Week 22 - week before the start of the second semester break.

This week saw us continuing to apply the inner laminates and the core foam to the foredeck. Task and speed of our work were much smoother after building on the experiences we had for the top deck.  This brings to mind what Peter Senge concept of  second loop learning.

On Wednesday morning and late afternoon, we had the FRP sessions of applying the gel coat and later the chopped strains glass onto three moulds in the FRP room.  The vapour generated and toxicity of the resin spray and the MEKP used were reminders to me of the hazardous environment of the composite boat building industry. Safety and health TTEC 3000 portfolio assignment became mentally relevant to me.

I started to do my portfolio for the TTEC 3000 and the Small Craft Build this week since I would be having  visitors from Singapore fro the weeks following. After doing the reflection for the Small Craft Build,  a more academic and philosophical question kept bobbing in my head - "Is boat building a science or an art?"

Thinking back to the 7th March - the first day of the CAT course, I realised that I have traveled quite far in my learning journey. From a more conceptual abstraction learner I have become a more Active experimentation learner. Using most of the tools and the various workshop machines is becoming more of a second nature which could led to possible safety critical situations if I become complacent as I travel onto toward being unconscious competence in their uses.

Boat building started as a science for me with most of the sessions being theory oriented and in the classroom environment and lectures.The various calculations, the lofting requirements, the dynamic of the winds on the sails and the calculations to arrive at the various critical points in a boat such as the centre of gravity or buoyancy and even the CAD sessions are all seemly scientific in nature to me. However when the actual build began; the planing and pairing of the materials and the application of the resins become an art to be acquired and an artful task in the hands of the master boat builder. How the final product looks depend very much on the skillfulness and thoughtfulness of the builder bring to the boat building process. The fact that every boat built is a "compromise" and a balancing act,  of all the requirements of the owners, the conditions to be experienced at sea and the availability of the types of materials on hand as well as the cost and how deep the pockets of the owners or builder, also serves to reinforce my conclusion that boat building is very much an artistic profession as well.

It has been an exciting learning journey for me for the duration of the CAT program. Nevertheless this would be as far as I would go as I do not intend to continue onto the bachelor level. I see no compelling reasons to continue along the same chartered route at this stage of my life. I may seek out another learning journey which would take me to another area of the "ocean" (maybe still related to boat).

Week 21

This week saw me helping out for the deck since the anchor well task is almost completed. I worked with Turtle and later with Oggi and Leon to glue/laminate the front curve part of the deck (do not know the name for this part of the deck).

This task was previously done by Oggi and Gomez (who had since left the course) and two end parts were already made. this left the front of the semi circle shape to be completed. Having stormed and discuss with Turtle and Leon on how best to secure the various pieces (made from off cut foams and once we glue them together) to conform to the curvature of the semi circle, it was Leon who came up with a very good idea. Leon's brilliant idea of using buggies core to tied and hold the pieces in place was taken up and tried. The result was it works. We have to still ensure that the separate foam pieces "fall" into places. We left the centre piece out so that the curvature will be better achieved. This centre piece will be glued on separate later. Got to get a photo of this!

Took this photo this morning when I went back for a while. -

We laminated the various pieces together on Tuesday and by Wednesday the result seen was good. More work would then be done on shaping and the laminated pieces (including the earlier two already pieces) ready for further laminating process next week.

Learning points for me:
1) Many ideas and brainstorming is still the best approach of the day. Being in the actual situation helps rather than braintstorming in a "vacuum".

2) The slope of the curvature has varying degrees over the whole length of the front. Tricky task to try to get the bottom angle of each piece of foam to conform to this varying gradient. I watched previous attempt by Gomez and Oggi to work on this varying gradient of the foam pieces. They tried (I think) to get the gradient individually with each piece which made the task all the more difficult and requiring more skills and precision. What we did in this week was to glue all the pieces together first with a straight edge at the bottom and then shape off the gradient for the bottom. This still required a fair amount of judgement and sanding the gradient but was much easier. The top of the foam pieces though not a straight line was much easier to work on.

3) Having watched and see how difficult (and frustrating) it had been for Oggi and Gomez then, I build on their learning and "improve" on the approach and process. This is a second loop learning outcome - or what the Japanese called "Continuous Improvement" -incremental learning; one step at a time unlike the quantum learning which is a big leap at a time. That was how the Japanese "beat" the American over the last few decades of industrialisation. Now the other "Asian Tigers" are beating the Japanese at their own game ( at reverse engineering). Nevertheless the Japanese still remains in the lead in this field.

In conclusion - a rewarding and satisfied week of having achieved something improvement.

Week 20 - Completed the inside laminate and vacuum packing the core foam.

This week was busier than any previous weeks. During this week it seems that all of us (those present) were hand on to work on the laminating the inside layers of Boat Cloth and Double Bias as well as gluing on the core foam for the top part of the deck. It was a great team work environment with all those present.

Some technical details on the materials used:

Tools:
1) Squeezies
2) Gloves - plenty of them used by myself and Hoff when we need to lay the boat cloth and the double bias and help out with the resin application.
3) Mask - breathing apparatus
4) Overall
5) Roller
6) Vacuum Bag
7) Proferated plastic
8) Weed mat

Consumables:
1) Wax and PVA lotion (Film)
2) Acetone for cleaning the squeezies
3) Ice cream container
4) Masking tapes
5) Packing tapes
6) Cheese cloth (for waxing the mould)
7) Resin ADR246 and Hardener ADH 28. - we did 9 mixes of 6 (500 gm X 125 gm ) and 3 (300 gm X 75 gm)  of resins and hardener respectively for the inside laminates. Ratio of 4:1.
8) Microfibre 403 (I do not know how many mixes of the microfibre was used ( I was not doing the recordings).

 Materials for Inside Laminates
Boat cloth - 3 pieces of 1000mm by 3000mm
EDB - double bias glass cloth - 1 piece of 1300mm by 3000mm, 1 piece of 800mm by 3000mm and 1 piece of 1300mm by 2800mm.

Material Data
1)Weight of the boat cloth is 200 gm per square metre
2) Weight of the EDB is 430 per square metre.
3) Estimated weight of the boat cloth and the EDB was 4.3 pg and 20 kg based on the estimated 10 metre square needed for the task.
4) Ration of resin to glass cloth is 1.2 to 1. Therefore amount of resin needed is 7.5 to 6.3 kg.
5) Stock of resin available DR 246 is 13.5 kg and ADH 28 is 2.8 kg.
6) Microfibre 403 available 1.664 kg.

Though we were assigned specified roles and task for this laminating job, in the end everyone helps out as and when needed to complete the tasks on hand without having to be told to do so. Only Hoff and I were handling the glass cloth materials before they were laid.

The boat cloth were laid without any overlap as there was no need for them to overlap. For the EDB however the overlap is supposedly to be 30 mm. In the end, the overlap between the first 1300 x 3000 piece and the 800 x 3000 pieces were at least 80 mm. At one stage, there was confusion over the final 1300 x 2800 piece and the 800 x 3000 piece. Eventually we managed to work these out nicely (though as as desired)   for the inside laminate.

The vacuuming aspect was rather challenging once the vacuum pump was activated. Some foams were not in place and there were leaks at a couple of points where the plastic vacuum bag were jointed with vacuum tapes. The vacuum pump was switch off and on a number of time. It was a race against time.

(Will upload some photos of the process later as I do not have them on the desktop here. The photos are in my laptop.)

This is the first time I worked with big laminating task and use of time and sequencing appear to be critical parts. Correct sequencing come from planning on how to lay the glass clothes as well as knowing our individual roles.Team work with specified roles and tasks assigned are essential element of making laminates so as not to cause confusion. In the final moment, everyone present put in whatever efforts and do whatever tasks are needed. For me, it is great to see everyone putting in their energy into this after  so many weeks of independent working on our own with no group accountability. This seems to me this is the only task so far where everyone in the class learns at the same pace and same "page". My other conclusion is that many hands are needed for such a task especially for first timers like most if not all of us.

