__Multicoloured Panelled Sails___________________

Colourful sails with multi-coloured panels can be crafted for your model without the aid of any complicated devices or equipment. Chances are you won't have to look any further than your kitchen. With a bit of practice the results can be very impressive. What you will need is: an ordinary clothes iron, a ruler, and strips of coloured polyvinyl bags.

Practice first before you try to make a finished product, this way you will know what heat setting to use, etc.

1. Cut different coloured sections of plastic shopping bags into strips or panels. The idea is to join the plastic panels to form a flat sheet, like a sheet of paper, then cut the sail out of that, rather than trying to join pre-cut sections of a sail together. (see Illustration)

2. Work on top of a smooth hard surface like a kitchen counter top or a large wooden (not plastic!) bread board. The smoother the surface the better. Lay one panel on top of another, edge to edge where you want to join them together. (Fig. 1)

3. Firmly hold the edges you want to join down with a metal or wooden ruler, leave about a half inch of the plastic sheets coming out underneath. (Fig. 2)

4. A regular clothes iron that has a sharp angle on its bottom edge is used to thermally fuse the two sheets together. Hold the iron at an angle and slide the iron along the ruler or straight edge. The edge of the iron is used to cut through the two sheets of plastic. The iron is set at medium heat. Also the iron should be set on dry, you don't need steam. The iron slides along at a speed about three or four seconds per foot, so count slowly, 1.., 2.., 3.., as you go. ( Fig. 3)

5. Excess plastic may ball up and stick on the edge of the iron as you drag it along the straight edge, and should be removed with a metal spatula. (popsicle sticks work well)

6. Unfold the fused sheets and inspect the joined section by holding it up to a light. If you see little dots of light along the joint, the surface you worked on is not smooth enough. If the joint comes apart with a reasonable amount of force, the iron was not hot enough. Properly fused, the joint will be just as strong as the plastic itself.

7. Straight seams will result in a sail that lies flat, check your work before you cut out your sail using your paper pattern.

This process will not damage the clothes iron, and will not damage counter tops, most are designed to take a moderate amount of heat.
For you younger crafters, I suggest you let whoever is normally in charge of the iron, give this a try, it is fun to do, and they can help supervise until you get the hang of it.

Another way to fuse the plastic is to use a wood burning kit with a blade tip a soldering pen will also give good results. Both will be easier to use than a clothes iron because of their size and weight. The added heat will fuse the plastics faster, but you should use a work surface like a scrap piece of counter top or sheet metal, because the surface may get marked by the heat. (just to be safe)

__Using Ballast_____________

Ballast should be added to your keel whenever the wind is strong, and when you are letting the boat sail distances, otherwise you will find yourself spending more time reeling it in, and setting your boat upright than sailing.
Over time, as your Line Control Model Sailing skills develop, you will find yourself relying on ballast less often. (I rarely use it.) Relying more on controlling your sails angle of attack, angling your line to simulate hiking, and reducing sail area.

Our sailing models let you add as much as you need, adapting your boat to the sailing conditions. This adds to the challenge of sailing Seadercraft boats.
Where would the excitement of surfing be without the possibility of a "wipe out"? The trick is to use enough to still give yourself a challenge, and not so little as to make it a losing battle when the conditions are rough.

When you add so much ballast that your sailboat will not capsize, and will always self right itself, "positive flotation" is achieved.

This much weight will slow the responsiveness of your boat. Under light conditions, it may just inch along until it builds up momentum. On the other hand, once the heavier boat does get moving it will have the momentum needed when you are tacking windward, helping your boat to keep going as your bow turns into the wind.

The simplest thing to use for ballast is a few coins, two 5 cent pieces work well in moderate conditions on a MkI. Galvanized or brass washers also work well. Plain steel washers, may rust and stain your keel. And you may find small washers cost more per weight than the coins are worth.

Sections of copper pipe, cut with a tube cutter to various pairs of lengths, then pounded flat, also works well.

Just like a full size boat, the ideal ballast weight is lead. Lead is a dense (heavy) metal that is easy to find, it is also very malleable, meaning it can be pounded into different shapes.

Lead also has a very low melting point, making it easy to fuse pieces together with a soldering tool. Lead should be used with caution. Do not loose it in the water, just don't! Make sure it is well secured to the centre board. Lead that has been lost from fishing weights has accumulated so much in some areas that it is poisoning the environment. In some places it is even banned and have been replaced with metal alloys.

Going to a fishing supply store is the easiest way to purchase your lead ballast. There, you may find a variety of line weights all conveniently laid out in different sizes. They also come in different shapes, some are round, others are a tear drop shaped. You will have to pound them to shape, described later.

If you are lucky, you may find lead sold in a coil, this lead is in a coiled rod shape just thinner than a pencil. It is usually sold in bulk weights of a few pounds. It will cost you a few dollars, but you will have a lifetime supply.

