I am planing on routing off 1/8" from around the bottom 2/3rds of my
daggerboard, fiberglassing it, and then drilling a couple large holes in it
about half way and filling them with lead. How do I drill the holes? They
have to be pretty darn perfect, so they don't come out the sides (front and
back don't matter too much as there will be more than enough room to
accomodate likely error, but they have to be parallel to the sides). All I
have is a table top drill press, and it is way too small for that. (and the
holes are way too big for my doweling jig.)

I suppose I could just find someone with a large drill press (though
clamping it accurately will still be a problem), but is there any way to do
it accuately with a hand drill? Making up a jig to hold the daggerboard and
drill on a tabletop and sliding the drill across the tabletop into the
daggerboard, or something like that?
Thanks.

In article , "Toller"
wrote:

I am planing on routing off 1/8" from around the bottom 2/3rds of my
daggerboard, fiberglassing it, and then drilling a couple large holes in it
about half way and filling them with lead.

We're talking daggerboard like for a sailboat, and you're trying to add
ballast, right? My first thought is that if you're racing the boat, check
with your class association to make sure what you're planning on doing is
legal for your class :-)

But, why do you have to drill the holes up from the bottom? If you're
planning on glassing the whole board anyway, why not just drill some large
diameter holes in from the sides with a hole saw and fill those with lead.
Grind/sand/plane the surface of the lead inset flush with the rest of the
board, then glass over the whole thing.

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , "Toller"
wrote:

I am planing on routing off 1/8" from around the bottom 2/3rds of my
daggerboard, fiberglassing it, and then drilling a couple large holes in
it
about half way and filling them with lead.

We're talking daggerboard like for a sailboat, and you're trying to add
ballast, right? My first thought is that if you're racing the boat, check
with your class association to make sure what you're planning on doing is
legal for your class :-)

But, why do you have to drill the holes up from the bottom? If you're
planning on glassing the whole board anyway, why not just drill some large
diameter holes in from the sides with a hole saw and fill those with lead.
Grind/sand/plane the surface of the lead inset flush with the rest of the
board, then glass over the whole thing.

Ya know, that is an excellent idea! It will weaken the board more than the
drilling the other way, but if I keep the holes low, there won't be very
much torque on them; so it won't matter. Great idea.

On 27-Aug-2005, "Toller" wrote:

But, why do you have to drill the holes up from the bottom? If you're
planning on glassing the whole board anyway, why not just drill some large
diameter holes in from the sides with a hole saw and fill those with lead.
Grind/sand/plane the surface of the lead inset flush with the rest of the
board, then glass over the whole thing.

Ya know, that is an excellent idea! It will weaken the board more than the
drilling the other way, but if I keep the holes low, there won't be very
much torque on them; so it won't matter. Great idea.

Why not just cut off the end of the daggerboard and make a new tip of lead.
Then glass over it to hold it in place. A couple of screws through the
lead might be in order if it's heavy enough. That will give you more of
a righting moment for the weight than drilling holes further up the
daggerboard.

Mike

Why not just cut off the end of the daggerboard and make a new tip of
lead.
Then glass over it to hold it in place. A couple of screws through the
lead might be in order if it's heavy enough. That will give you more of
a righting moment for the weight than drilling holes further up the
daggerboard.

Does epoxy stick well to lead? If not, I would be concerned about it just
breaking if I ever have to use the dagger board to right the sailboat.

In article , "Toller"
wrote:

Why not just cut off the end of the daggerboard and make a new tip of
lead.
Then glass over it to hold it in place. A couple of screws through the
lead might be in order if it's heavy enough. That will give you more of
a righting moment for the weight than drilling holes further up the
daggerboard.

Does epoxy stick well to lead? If not, I would be concerned about it just
breaking if I ever have to use the dagger board to right the sailboat.

With the proper prep, yes, epoxy does stick to lead. When I did my keel,
the procedure I used was to rough up the surface with coarse sandpaper,
then it got sprayed with some sort of commercially available acid wash,
then it got an epoxy barrier coat (Interlux 2000, IIRC), then epoxy fairing
compound (VC Watertite). That was 10 years ago, and nothing has come off
since then, except for the time I hit a rock :-(