Here are the photos (these photos do not show the process of the laminating of the inside layer) of the laminating process:of the foam core and the vacuuming process-

A Clean table to start with

Stephan applying bulk materials to the wooden laminate for the back part of the top deck

Fitting out the form care before gluing it onto the inside laminate layer

Oggi and Adan applying bulk materials to the top of the inside laminate layer

Securing the vacuum bag to the vacuum tape before vacuuming

Another view of the vacuum bag with the vacuum tape being secured.

Vacuum being applied to the vacuum bag

Vacuum tape placed before vacuum bag is used.

Week 19th

I was assigned to work on the deck of the Wilson 8 m this week with Hof. Our task was to measure and prepare the materials for the fibreglass laminate. A brief was given to both of us by Brett on the various aspects and technicalities of the laminates. The laminate will be a three layer piece with the foam core sandwiched between to other 2 layers (one inside and the other outside) of Boat Cloth and Double Bias materials.

A list of questions was posted by Brett to us:

What is a laminate?

What materials to use?

What other materials are required - eg vacuum bag, peel ply, mat, etc...

Who? - People resource allocation

When? - Timing

How? - Process

Tools to use?

Resins to use?

Resource available =
What do we have in hand?
What do we need to do?
What have been done so far?

To me, these are the 4 Wives (W) and one Husband (H) questions which I am familiar with in my previous corporate work environment for various team tasks and individual projects. Questions are and always have been the Drivers of inquiry and data collection.

What Hof and I had accomplished this week are:
Take measurements of the areas to be covered by the laminated - 2.2 metre from the back to the front of the top deck and 800 mm for window slope portion and 1.3 metre to the stem point. 3 metres to cut for each pieces of the cloth - both for Boat cloth and DB.

Stock take of the what materials available (laying out the materials and measuring them on the lofting floor (floor needed to be clean first before spreading out the materials) - Boat Cloth - 36.4 metre and DB 12.6 metre.  We may have to use off cut materials for the DB (for the front portion of the deck towards the stem) as the requirements is not met by the DB 12.6 material available. The boat cloth available is more than sufficient.

Cut out the pattern for the boat cloth and the DB cloth. - we cut out all the materials into 3.2 metre length (to allow for the unusable ends of the materials which we tape up with masking tapes). One main learning point we gathered when cutting the material - was to tape up the end parts where we were making the cut first before cutting the materials. This made the cutting easier as well as the tape held the material together for better handling. The materials get stretched easily which made the task of handling the materials rather difficult. It was especially challenging when we tried to roll back the materials after laying it out for measurement.

Calculate the weight of a metre square of both materials - 432 gm per metre sq for the DB and 200 gm for the boat cloth.

Mark off on the mould where the cloth materials will be laid - there is a need to provide some overlapping of the materials - about 300mm.

Brainstorm how to lay the clothes. (Boat Cloth is 1 metre in width while the DB is 1.3 metre in width) - wwe would need 3 pieces of DB of 3 metre width and 4 pieces of baot cloth to cover the top part of the deck down to the front window. Another 1.3 metre width of material would be needed for the remaining part of the deck - the widest width is 3 metre, then 2 metre and then a triangular shape toward the stem.

Mark off and take out the areas where the inside laminate will end on the topside of the deck. The tricky part to lay the materials would be the front window area when the deck slope down and the side curve round.

Week 18 - Major learnings

This week is a continuation of the work on the 8 metre boat. Aside from working on the anchor well, I assisted John to glue on the cap for the gunwale.  John and I had a lengthy discussion on how we could decide on the angle throughout the cap of the gunwale at different station points. With the differing angles where the completed deck is supposed to meet the gunwale, it is quite a challenge process in thinking through how we could plane the angles throughout the gunwale cap. This I think made the boat building process more of an art than a science (as with other building process in boat building) even with the advance of technology and the sciences involved in boat building.

For the anchor well, I continue to apply bulk to patch up the two holes at the bottom as well as the openings at the bottom of the bulk head to seal them. It was not an easy task having to reach down to the bottom of the well. Previously I used off cut foams to give some body form to close up the holes and then apply 411 resins to cover up the holes. The mix I had initially were too runny - and the 411 resin was difficult to apply. I had to wait for it to cure further before I could smooth it out to. The subsequent mix I made were much thicker with more 411 powder. However the resin cure much faster and I had to work faster. Once the resin cure it is very difficult to apply onto the walls of the well. There is also much heat generated from the curing process of the resins in the ice cream container from the left over resins.

In the subsequent applications to joining areas where the bulk head meets the side of the hull, I decided to use masking tape to provide the alignments to the whole length of the joints. This made cleaning up the excess bulk material easier later as I thought. This also gave a smoother line to the joints.

Learning points :
1) Pre planning (thinking though how I was going to apply the resin mix) and preparation is essential for the application of the resin. These will lessen the amount of touching up and cleaning up later once the resin is cured and harden.

2) Speed of work is critical and the curing process of the resin will make the resin mix more difficult to work with once the cure is complete. Furthermore the fully cured resin is of no use as any further application to the surfaces to work on is ineffective and made cleaning later much more difficult a task.

3) The skills (building) of a boat builder become more critical as and when the boat is being built. All designs that had proceeded before would have to be modified when the actual building process started. It is more like a learning and adapting process as the building process proceed.  Judgement ability also become more critical which means experiences of the builder is paramount in the success of a boat being built.

Week 17 - Major learnings

Major learning for me this week are: -
1) Investigation into Polyester resin mix - on Wednesday.
Brett show us the effects of MEKP as a catalyst on the laminating and gel mix.  The time it took for the Gel mix to cure is shorter than the laminating resin mix - at 11.5 min vs 12 mins. The mix ratio used was 464 of resin with 2.5% of MEKP (which is much higher than standard at 0.75% to 2.25%). This higher ratio is used to amplify the effect of the MEKP on the resin mix.

Another pointer is that the application of the resin mix must be done onto the final material before the gel time. Spreading out the mix on the final material will also slow down the chemical reaction of air is an inhibitor (I am not sure about this and may have got this wrong - the other way round as air speeds up the chemical reaction - got to check on this. Reminded of Brett's comment that we are to read the resource CD). The mixes in the two ice cream containers did not have much air mixed into them and thus they cure much faster.

Safety considerations are major in this type of mixing of resin with MEKP. Brett demonstrate the way of the eye wash should any chemicals get into one's eye. Goggle therefore is essential in working with MEKP. Respirator is the other essential safety equipment for this work. As uncomfortable as it can be, I have to learn to get use to them though my hydrolysis situation cause my safety glasses to fog easily.

2) The other major learning is with the Dory thwart. There is a lack of continuity in the work on the thwarts and as such there is lack of co-ordination which resulted in a major blunder of the front thwart being too short. This remind me of the need for a sort of  "organisational learning and memory"  process which I had used during my corporate days. We used a similar documentation process (much like the google documents) where the sale persons used to record their visits to customers. Any other employee before visiting the said  customer needed to bring themselves up to speed on the latest development with that customer. So documentation is critical in our learning process.

Reflecting on the process of making the thwarts and what went wrong - I conclude it may have been that we measure and marked off the reference points where the thwarts are to meet up with the upside/hull of the Dory on the top side rather than the underside. This could have resulted in the thwart being cut too short.

Another learning is that we should not have cut off the excess of the thwarts  until we had taken all the measurements.

Nevertheless my greatest learning comes from these learning opportunities (mistakes made) - especially so in an learning environment such as the sessions at the CAT program. Hopefully I have learned from these so called "mistakes".

My other tasks this week on Monday and Tuesday were continuing on the anchor well works. My experiences as I reflected on it now is that the curing time of the filler resins/powder was similar to that of the investigation works done on Wednesday. Speed is of the essence once the epoxy is mixed with the filler powder. I found it difficult to apply the mix onto the walls of the anchor well toward the end as the mix had become thicker. Once it cures, further is not only impossible but of no use to try to get a thin coat.

