel!

The guys decided to try and cut some of the wind around the base

with some concrete block.

Note all the ice on the driveway nearby.

Look at those huge hunks of lead!....

Richard had already taken a chainsaw to them, reducing the size and height of the blocks, and stuffing the smaller pieces deep into the pot...

Richard added a little shed roof in an to attempt to keep in some of the heat.

Jane expressed concern about the lead splashing on the driveway

when the spout was lowered,

so a quick funnel was designed....

I am not sure if they are trying to convince me that it will be OK,

or maybe themselves....

When Eric showed up for the big day,

he anticipated a long slow melt and brought along tasks to be completed...

I thought the stools were only for comfort but he had just made them,

and wanted to add the tops and buff them up... 

Set up complete. Ready to fire up with one row of burners down the center...

One 100 lb propane tank and a small tank to apply extra heat, if needed,

 with the hand held weed burner.

Not to worry, organic vapor respirators and face shields for everyone.

The number of people involved was kept to a bare minimum for safety reasons...

we really had no idea how this was going to go...

We have ignition....at 1 pm...

As Quinn says...it looks and sounds like a jet propelled dog house.

We were still working with one row of burners,

under the center of the tank, between the I beams.

The fourth guy in the melt group, Jon Derry, showed up....

hoping for the project to be further along, I think....He and Mark have each successfully done a "backyard pour", but of course no one can quite predict if this will work in these circumstances....

Eric tweeks for more heat...

Conclusion:   This will take a while. 

About 1:30pm

Hmmm....could be a long day....

Richard and Jane take to chipping and clearing the ice from a large portion of the driveway...with the intermittent help from others wanting to burn off some calories and get the satisfaction of a black driveway. Maybe it will last until spring...

Eric buffs his creations....

Mark and Jon talk boats.....we have been contemplating a lifting bowsprit.

They are weighing pros and cons and complicating factors...

 The burners are warm....

But Eric gets out the hand held weed burner....

Joy is afraid of all the noise, but accepts a "nest" inside the open shop door.

3:30 pm....Hmmmmm.....

Could be a VERY long day.....watching lead melt!

What you think? Is it going to work?

 Of course, the response is that the lead doesn't care what we want.....

So of course, the boys have fun with the hand held burners...

Mark gets some flame going....it is starting to smell funky....time for the respirator.

About 4pm.....those blocks are starting to get warm.

Although, we aren't sure of the accuracy of the laser thermometer.

The green flame is reported to be burning lead oxide.

Alright, we are done messing around.....Eric fires up his Dad's glass blowing torch.

More torches are always better.

Getting good readings, but they aren't consistent.

Getting intense heat on those big blocks...

 These guys are persistent.

The big blocks are finally starting to sag...

Joy is getting bored with the whole thing...Jane rustles up some food and beer.

About 3 hrs into the melt....

All the directed heat on the blocks finally starts to get some soft lead in the tank.

Poking at it is fun...and coating a rod with lead...

And a few old keel bolts are loosened and removed from the large chunks.

Jon checking for leaks, as the tank gets hotter....

Torch directly on the blocks...

Getting a larger area of liquid lead.....about 5:30 pm.

Keep the heat coming....

Come on!

Finally the blocks are gone....with the lid off, they are hoping to get more heat to the top.

They then start working on those long junk keel bolts.

Poke it, grab it, heat it, and twist.... 

Way more fun to play with torches.....but not really progressing.

6:30 pm....and the sun is starting to set.

Get the lights out!

We are having fun now! I am thinking Mark might start regretting this trip!

Oh no!  A leak!

But I am told not to worry about my asphalt since it is only a tiny leak....

Try it with the lid back on....

 Are we getting anywhere? We have been burning for 7hrs....

and running low on propane. The sides of the tank seem to be cooling, and the bottom only burners aren't keeping it all hot....

Alright...call it a night.....and re-assess and re-group and rebuild....

 

Next attempt was two days later....but we got a late start.

Eric built two more torch bars, one for each side of the tank,

along with the bar of torches down the center.

They had also jacked up the tank, with a house moving jack,

so that they could place crossways sleeper bars that would help

the heat distribute across the tank better.

Unfortunately, now we had one huge hunk of lead to try and heat to temp.

We were hoping that throwing a few more dead dinosaurs at it would make the difference.

And more blocks were placed on the ends,

since that seemed to be an area of huge heat loss.

It got dark quickly during this attempt...

And we only lasted 5 hrs on this attempt before throwing in the towel...

 

This pour seemed to take on a life of it's own....and it couldn't be allowed to win.

Richard and Mark got really serious about bringing in every suggestion put forth by anyone to increase the heat and retention of the heat.

Mark even consulted his brother and got an estimate of 70% of the btus being lost from the tank. We needed SERIOUS insulation....

Richard and Mark spent the non-burn day building a kiln from cinderblock.

Mark got out there at day break on Thursday and insulated the whole thing.

He placed reflecting metal flashing around the tank with a 4 inch dead air space, then pink insulation between flashing and block....

The tank was entirely enclosed....no messing around this time!

Pretty in pink...

Moving the block to connect the three rows of burners to the propane

....then replacing it all. 

Prepped with two 100 lb propane tanks and two 25 lb tanks.

And one really big, 500k btu torch....

With Eric having reworked the side burners, drilling them out more, Richard estimates they had between a million to a million half btus in the kiln...

The top was made of flashing layered with drywall then plywood.....

it even has cute wooden handles.

Fired up...

Starting to steam and smoke by 10:45 am.

Melting well before lunch the lunch break....and ready to work and pour after lunch.

SWEET!  A molten mess....

Look at the color of the insulation....I think it got a little hot...

Mark and Richard took turns skimming off impurities, and placing it in old varnish cans.

More keel bolts, tire weight clips, and even one half of a beer can were removed.

Best to get all the stuff out now, since a pipe clogged by debris  would be tricky to fix.

The lowering of the outlet pipe went well, after a little heat was applied to the pipe.

The lead bubbled and gurgled as if it was boiling for about an hour and a half

 while it was going into the mold....

it seemed to flow evenly, and level, across the entire mold to the vent pipes at the ends....

Lots of steam and drama, but not one leak in the mold, and no charring....

remember the "water glass"?

The last tiny bit of lead was ladled from the tank into a pan, then transferred to the mold. 

That made a nice smooth top.

The next morning, the mold was still about 200 degrees....the mold will be cooling for quite a while prior to removal from the form.

We can hardly wait to see how smooth the pour was,

and see how much fairing is needed....

 

Lessons learned from the pour:

1. Dead dinosaurs alone can not tame 5000 lbs of lead.

2. Smaller pieces of lead to be added in stages is much easier to melt,

but possibly more dangerous.

3. No amount of btus or insulation should be considered "too much". 

4. A seriously reinforced wooden mold with water glass coating is perfect.

5. Nothing is better than having loyal friends that are willing to help in locating and delivering lead, designing melting techniques, and hang out through unsuccessful attempts, brain storming to finally give Beckon her keel!

Thanks to everyone for your hard work and a safe pour...

and a special thanks to Mark for his friendship....