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Hi, I bought your book! I live in Ventura California off
the Channel Islands. I have been and advocate of ferro cement
boats for some time. I noticed that in a section concerning stringer
ends that you say that it is better to come to a blunt end instead
of a point (page 49) . Is this correct? My application for ferro
cement is going to be a "fuselage" for a one man submersible
"flying" sub. The ferro cement body is going to support
steel structures such as the steel pressure hull and ballast
tanks. The ferro cement is not going to be a pressure vessel.
I will send pictures. If you have any thoughts or suggestions
it would be greatly appreciated. Basically the structure is a
tube that is 18' long and it tapers from a 24" diameter
down to a 18" Dia. Since it is a tube I think the it will
end up being much stronger than is necessary. Being relatively
short ( 18 feet ) the weight may be higher but in this case that
is a benefit. Thanks - Brian Cox |
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Hi Brian, The vulnerability of a sharp edge is of course the same in whatever material you use, so on boats in the underwater sections which may from time to time hit floating or stationary objects I always advocate not having sharp edges but rounding them off slightly. In your situation I don't think it is an issue. I would be interested in seeing more of your project. It's interesting to note there have been several concrete submarine projects over the last few years. regards Colin Brookes....colb@xtra.co.nz |
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Hi ! I've been making progress with my sub. I have modified
my design from my original . Once the numbers were calculated
it was apparent that I needed way more buoyancy to get where
I need to be. I played around with various ideas until I came
to the conclusion that I needed to use the ferro-cement in the
most advantages way. I did not want to submit the ferro-cement
to any high pressure so I was avoiding certain aspects of my
design parameters. Anyway I sort of came to a compromise , what
I am doing is making a large tubular structure where there is
a large volume that will serve as a "soft ballast"
tank. This will be used for flotation and will control submerging.
I have built a working model ( 1/6 scale ) . I will send you
some pictures soon. I think I'm going to have a bunch of questions
about the best way to connect thru hull bulkhead fittings to
the ferro-cement. Basically what I need to do is to fill this
volume with compressed air thereby pushing the water out and
open hole located at the bottom. (Picture in the 'News' section) Thanks Brian Cox |
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