The works on the well using the air sander is both noisy and dusty. The amount of dust is reduced if I held the sander with the air outlet pointing up rather into the well. Mask and goggle is essential for this work as safety equipment  My hands and face were all soaked with my perspiration.sweat whenever I used gloves and masks. This gives me second thought about my suitability to work in such environment.

Week 16 - absence

I did not attend classes this week as I have taken the wrong food just before the last weekend and ended up with a very severe gout attack. My right foot has been swollen since Saturday and the medicine does not seem to work as previously. My first gout attack started back in 2006 during my tenure of teaching for Waikato in Hangzhou. China. Thereafter I developed a low tolerance for purine rich foods.

Even up to today, I still cannot walk properly and therefore cannot possibly climb up and down to work on the anchor well of the Wilson boat.

Week of August 15 - "Work Week"

This is the 3rd week of the second semester - which is scheduled as a work week for us to gain industry exposure. For those of us without any such opportunity, we are back to "work" in the school.

This week is the most productive week as far as the Dory project goes. We got a lot done on it with most of the interior of the Hull either made or installed. For me - I worked on the quarter knee (with William), the outboard motor backing plate (not sure if this is the right name), and prepared and glue the thwarts for the back seat. It was good to be able to go back to using my hands rather than sitting in class- a change from the Day Skipper.

2 lessons learned this week:
1) The epoxy mixture with the hardener ratio as well as the length of time needs to get it "right". A smooth and slow lift of the west system pump is necessary and essential to ensure a correct mix. Learned from the first attempt to assist James to glue the thwart which was a disaster. I had to scrap out all the epoxy and hardener which did not cure and redo the thwarts again (with modifications to the center wood joint pieces). The same went for the hull which was sheathed earlier but did not dried out (the epoxy did not cure) and had to be scrapped out as well.

2) Safety issue when using the drop saw (or mitre saw - not of the name;  I got to know these equipments names). The wood which needed to be cut need to be back up to the end of the supporting plate on the saw - a pointer given to me by Chris. I was preparing the wedges for holding the thwarts together at that time when Chris noticed how I used the saw. This reminded me that as I get to the conscious competence stage - I may become complacent in overlooking safety which is a "mental safety" hazard

Day Skipper course

A change from the usual handling of wood, drawing, epoxy, etc... This week Day Skipper is a refresher for me as I did the course with the NZ Coast Guard back in 2003. Need the reminder of several important points of the  rules of the road for sea navigation.. The safety aspects and pointers are still fresh in me as I also did a theory course on kayaking with the Coast Guard last year.

Most important learning for me is that on a boat - fighting fire is fighting for my life unlike fire on land where ones just "walk from it". On a boat, there is nowhere to walk away from unless one wants to be in the sea. In the sea is a hazard by itself especially in NZ given the cold sea water. So one has to fight ti "kill" the fire as much as possible even at the risk of one's life. On land, the best way not to risk one's life is to walk away from the fire. Another pointer is the boat is the safest place to be while at sea/in the open sea "even a upturn boat - to be close to it" if one is to survive.

1st week - second semester

Back to normal routine of waking up for classes this week after a 3 weeks break. Did nothing much this week in class - just cleaning and sanding off the anchor well interior surface for the 8 metre boat (which is the project for this semester). The class is divided into 2 groups - one to work on the desk to make a laminate from the mold and other group to work on interior parts for the hull, The latter group works is more like carpentery works to make cabinets, seats and other interior structure.

Each one of us in the Hull group was given a specified area to work on. I volunteer to work on the anchor well at the forward front of the boat. This task is more independent of other parts while the others in the group would have their works/tasks related to each other's aspect. In many ways my task at the anchor well is much simpler with sanding, cleaning and filling up the gaps to ensure that the well is itself a "self contained" compartment where the anchor will be stored when not in use and where sea water would not flow into the main interior of the hull. Specifically the works in the well involved ensuring that the outlet to allow sea water to flow back is not obstructed, the attachment of the D ring onto the hull and provision for the anchor rope to be secure on the inside of the well (when and where the D ring is attached).

After initial sanding and cleaning preparation of the interior of the well, I stopped my task as there fill material for the surface could not found. So this task which I have initially plan to complete so that it could be left to cure before classes on Monday could not be completed. It was only close to 4 pm on Wednesday that Gomez was able to locate some filler powder for me (still I am sure if this the right powder to use a 411 powder). I would have to wait till Monday to confirm with Brett if the 411 is the correct powder as I am not familiar with all the different powder of the West system.

Ti fill up my time on Wednesday after the initial unsuccessful search for the filler powder, I wanted to work on the quarter knee for the dingy only to discover that we did not make the wood joint correctly for the knee. There is an aesthetic aspect which Yin and I did not consider when we made the wood joints in preparation for the knee component.  We have made both the wood joint similar which resulted in incorrect aesthetic appearance which is not acceptable on one of the final knees. I then have to remake the two joints again after searching for the remaining pieces/off cuts of the same wood (cant remember the name now). Hopefully (I am quite sure this time) I got the joint correct with the grains of the wood running in the same direction and the same elevation (top and bottom pieces similar). Will wait for James to prepare and make the glue for the seats he is making before I glue the joints together so as to economise on the glue and epoxy as the jointing of the wood for the knee requires only a small amount..

16th Week at CAT course with UNITEC

Week before the mid term break. Looking forward to the break especially with rain and windy weather forecast over the next few days.

The last 16 week has been a new learning journey for me; far different from all my previous former learning journeys. It is a big change with more practical sessions and lesser theory classes. New knowledge and many practical hints have been the major discoveries for me during the last 16 weeks.

15th week - UNITEC CAT course

My observation of our group this week is that we work far more independently and the "delay" in carrying out our task derived more from the discussion we have with each other than previous "not knowing what to do". One of the discussion points example was how the two pieces for the stem cap was to be joined  Brett allows us to decide in the end. Our decision agreed upon to join the two pieces with the joining parts to follow the line of the chine. However this does not make any difference as Brett later told us that we are going to paint the boat hull and so the aesthetic reason we have for our decision is in vain. Nevertheless it is a learning point.

Our pace is also slow down this week by waiting for confirmation from Brett on whether the steps we are to take are correct - out of fear of making mistakes which can be costly at this stage of the small craft built. Our fear was not anymore lessen with Brett;s cautioning us not to make "big mistakes. One of these mistakes (though not big) was my overzealous attempt to sand down the front of the hull when we had made the box scarf - not realising that the objective was to leave the length when the chine "comes" into the stem short and apparent.  Other minor "mishaps: (not mistakes) were the middle section of the starboard side of the hull appear to be not fair. We had to use the excess filler glue (which John wrongly mix for the glue for the stem cap - instead of using glue powder) to fill up the :"hollow" in this section. However this filler powder which John has made did not go to waste as we used it to cover up all the holes which had been left on the hulls from the many fasteners we had used.

We have also begin to handle more resin, glue powder and acetone starting from last week. Having worked in chemical plants before, my main concern was the safety issue with handling these chemicals. Gloves are a must although I still get glue powder and resin onto my bare hands (when helping out with the fastening of the planking and the other parts of the boat. The smell of the resin and acetone are quite obvious during the sessions these two weeks.

The surprise to me this last two weeks was the large number of holes we make on the hulls and planks when attaching the planks to the temporary frames as well as when scarfing the 12 mm and 6 mm pieces of plywood together for the bottom and topside planks. I did read about using fasteners to attach planks to the frames but it did not dawn on me until I see it as used in these two weeks. All along my perception is the boat should not have "holes" in them. So when I was told to put a nail or screw to fasten the planks, I was "taken back".

