The Cape Dory Board

My hacksaw secret weapon is a Remington-grit-edge blade - basically a rod covered with chips of tungsten carbide - cuts darn near anything - not as fast a a regular blade that will cut the metal in question, but a lot faster than a toothed blade that dulls in use when working something like stainles...

For smaller amounts of stuff, the plastic replacements for what used to be a "3 pound coffee can" (now down to 33 oz, just as the "1lb" is down to 11 oz) are worth considering. No rust, snap lid, etc. There are also faux ammo boxes in plastic, but they cost money (if you have a f...

I don't know anything about liners, but as far as I know from the CD14, the drain holes take standard lever-expansion plugs, which pretty much any boat store should stock. You mention the main drain hole in the bottom of the hull - just two more like the plug for that (at least, on the CD14 I have, ...

bring it in a real glass thermos, not one of those stainless thermoses. ...because you enjoy the taste of broken glass? I've been very happy with my Stanley for 30 years, a bunch of ski races (gatechecking was what I bought it for in the first place - 3-4 hours of standing on the cold mountain) and...

Having just heat-shrunk my well fittings, I used a hot air gun. In the portable/no power line, I have a Portasol (I think Weller bought them out) flameless (catalytic) butane soldering iron, and the exhaust heat from that makes a nice, no-flame, source of heat for heat shrinking if AC is not availab...

Based on what I've been able to find out here over the few months since mine came home: The seat holes (and the hole in the front of the centerboard case, and the hole in the bottom of the boat) should all have plugs in place when afloat. There was no foam as originally built (at least on the age I ...

It's one I've been thinking about with the CD14 front/rear seats (which are air chambers with 1-inch or so holes for plugs to make them "sealed", so it's easy enough to poke around in there and find no foam). Foam weighs more than air, so technically floatation is reduced - for ideal condi...

The exact length of the (or my) base mast (as far as I know the rig is original, and the CD14 is a very early one from Brockton): The tube is 12' 0-1/8", it's 12' 2-1/2" to the top of the cast fitting. The tube for the gaff is 11' 6-1/4" - the loop for the head of the sail is centered...

Ron, I'll measure mine tomorrow or the next day. Is the basic size of the sail right? I wonder if they put the reenforcement about where the halyard attaches to the gaff? Don't know that it would help anything, but it seems like about the right spot. The old literature would have to have two diagram...

Some things there's no getting around it. Some things, what's really tiresome is that you could have done it better 46 years (or whatever) ago and spared yourself the pain now. Or as the pithy saying goes: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. You can replace time...

I've been using PEX in a lubberly application and see no appeal to the crimp connections .vs. a pair of good stainless steel hose clamps over a standard barb. Mostly looks like a scam to sell people a $75-100 crimper where a screwdriver or nutdriver they already own would work as well and be reversi...

On rusted trailer
Crufty fiberglass hull waits
Amid trees new wood

the most popular drink in serious racing circles is Mt. Gay Rum. But there is Mt. Gay and Mt. Gay - specifically, Eclipse, which is terrible and easy to find anywhere, and Barbados Sugar Cane, which is a whole 'nother bottle of rum. And pretty much the only rum I'll drink these days, though I have ...

Are you sure? - The brochure for the CD10 & 14 (available from the CDSOA site) indicates 7-1/2 feet for the rear position and 7 feet for the front position of a CD14. If you are actually (as one might suspect from your handle) talking about a HC14, that boat is 2 feet wider and 3 times heavier t...

Well, you can buy them (ouch, says my sensitive wallet, but if you want the original rig, there it is): http://www.rigrite.com/Spars/Spartan_Spars/S-1_spar_system.html You can also roll your own in various ways: http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/04/s/articles/gunter/index.cfm http://www.duckworksmaga...