Chain Plates and Aries

Thanks to Chris and Howard I had another weekend during which good progress was made.

On Saturday Chris came over and helped me prepare for fitting the chain plates (or rather I helped him).

The photos below show where they will go. The gaffer tape covers the holes that we drilled to bolt them through.

It was important to get them to line up with the shrouds which we did by running the leadline down each stay and marking the hull. Then needed to ensure the holes for each of the pins was at the correct height.

The plates themselves needed countersinking and the large countersink bit I had ordered was delivered over the weekend. It was too big for my drill press so on Sunday I went round to Howard's to make use of his workshop facilities once again. He has a heavyweight drill press and the means of clamping objects to it securely and we discovered that was essential given the torque generated by the countersink bit.

Here's Howard in action

And here are the chain plates after counter sinking by Howard

On Saturday afternoon , Chris and I fitted the Aries mounting thingymijig and here it is.

It's not quite square so will need some slight adjustment once the gunk behind the pads has set.