As we progress on our learning journey to become consciously competence in the tasks we have learned, there are still many aspects of "ah- ha" learning situations for me. These were confirmations of the various readings I had done before coming to this course. To me there is a huge difference between reading from books and  seeing it "live" at this course - leading to me to conclude "so this is the way they do it". Thus this practical course at UNITEC is a great booster to me to my interest in boats. One of these Ah-ha learning was the marking tools for transferring the reference points from the interior surface of the hull to the exterior points when Yin and William had to mark the reference points to install the gunwale. Previously James did the same thing but with a different self  made tools to mark the positions of the chine for reference points for the upper top hull planks to be attach/glue onto the lower planks (I am not sure of the names for these planks - one is called the blige or something).

We seems to have "lose sight" of the timeline we are supposed to follow and update with the many activities since the start of the small craft built. We however did update the cutting list of the materials we had used so far.

The reading we were assigned to read - Chapter 17 of the Gougeon Brother book was on frames - entitled mold frames and permanent frames. My reflections on this reading are:-

1) The suggestion in this chapter to use the lofting drawing to draw and construct the frames highlighted to me the importance of good lofting. The frames both temporary and permanent form the shape of the boat and if these are not precisely construction - this first step will lead to further disaster when the boat is to be built. Our group found this out when the temporary frames for the Dory was plane off too much thereby creating a hollow onto these frames and we had to replace a number of these frames - Frame number 0.5 for example very much later into the stage of the small craft construction. we had to take corrective action for frame number 4 and 5 by glue on extra piece of wood and then plane them off to the correct bevel angle.

2) Stephan and I used the method as suggested in this chapter of having nail heads laid out along the outline of the lofting drawing to create the shape of the stem.

3) Beveling on temporary frame is much "safer" than on permanent frames. Corrective action can be taken on either type of the frames but the aesthetic for the permanent frames will be much different while the temporary frames being temporary is not part of the boat. In this perspective, I come to realise that I may not be correct to assume there are lot of wastage/costs in having temporary frames. Temporary frame especially those we used of custom wood materials are much cheaper than the cost of mistake when made on permanent frames.

4) The need to provide margin for the thickness of the planks as mentioned in this chapter brought to my mind - how we did not provide enough margins for our first attempt of  the cutting of the topside planks. "Better to have more than less:" is a good learning point when we are cutting although this would lead to more energy in having to plane off more wood. Softwood is easy to plane off but hardwood like what we have to work on for the skeg this week is not as easy. It is hard work but both John and I today in cutting and preparing the two pieces of skeg.

5) For one off (home building boat), temporary frames still seems to me an avoidable cost. Why not so permanent frame. For production building, the temporary frames could be used many times. For commercial houses producing economy of scale of  many boats especially those building with composite and non wood materials, they used molds or temporary frames. The heavier investment for them would be in the mold itself and so they need to have big number of enjoy that economy of scale.

6) There are also other building method which do not use any frames in the initial stage - stitch and glue for example.  The permanent frames are added much later after the boat has "taken shape." in the finalsing end of the building process. Still the frames used are intentions to hold the boat shape and give the boat the structural support.

14th week - UNITEC CAT course

This week progress seems to be slower though we have gotten to glue together the 12 mm bottom and the two 6 mm bottom bilge planks. Yin, John and I worked on the two other top 6 mm pieces of the top bilge planks. John and I having done the previous two pieces measurements and scarfing were able to use our learning to work on the latter pieces and became some sort of  "coach" in peer learning with Yin. Personally I dud learn some new pointers in this process of building on what I had done. We had shown a much faster and determined pace of marking and cutting out the pieces and then scarfing and joining the scarf was much faster. Our level of confidence also seem much higher than the our previous attempt - a consequence of the what Argyris & Schön (1978) called "double loop learning".

The pointers which Brett gave to James, Stephan and some of us were timely; examples how to measure the positions/points for the chines on the bilge pieces. This I see as similar to what Toyota Manufacturing system concept of JIT delivery- Just In Time; in our case it would be Just In Time learning. Though this did cause some levels of frustrations experienced in our works as evidenced by remarks of  "Why did he tells us earlier", Nevertheless I see this as appropriate timely interventions by Brett even though we had to "redo" what we had done. In the process, we had "relearned" what we should not do. Added to tension, is the fear (which get heightened as we progressed) of making mistakes, resulting in our pace of working and efficiency getting slow down further. At several points, we had to stop (paralysis) in order to double check with Brett whether our proposed actions would go in the "right direction". This paralysis was nevertheless good for our learning journey as we had to take time to reflect over before we take action.  I could also attribute this fear to the fact that there is a "client/owner" to our Dory project. Brian's appearance each time at the workshop could become an unwelcome sight. However this is a very real phenomena in a real working world - dateline and client's expectations and reviews or progress reports.

More positive points this week were my personal assessment that each one of us is gaining some level of mastery over some tasks we do. This is not to say that we have "arrived" but rather we are getting near to the destination. This can be seen in the Half Model project where I had lesser degree of hesitation and more apprehension and independence on carrying out the task ahead though there are areas in the half model building which I had not fully understand.

The level of teamwork in our group is also to be commended. Everyone present put in their share to get the work done (*much thank to Tiger who was not even part of our group) - when we had to work late on Tuesday to have the two planks scarfed and glue ready for the next day. However I was disappointed that we did not manage to glue on these two pieces onto the half finished Dory at the end of Wednesday.

I could also see many aspects of Action Learning taking places over the last couple of weeks in our group. Building on what we did (rightly or wrongly), we took the next steps using what we had learned to further advance the Dory building project.  I could sense that there is a lack of reflective on the parts of the some of the members when I heard remark like "I am getting bored". Getting bored would to me means that there is some gap in our learning progress - why are we getting bored?  Is it the expectations we have not being met? If it is, how then can they be met by us not someone else?  Action thus lead to questions/reflection and then further action and then reflection again - this is where learning take place (from what I had learned about Action Learning). This will be also where double loop learning take place.

A personal point of observation from a person new to boat building - there seems to be lot of costs/wastes to the building process such as temporary frames. Maybe the answer to this personal observation could come from the reading assigned for Chapter 17 of the Gougeon Brother book.     .

Another observation is the cultural differences among the whole class. Some are more reflective while others are more talkative/playful. Some however seems to be at a complete loss especially during the theory sessions. Being absent from class could also make the loss even greater. Like the Indian villager proverb says " each one of us has to face our own tigers" -  less we get eaten up by the tigers (that why they wear a face mark behind their heads while working in the jungles of Northern India.).

Week 13th - A good ending

Week 13th ended well for me as John and I managed to complete the cutting and scarfing of the bilge panels (with heaps of help and prompting from Brett after he sensed and told us that we were lacking behind). As a consequence of our earlier "failed" attempt in cutting the 12 mm bottom front piece, John and I developed a phobia about cutting the wood. Couple with the frustration from Monday works on measuring the dimensions of the 6mm panel, we spent consideration amount of time to discuss and ponder over the dimension and shape of both bilge panel - the whole morning of the Tuesday. Before the end of Tuesday, we had cut and prepared the plywood for scarfing and joining.

On Wednesday, we started on the scarfing of the 4 cut panel.  Our first attempt was almost a disaster with the ends of the scarfing breaking off and we had to "redo" the scarfing. From the lesson learned about providing more margins for the wood, we had more leeway to "redo" the scarfing - by cutting away (15mm) from the parts when the panel are to be joined. Manual scarfing was a dreaded task initially and after some practice, we began to get a hang of it. Nevertheless personally I felt there are still plenty of room for me to improve on how to scarf. The article of Duckworks Magazine - http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/07/columns/nichols/index3.htm gave insight on how to scarf with a sander and jig as well as manual scarfing .

We had also started on the half mold plug this week during the Wednesday morning theory session. John and I did the cutting list aspects. We drawn out a total of 26 pieces of pine wood of 150mm x 20mm of various lengths starting from 3.1 metre to 5.49 metres long.  The cutting list was then given to Turtle and another copy to "Paul" via Leon.