Using a pair of cutting pliers, you can cut your weights to any length. A variety of weights, carried with you in a pouch, will let you chose the right amount for the sailing conditions.

Nothing beats the price of free. Automobile tires are balanced with lead weights that clip onto the wheel rims. I have seen these just laying around on the ground at some garages. Any service station that deals in new and used tires is a good spot to scrounge a few up. These weights have a steel clip in bedded in them. If you find a tire balancing weight large enough, you can pinch off what you need with cutting pliers, leaving the clip behind.

The goal is to have two equally sized pieces of lead that, when held in place by the rubber tubing, (that comes with your kit) will provide a surface that will form a foil.

The tubing gives you a smooth contoured surface as it is stretched over the weights. The tubing (for those that don't know) is a section of bicycle inner tubing. Remember the one you threw out ??

Offer to pay a small price for a damaged one at a bicycle repair shop, you may get one for free! Old inner tubes get thrown out there all the time. Get a tube that is the right size for your keel, a "ten speed" is just right for a Mk I, the wider tubes for mountain bikes are for a Mk II. Depending on your board design. (One = lifetime supply :-)

The lead is lightly tapped into shape with a hammer, laying it on a hard smooth surface. If you don't happen to have an anvil lying around, use a smooth cement surface.
The ball type fishing lead can be tapped into a coin shape with a slight dome to it. The rod type, as seen in the illustration, can easily be cut to length with cutting pliers, notice when tapped into shape, how the ends flatten.

Before you start smashing your fingers, place the lead inside some clear plastic and hold onto the plastic instead of the lead, keeping your fingers out of the way.

__Rudders as foils____________

If the hull and the centreboard is designed to give your sailboat lift, having a foil shaped rudder will even give you more.
Here are two methods of making rudders for your model that have a foil shape. One method uses plastic, the other using plastic and wood. Each will take more time than the usual method of heating and bending a piece of plastic.

Just like fusing two sheets of plastic bag to make a sail, two ends of a piece of flexible plastic can also be fused together. If you fold over a sheet of paper and hold the ends together, lightly creasing the folded edge you will have close to a perfect foil. The same goes with the plastic.

A simple tool for welding the two ends together is a soldering pencil. I purchased a cheap one that cost all of $2 and it works great! It produced just the right amount of heat to fuse not only thin plastic, but poly bag material for sail making, quickly and thoroughly.
I have tried using a clothes iron, and it works too, but it was awkward to use and the results were not as good as with the small soldering pen.(a wood burning tool also works very well)

The plastic will need to be squeezed along the fold as hard as you can because, being flexible, it will want to spring back to its original flat shape. A little bit of heat from a candle along the edge of the fold will help soften the plastic.(don't over do it!)

At the two trailing edges, one edge is slightly longer than the other. The goal is to run the tip of the soldering pen along the edge of the short side and fuse it to the surface of the longer side. This produces a clean edge that you can touch up any imperfections with using a fine tooth file and a single edge razor or hobby knife.

The bottom edge may be left open, fused together, or try filling it in with some hot glue. Make a design out of paper first. Once you get the right shape, use the pattern to slice up the plastic.

Making a wooden rudder in not that much different than making a centerboard foil, you will have to do some sanding to fair it in. You will need a thin piece of wood, a wooden paint stir stick, or a piece of cedar lath will do. You should seal the wood when you are done with paint, or clear finish, to keep it from warping.
All the wooden rudders I have made so far have been stern mounted, I haven't figured out a way to make a hull (bottom) mounted one that didn't produce a lot of drag. (Have any ideas? Let me know.)

The first uses a plastic arm (tiller)with a thin notch sliced out of it, not quite as wide as the rudder is thick. The rudder has a groove near the top on each side, (use a thin saw blade, like a hacksaw blade). The rudder will snap into the slot and stay in place.

The grooves should be deep enough (or the slot in the plastic wide enough) that the thickness of the rudder will not deform the plastic.
The top part of the rudder can also be the full width of the rudder, this way, you can raise the rudder, when you are sailing in real shallow water. (You will need to lift the control line when changing tack.) Either way, both rudders will "kick up" because the tiller arm is flexible. Note that the arm can be made with a double bend in it to make the rudder sit a little lower.
This helps to keep it out of the way of the control line.

A second method (see pic) uses a tiller arm that folds down at the back, and the wooden rudder is attached to it using a small nut, bolt, and a washer. You will have to drill a hole through both wood and plastic. This gives you the ability to hand tighten the bolt to the point where you can adjust the rudder up out of the water when you want to.
For this one you may have to do some scrounging. Not all building supply stores have nuts and bolts that are small enough, and of course you want to use brass, or even better, nylon! (yes, there is such a thing!) Finding the right size may be a challenge. I managed to scrounge some tiny metal nuts and bolts out of a broken radio!

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