The radiata pine wood pieces were later docked and dressing down to 3.1 metre pieces by another group. Each member of the class (both Brett and Matthew groups) then took a piece and with the cut out of the various pieces for the plug mold, we are supposed to mark, and cut the 3.1 piece for ourself.

Lessons learned and reflections this week:
1) The discussion and caution we took before moving ahead to cut the 6 mm panel were good for me even though we took more time than necessary.
2) We were struck at several points of our tasks and the just-in-learnings (promptings and advice from Brett) were excellent - several learning point examples were the joint of the two pieces together with two pieces wood screwed in and then using the joined panel pieces to read off the MDF frames is an example, Marking reference joining points to allow more accurate joining of the two panels is another. These I would refer to as the "arts" of boat building as opposed to the science. The "science" of boat building seem to me to have taken a back step now that we are on the actual construction phase.
3) My personal comfort zone in learning is constantly being expanded after the 12th and 13th week sessions. Prior to this, it was all "head knowledge" about boat building which had been gathered from books and website. Now the CAT course is getting more interesting to me as the Dory is starting to take shape (I hope). However I had to constantly remind myself of the safety implication as I moved on my learning curve especially with the handling of the powered tools and the epoxy resin (now that we are doing lot of gluing of the wood.
4) We had forgotten about the timeline - our daily tasks we undertook is a complete deviation from the timeline we had set for ourselves. We need to build in time for "backtracking" and "relearning" as we proceed along the timeline.
5) The cutting list needs to be update as well as we moved to on to use more and more materials.

13th week - an unlucky number or simply illogical logic?

John and I continued working on the topside panel dimension. We did more than 4 attempts to figure out why the dimensions were different each time and did not add up to the length of the temporary frame side. At the end of this Monday, both of us were exhausted trying.  Upon reflecting at home, I figured out that it could be that we were measuring a right angle length against the ideal arc length  Chris came by and his advice was to get the bottom piece into place and then worked on the topside. This advice did not make sense to me at that moment as it is illogical to have difference dimensions when we were measuring the "supposedly" same length of the side of the temporary frames from the straight line drawn on the pattern. Furthermore the cut pattern seems to fit well onto the topside area.

Yin and William and Stephan were more successful in their areas of work - these were the bright spots to remedy otherwise a very frustrating Monday. Yin and William worked on Transom and later made the gunwales. Stephan worked on the bottom piece and finally we got the piece clamped onto the temporary frame. Stephan further plane down the sides when the bottom piece will meet the topside pieces.

This week Monday seems to have everyone in the class busying on their own small craft and the single tutor (Brett) was unable to feedback and answer questions from all of us. There were occasions when we had to wait and cannot move forward in our works. This is attributable to our fears of "making mistakes" after having being reminded that it was costly in material for the marine 12 mm plywood. A smaller student to tutor ratio would be great help for faster learning. We are lacking behind.

The prospect of becoming a boat builder to me is less attractive after the last two weeks. Unless these are beyond my comfort and recognizing the greater learning take place in the uncomfortable zone, I will press on.

Another thought on my mind - is that there seems to be a great deal of "wastage" in term of the materials used in our limited exposure to small craft - especially for a one off construction. Temporary frames is one such material. Can we do without them? I suppose we can - after I have looked up other means of boat construction. However the strongback still remain as a "compulsory" element in any boat construction except those commercially molding methods. There again this latter method has the cost of the molds which can be more extensive for a one off construction. In my mind, maybe that why boats are so expensive - more expensive than cars. The only method I have read so far which does not seem to incur such "wastage" is the stitch and glue method. On the other hand, there are also limitations on how far and big a boat one want to build using stitch and glue method.

My conclusions is that added material cost of boat building is a major factor in competitive boat building.  With offshore competition , the boat building industry in New Zealand could compete only on designs and new technology not traditional methods of building a boat.  Otherwise they have to compete on economy of scale which is not as easily available as in the automotive industry which requires huge capital investment in plant. Boats such as those built here are more for the luxury\leisure markets and such a boat does get utilize as frequently as a car. So there are fewer buyers which add to the competition.

12th week - not another big "mistake"

John was proven right with his level of pessimistic perception that something will go wrong after the redemptive work we had done yesterday. True to his words, the bottom pieces was cut too short. It was a mystery as to how this had happen as we follow the drawing plan dimension. Later we were told by Brett that once we started construction, the drawing become secondary in importance. I can only conclude from this that Boat Building is both a science and an art. The art element come in after the initial tools of science like lofting and reading drawings, understand angles and all those calculation of the centres of gravity, loading, etc... and areas and wetted areas. It became an artistic piece of work once actual construction starts.

I could sense that the group is also getting paranoid about making mistakes after mistakes. Some are avoiding their discomfort zones. However this avoidance could means loss of learning opportunities. The cost of me now is only the time taken to redo and remedy the mistakes we made. Mistakes only become mistakes if they are repeated.

However it was still a "good ending" today for the group as everyone "chip in" and help to plane the bottom plywood. It was quite demanding physically as the area to be scarfed was quite extensive- 100 mm for each side.  Brett also helped us in the last part to finish off the scarfing as we were afraid to make mistakes. I left at the end of the class today with good feeling about the group cohesiveness.

12th week - redemption!

Today back to class and we managed to sort out the problem of the stem and hopefully the temporary frame issues (John though is not confident that we will not see more problems later; to me however problems are parts and parcel of a learning environment). The stem "seems" to fit like a glove after we redo the frame number zero after much discussions and efforts trying to address the problem. The root of the stem problem was in the frame number measurements - we could not really ascertain the original measurements after the sides had been planed down. With the frame number 2 re-make (by James), and aligning it into the strong back, the stem fit nicely into place.

John, James and myself worked on the starboard side frames to plan to receive the batten. The fit I think is ok but John thinks that there will be problems coming up later when the 6mm plywood for the topside will be laid. John and I then worked on the 12mm plywood for the bottom of the Dory. We hope to cut the plywood tomorrow (we have yet to finish the lofting on the plywood today) and then glue the joints to have the required 3.8 to 4 metre length.  Brett gave us a few pointers on how to cut and make the bottom pieces (after we had done some lofting on the wood). So it will be a new starting tomorrow for the lofting exercise all over again with these few pointers.

William and Yin continue to work on the transom and making good progress on it. Well the transom is "installed" as I can see (frame number 6 had been removed - some of us question why we have to make the frame number 6 if it seem to be of no use in our perception). Though I am "not around" while they worked on this, I did see Brett giving them a few pointers as well. All these are parts of the learning process. Nevertheless the level of frustration is not as high as the previous week - in fact the frustration is very much tone down for all of us.

In a corporate environment especially in an American company where I used to work - "mistakes" like these we had made in the previous week could at the very least earn the employee a strong warning letter if not the sack. American company is known to have a "hire and fire" policy (yes they pay you to leave no doubt to avoid legal issue unless it was a clear case of gross misconduct). In fact I had "fired" (and paid them off) several people over my HR career with American companies. So it is better to "make mistakes" in a learning environment than in real working environment.

In future, I need to be more precise in my work and take extra precaution as over planing and cutting of materials resulted in poor work quality and is a cost even in a learning environment..

11th week at UNITEC CAT course

This week was a bad week for us as John discovered that James over plane the temporary frame number 4 and 5 on the starboard side. We had to take corrective action to glue pine strips onto the frames with James participation. However James "disappears" after the theory session on Wednesday morning. John and myself had to work on the corrections. The stem (which I am responsible) also seems not to be aligned to the centre line and this had added to the group's frustration.  Our group seem to be lacking behind in our project timeline with these setbacks.

Taking these as learning experiences rather than "mistakes" helped me to lessen the frustrations within. At least I learn how to "repair" such "mistakes". How did these "mistakes" come about? I needed to reflect on these and draw out the learning points/principles. Miscommunication and lack of clearly set goals/objectives? Are these parts of the issues. Being absent from most of the initial week of the small craft built on James's part could also be a contributing factor. Too many hands could also be an issue - with the resulting lack of communication and common ground for the expectations of outcomes, goals and objectives.

10th week at UNITEC CAT course

We continue with the process of building the strongback, transom and the stem this week. Stephan and I worked on selecting a suitable piece of hardwood and cutting it into strips for the laminating of the stem. In calculating the length requirement for the laminates, I over provided for the margin (after reading and interpreting the scale of the drawing of the temporary frames wrongly. Yin had the same frustration of interpreting the scale for his transom lofting).  The scale for frame drawings was 1:5 while the transom scale was 1:2.5. Coming from the non technical background, I need to be mindful of the scale incorporated into drawing otherwise there will be wastes and costs involved in a work environment. It is when we have the most frustrations that learning take place (we remember it for life).

While working to cut the laminating strip of hardwood, I become aware that I may become complacent and there are safety risks to this. Familiarity could breed complacency as I become more familiar with the workshop environment and machineries in it. This is how accidents happen as I moved on my learning journey from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence before I can hopefully reach unconscious competence as seen in the learning matrix below. However therein too lies the dangers of "assumptions" when one becomes unconscious competence. Therefore it is onus on me to continuously check my assumptions..


http://www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com/Instruction/TestingEvaluation.htm

The group's efforts on the temporary frames was progressing well until John discovered that the interval between several frames were not correct at the top ends. Measuring the bottom ends confirmed that the intervals were correct (except frame number 0.5 -  I think but this I am not certain). We also decided to recheck the leveling again with the spirit leveler.  I could see the frustration of the some members of the group rising though they did not verbally expressed them. Again this is where learning take place.

On the stem construction, we seem to be doing much better. I suppose the construction is focussed only on one piece which made the task less complicated as there was no need to ensure co-ordinated effort with other pieces as in the temporary frame task.  The greater challenge for both Stephan and I was in aligning and placed the supports (I do not know what it is called as this is the first time I have seen in the workshop; it was kept in the far end cabinet) for placing the clamps to hold the pieces of laminates together. The challenge came from the the points when the stem "changes" in it gradient (not a smooth curve). I only discovered this after talking to Brett about the need to ensure that the stem follow the lofting drawing we have done. I am happy that we could use sandpaper on the supports to align them into position to follow the lofting drawn. If we have to plane the supports, it will be quite a difficult task - as there were nails (could destroy the blade of the planer) and two different type of wood.

The next challenge we had was to place the all the strips into the position after steaming it for an hour. At the first try I thought we did not do as well as there were mis-alignments. The "steamed strips" were then allowed to cool with clamps on them in the position we had made on the lofting drawing. The next day (toward the end of the day) we learn to use epoxy mixing (with the West System) to glue the strips together and to clamp/hold them in place into the required position. This is the first time I am working with epoxy though I had read about it. So I am very aware (conscious incompetence) of the safety hazards and therefore was more attentive. It seems to me that two pair of hands, for inexperienced person like me, were not enough to work fast on using epoxy. I was also very conscious of not having the epoxy spilled all over. Wearing rubber gloves is a must but it also "hinder" on our ability to work,  example on the clamps if we were not to "spill" epoxy onto to the clamps ( I do not know what would the consequences but I suppose the epoxy could easily be removed from metal parts rather than wood). The pace we were working was also quicken as we were told that the epoxy mix started to cure immediately after it is mixed.

Pouring the epoxy raw materials and the hardener into the containers in the workshop was also a memorable experience for me as I was continuous aware of the hazards of working with epoxy especially with such huge volume as the epoxy was being poured in.

My conclusions for this week are:
1) Our team individual skill level needed huge improvement. Personally my eye sight is not as good as before and so I need to be more available of any possible mis-readings of alignments (especially of the central line for the temporary frames). This means for me checking and rechecking again and verification by someone else.

2) Due to the nature of the division of the tasks among our team members and the structures of the lesson, we can only do and learn "our small parts" as we practice   Therefore debriefings and discussion become all the more important for each one of us to "know" what the other is doing.

3) As newbie, personally I do not know the whole process of building a boat. Yes I have read up from books but the process of building one still eludes me. So for me it is discovery learning as we "gets" along. Only a faint idea of the end product, I am at a loss at the various stages of the process. It has been a journey of one discovery after another for this week - quite different from all the theories and the even the autocad sessions.

9th week - UNITEC CAT course

We started on the building of the small craft this week - for my group we are building the 4 metre Dory. Our first task was to loft/draw the temporary frames onto the MDF boards for the strongback from the dimension on the A4 paper given to us by Brett.

At the start of our meeting, our team lay some ground rules for our group work. One of which was to have a rotating leadership system where each one of us will assume the leadership role for one week. Without much fuss or discussion, the first week leadership seems to fall on me.  This rotating leadership concept will allow each one of us to exercise and learn about our individual leadership capability in team management.

Our team seems to start off well without much storming activities which is more commonly present in most teams after the forming stage. Since we "volunteer" for this Dory project, the forming stage was quick and smooth. Without much personal agenda, the next storming and norming stages were also smooth as most of us had no issues to the ground rules we have set and agreed to before us. Our group thus went into the "performing" stage rather easily with everyone giving their energy and efforts to complete whatever tasks required.

My experiences over the last thee days working with the group on this Dory project is not representative of my experiences in my former working business environment. I attribute this smooth teamwork to a common interest/agenda and lack of any personal agenda that each one of us bring to the table. We also do not have the "politics" of a real business operation and environment.

The first day saw us busy with everyone transferring the dimensions of the 8 temporary frames onto the MDF boards with the work divided among all five of us.. It was quite an enjoyable operation though the MDF material is not that pleasant to work with as we could completed the task quite fast. The only obstacle we faced  was to decide on which board the frame number 0.5 or 2 on the board (which have 4 frames as listed on the A4 sheet) to transfer over to the board which had only frame 3 (there are more spaces available on this last board). However the  decision reached between John, Stephan and myself on this was not communicated to Yin and William. Later I found that they were struggling and thus had some time wasted on trying to "fit' all the frames onto the board that they were drawing on. It was only after they expressed their concern that they were told that one of the frames on their board was transfered to the last board.  Lesson learned here was to ensure that everyone in the team is brought on to speed and is on the same page on the progress and decisions made by other members of the group. This was put into practice when Yin had completed his transom drawing and Stephan and myself completed the stem drawing. We briefed everyone in the group on how the transom and the stem drawings were arrived at.

In setting up the strongback on Monday, we had to add additional length to the strongback (which was orignally listed as 3.6 metre) as the Dory is now designed to be 4 metres. Our group worked well together to get the added length of the strongback made and level off and secure onto the floor to ensure that it will be firm and stable as well as properly leveled.  Again this is evidence that our group can work well together.

On Wednesday, we were required to list out a timeline for our group work. Leaving James out of the group, we have 5 members who are regularly presented in all the sessions. On a cardboard, we listed out our initial plans with the dateline set as 29th June. Our milestones are
1) Group formation - on Monday (first time we started working together) - 16th May
2) Drawing and cutting of the temporary frames. - 17th May (On 18th May, John discovered that one of the frame - number 3 was 20 mm sort in height and we had to draw and cut out another frame of the correct dimension). Fortunately for us, John and William were assigned to check the frame dimensions after all the frames were cut.
3) Other milestone we have listed as installing and fastening the temporary frames onto the strongback - to be done by next week - 25th May (Brett's opinion on this time allocated to this task is that it is insufficient and so we have to go back to the "drawing board" and look at our timeline again - possibly on 23th May when we meet again in class). We have assigned John and William to do this but after a brief by Brett, it may look like this task will require "all of our hands".  Not as easy a task as I thought.
4) Drawing and cutting of the plywood materials and construction of the interior fixtures such as seats etc....
5) Fastening plywood onto the frames.
6) We are targeting to turn the boat over by the 4th week on our plan. However it may look to be unrealistic after the brief by Brett on the fastening of the temporary frames on the strongback phase. This is an reality check which we need to do so regular to follow up on our timeline and plan.

This timeline is expected to change as we meet and work together for the next few weeks on this small craft construction and in considering new inputs from Brett or as events unfold. We will gain new insights into the boat construction which will reveal to us as we progress. Nevertheless this is the initial baseline we have come up with at this stage.

It was an enjoyable week working with each member of the team in this Dory project. One of the lesson learned here is to ensure that everyone is on board in term of the decision and the progress of the team tasks and work. More so when each one of us will be working on different parts and aspects of the boat construction. A team debrief is critical so that there will be "no lack" and more continuity in the event of any unforeseen circumstances in the future.

8th week at UNITEC CAT course

Follow up on the Autocad course from the 7th week. A less frustrating week in completing the AutoCad assignment as I get more familiar with the various commands. The "light" turns on for me on Tuesday when I was able to do most of the drawing without having to backtrack or repeat the drawing. This may be due to the fact that the majority of the drawing has been done on Monday.

The copy (educational version) of the AutoCad on my notebook still does not seem to work. Follow up with AutoCad help desk but no response. Decided to delete/uninstall the whole program. Just found another  program (free) on the internet (Freeship) which look similar to Autoship which was shown in the class. I will try to use in my own design project - possible a small catamaran. Borrowed a couple of books from the Auckland City Library on book designs and kayak and canoe building. One of the books "Building small boats" by Greg Rossel is a good resource. My initial concept is to build two canoe or similar kayak shape boats and then build "a sort of half breadth shaped" platform across to connect the two to have a  catamaran shape. Thereafter to modify the platform later.

My learnings of te AutoCad would be helped with the followings:-
1) Hard copy reference - some sort of manual on AutoCad command on hand (my preferred style of learning - a more structured way). This would have lessen the frustration I have experienced during the 7th week. Still I need to learn to "modify"/relearn my learning style from conceptual to practical/hand-on learning..

2) A steady hand using the mouse device to move the object drawn or lines to fit. Many of my lines on the drawing are drawn to fit at right angle. Though I managed to trim back most of them - time taken could be more useful in other exercise.

3) UNITEC Computer (at least for the PC I am using) to stop crashing - this disrupted my learning trend.

An interesting learning exercise (having a sense of achievement on Wednesday) on the AutoCad program. There are other progams (some I suspect simpler and cheaper) available other than AutoCad which could be more helpful to my needs. These not so "high end" programs would suit a backyard boat builder. I used to hire drafting professionals in one of my HR Manager roles (with Edeleanu Asia, which is a Process Engineering firm which designed and managed the turnkey project for the oil refinery and did other works for Shell Oil in Singapore and other oil companies in Asia) without knowing the technical aspects of their works. Now I know basically how and what they did..

7th week at UNITEC CAT course

This week after the break of two weeks, we are back to school. This week we learn about AutoCad. My only exposure to AutoCad (Autodesk) was back in 1990's when I was interviewed for a Regional HR Manager for Autodesk Asia. Somehow my destiny was with Autodesk as the person from the USA who was supposed to hire me was "fired" at the last minutes before an employment contract was to be drafted and signed. Thereafter there were several other organisation changes in Autodesk Asia with the Division Head of Singapore whom I was supposed to reported to being "fired" as well. Later I heard one of my friends got the Regional HR Manager job. So I have no "destiny" with Autodesk and that sort of describe my feeling this week learning and doing AutoCad. It was almost 3 days (the last day was not as "bad") of frustration trying to learn and do the commands.

Nevertheless it is a good and useful week learning and doing autocad in the school. I did uploaded the student educational free version from Autodesk onto my notebook but only activate it on Thursday. There is a message on the screen that the uploaded files from UNITEC system onto my notebook AutoCad version is sort of non compatible - that the file was not created by the educational version. All the "associated bells and whistles" on the UNITEC fle version were absent. Given the time constraints, it will be insufficient to have to add "all the layers" and other commands onto my notebook version. Wondering it there is a way to "import" these onto my notebook from UNITEC system.

On Wed theory session, we learn about the calculation methods (Simpson's rule and others) for Centre of Lateral Area, areas of the boat under the water line. etc.. Some of these calculations are tedious as it is done one by one for each area from the body plan. I thought in this day and age, there should be a computer program to do manual tasks (in the boat building industry; someone must have thought of this already). These calculations we doing so far "assumed" a zero weight factor for the boat - there should be considerations for the weight of the materials of the boat body, equipments and loadings onto the boat itself  in calculating the buoyancy and stability factors. I remembered watching a documentary on National Geographic of loading containers onto a supership - one employee was responsible to decide where each loaded container is to be placed on the ship to "balance" out the weight loading (that was done through a computer software) in the ship to achieve the stability factor.. 

Again another "eye opening" and learning week for me though it was frustrating at times (not something I had felt so far for the past 7 weeks). Now those readings in books and on the internet I have done on the stitch and glue methods with all the drawings (they can even be bought in kit forms) seem so elementary; with all these needed calculations "taken" out of the design phases..

6th week at UNITEC CAT - reflections

This week lesson focuses on first aid for the two days and drawing of the 7.3 metres yacht exercise. The First Aid is a good refresher for me as my last first aid lessons were back in the late 1990 with the chemical/gasification plant where I worked till year 2000.

Overall the first aid course was boring though there were several new areas of learnings for me. Areas beyond first aid such as different types of medical conditions were new learnings for me. The boredom was temporarily removed with the practices for learning how to apply dressings and bandages. As a former trainer, I would think that the handouts could be better done (more detailed separate handouts) instead of getting the students to copy down from the overhead projections. The tutors could also do with more enthusiastic approach and "talk more with all the students" rather than focusing on the right side of the class. I found the CPR practices useful especially on youth and baby (which I thought was rather inappropriate for first aid relating to work place, though nevertheless useful for audience with young family). One and half day duration would have been sufficient to cover all the contents.

The Wednesday lesson on drawing came as a "refreshing breeze" as I got to use my hands instead of just a auditory passive learning mode, when we worked on the drawing of the 7.3 metre yacht exercise. Putting into practice what we have learned so far from the previous learnings on the lofting exercise onto the drawing board/table. This is a good building learning building on the foundation gained from the lofting floor drawing exercises.

The scale format presented me with some problems of readings and I experienced some confusion in drawing the butt line 1200 on the half breadth view. The small scale also presented another challenge to my eyesight trying to estimate and read off faction of the decimal points on the scale ruler with the given table of offsets.  Nevertheless the drawing table is easier physically to work on than on the lofting floor. A good end before the mid semester break.

Fifth week at UNITEC CAT course - reflections

This week is a continuation of the lofting exercise from the fourth week with more hand-on drawings on the 2.5 dingy. Leaving the table of offsets after the major references points and lines are drawn, I learn to use the tick sticks to cross references the points on my drawings of the half breadth onto the body plan. The drawing transom was also completed again projecting this time from the profile.

Key learnings are:
1) There are critical points of reference this dingy design which contain important details or information as to the shapes and overall structure of the boat. These are the butt 100, and 250.

2) The other critical reference points/lines for all boat designs are the Loaded Water Lines (LWL), the Chines (unless it is a round bottom boat), the deckline or sheer and Canoe body line as well as a ghost line (if there is a stem - in a stitch and glue design there may not be a stem).  These lines give an overall image of the shape of the boat.

3) The table of offsets is used only in the initial transfer of the dimensions of the boat onto the drawing/paper. Once the basic lines are in, the table offsets become a minor document as further drawings are then taken off from the lines and drawings already made. This is where the errors made in the initial transfers from the table of offsets get "compounded" in the subsequent lines to be drawn. Intersecting points are taken from the profile for the height and from the half breadth for the width to determine where the referred points should be on the drawing.  This is where the tick sticks come in useful. So from a two dimension drawing, I could draw out the "3th dimension" to transfer onto another drawing such as the body plan and the transom in this week exercise.

The fourth and fifth weeks have been quite taxing on my body having to drawing on the "floor" which is not something I usually work at that level. The working posture causes my back to ache. Maybe it was getting used to that posture but the fifth week is "more enlightening" than the fourth week (I was getting frustrated in the fourth week especially on the second day with my inaccurate drawing of the lines) as I was able to see "the light" after making the reference points/intersections between the various drawings of the profile and half breadth with the body plan and later with the transom.  This is the most interesting highlight of learning for the fifth week.  This fifth week is also a time I seem to be able to make judgmental assessment of whether my drawn lines were "OK" though not necessarily correct (as the errors I made earlier in the fourth week got "compounded" and lines went out of the measurements when I checked them). Nevertheless I felt at the end of the third day that I had learned the basic principles of lofting. This feeling shall be confirmed with the table exercise of the 7.3 yacht on the A4 paper in coming week.  .

Fourth week at UNITEC CAT course - Lofting

This week saw us getting on our "hand and knee" to do our lofting drawing on the lofting table at the school.  For me personally, this is the first experience at drawing long pencil lines according to specifications i.e. the table of offsets. New terms learned this week are Loaded water line (LWL), sheer/deckline, Butt 100, 250 and 150 lines, WL -60, Canoe body (which I previous associated with the hull of my kayak/Canoe), ghost line and Chine line. Strange terms and jargons at first hearing  and I got used to them after the second and third day.

Learning to read from the table of offsets is another new learning experience. I have seen these table before I enrolled into this course from my internet search for free design of kayaks. However after this week, this table has more refined meaning and perspective to understanding and "seeing" on a two dimension scale how the boat "looks" like.

Other learning experiences from this week of coursework are:
1) Accuracy is critical and paramount in drawing the lines - even the sharpness of the pencil makes a difference in the final accuracy.as the effects of an earlier "error" gets compounded as I draw more lines especially at the points of intersection of lines.

2) My eyesight is a hindrance to exact pinpointing the measurements both for drawing the point of the various lines and nailing. Age is definitely catching with me. I used to have 6/6 eyesight.

3) Trying to visualise the "bump" of the Butt 250 line is a challenge on a two dimension scale but nevertheless can be done.

4) I have no technical training background (closest I got to this was technical building drawings for a correspondence course for the RICS course with the University of Reading back in 1978) and drawing technical lines in an exact scale was more than "a fresh breadth of air". Imagine the tasks of drawing a big boat of more than 15 metres?

Questions I have are:
1) How are the dimensions of the various stations obtained? That is how do one calculated or decide on them? I suspect the length and shape of the boat are critical in these.

2) How is the LWL calculated?  Why are the Chine(s) located where they are? Are the dimensions/calculations the same for different hull size and design eg. double hull in a catamaran?

These questions will drive my further studies.  

Third week at UNITEC - Mistake or learning experience?

First lesson learned this week
The second project for the class was the oil stone box which was completed in this week. This project was a valuable lesson for me as I learned that powered hand tools have a "life of it own" if I do not work slowly and with patience. The routing literally "runs" off when I was using it to take out wood from the inside of the oil stone box; the part where the oil stone is supposed to rest in. My classmate "Tiger" put a remark on the score sheet that "we learn from our mistakes" in his peer assessment of my works. Rightly said - this mistake is a valuable learning experience for me.  I could apply my former career learning principles of Action Learning into this experience - to realise the principles of better control of the wood working powered machines or hand tools next time - I have to think through the process and exercise patience and work slower.

Second lesson learned
"Sharpening the saw" -  (Stephen Covey) - planer and correct use and setting.
It has been a steep learning curve for me in the practical aspects of this course. My previous career was mainly office works and dealing with people (Human Resources). Even though the principles of management of skills were the same such as Stephen Covey" Seven principles which I had learned years back - these principles come alive during the practical lessons in CAT at UNITEC. The proper setting of the planer and the sharpening of the iron make the task of planing very light and easier.

I have also found the brief introduction to boat lines very interesting in understanding why and how boats are built. I am looking forward to more insight study of these design aspects of boat especially the AUTOCAD design

UNITEC second week

My second week at UNITEC Boat Building CAT course has been different from all my previous learning experiences.  There are several learning principles I took away from this week in the actual construction of the tool box. Simple as it looks, the tool box construction was an eye opener and in many ways present new learnings and insights into my learning journey.

Having worked for American companies for most part of my life, I am more inclined to taking action based on preliminary planning and then take corrective action as the plan progress or materialise. This approach of "shoot and then aim" is not useful here as I found to be detrimental to my construction of my tool box - the outcome is that my tool box base was not properly aligned and the consequence of this was "transfered" to the sides of the box. Therefore the first learning I have drawn from this it that in practical work, especially in a static non changing environment such as outcome for the tool box, I need to have more detailed planning and an overview of the the final product before I started working in it. Thus having "an end (detailed) in mind" become more evident for me to add to the "big picture" - every detail of the final product in my mind.

Second learning for me is that I need to develop more patience in practical work. Slow down and think through each step first before driving the nail in. Mistakes are costly - especially if the final product is a water tight boat which could make a difference between life or death. Definitely my final tool box is not "seaworthy" as there are gaps at the joints. Precision is critical and vital for a water tight vessel.

Thirdly - in term of the processes, a proper set up for the work at hand is critical. Without a proper setup, the planning and joining of the parts of the box became very difficult. Securing the wood or ply to the bench to hold it is vital before starting work. Safety issue is also involved as a slip could cause accidents.

Fourthly - there is a place for proper tool for the job/task at hand. I try to plan off more than 3 mm off the plywood  (after Brett had left for his meeting and I could not use the machine to dock off the excess). It was hard work until I decided to get supervisory presence at the table saw for cutting the sides of the box to size.The plywood are very difficult to plane as it is cross grained and the ends got chipped off in the process. Maybe another reason is that my planner is new and I am new to using it. So I need to develop skills in using my tools. This is my first time using such carpentry tools. I do DIY jobs around the house but mostly with hammer and other hardware tools but not with carpentry tools.

Fifthly - I need to understand the characteristics of different materials used. Though both are wood, the plywood behave differently from the pine wood. In boat building, there are also non wood materials commonly used in the construction such as composites and aluminium. Thus some research and knowledge into the different material characteristics and .behaviour are essential in my learning journey into boat building.

In summary, this second week is a start of my "relearning" away from my background and training. I have to switch from a "management mindset" to a trademan mindset. Looking into details and executing them rather than overseeing the management of the work  i.e.very much more hand-on.

back to formal schooling after a long break

After a break of more than a quarter of a century, I start formal schooling with UNITEC CAT Boat Building on the 7th March. Some adjustment to sitting in class in a formal school setting, which is very different from the seminars and training program back in the corporate days. Also for a change, I am a student and not a tutor or lecturer standing in front of the class - receiving rather than giving out for a change. Another change is the subject matter - non business related.

First day was hectic with the traffic jam along Mt. Albert Road - not used to driving during the morning peak hours. It took me a good half an hour just to move from Sandringham junction of Mt. Albert Road to UNITEC, which would normally take at most 15 minutes.

Lot of new jargons and terms in the boat building trade were presented. So learning quite a fair bit of new information even on the first day. Second day (Tuesday) - getting into drawings which is completely new to me. Needs to use visualisation to understand the drawing - not something I do on a regular basis. Workshop session in the afternoon was another new learning. Third day afternoon was another practical session which is completely new to my learning style. Throughout my career and life so far, I am using more conceptual/thinking style of learning. Visual and practical based learning is new to me though I preferred the latter. Thus I do not find the latter too overwhelming for a start. I am quite a DIY person at home too though my education and training were more in the humanistic areas like HR, training and counselling.

In summary coming from a HR and Training background, this week is quite a change for me. Nevertheless I look forward to more practical based learning which I am more inclined toward (even in my corporate training days, I used lot of experiential learning methodology).