SS Mini Update

Well, I appreciate all of it!

Well, I finally got the shifter removed, so I can take off the vinyl on that side and repair the wood beneath.

I've also got the steering wheel off so I can take the dash off and begin rewiring it with the new gauges.

I'm going to repair rotten wood tomorrow, in the seat and that side thing.

I've been removing all the various things that are attached to the hull so that I can buff it up. Pretty soon I should be able to post "naked" pictures of my boat!

And, I almost forgot. A buddy of mine with a machine shop is going to build me a custom pylon - it's going to be a regular height ski pylon with an extension that slides over it for boarding.

My boat has the mount in it. It just doesn't have the pylon. Never did, according to the original owner. The mount is 1" diameter, but I'm going to put in a 2" pylon, just because I think it looks cooler. And we're not going to use a rope ring - my buddy's going to turn a custom thing on the lathe for the rope. I'll post pictures eventually.

Thanks Hawkeye, the link is fixed. They are great dogs.

The boat is pretty much naked now. I'm trying to decide what to do with the dash - I might go aluminum, or I might just stick with the original wood-grained contact paper. The truth is, it doesn't look that bad with new gauges.

    Oh yeah, whats the purpose of the old rope ring with the 45 degree stub??

Yea, get the dimension from the current nautique pylon stub, i think its one of the coolest looking around.

The old style ring w/ the finger works, but i think its just a pain in the butt, and no where near as functional, plus all the ropes now have loops perfect for doubling over a pylon stub.

Sould work out great.

hawkeye wrote: The old style ring w/ the finger works, but i think its just a pain in the butt, and no where near as functional, plus all the ropes now have loops perfect for doubling over a pylon stub.

    What is the purpose of the finger on the ring?? I tried to ask that in a previous post, but I was unclear. My fault.

                                 Jeff...

I remember being taught that when I was a kid, but I could never do it the same way twice for the month I didn't have a tower on my first boat!

Jeff...that pylon melted! I was hoping for the motor cover...which prob. melted first!

   WoW!!! That is cheap!! I need to purchase my stock from you as we pay crazy amounts for steel and aluminum. That pylon, being solid and hardened aluminum for 20 bucks is unbelieveable! Well, I guess it matches the ratio on what you picked up the SSmini for!

                                 Jeff...

PS How do you do it???

    Dave, you will certainly need to get some extra hard and thick tubing. Just make sure shes gonna be plenty rugged, because figure on how much cantilever above the floor. The pylon with a rope tied to it should be able to hold the boat back at full throttle take off. I never thought that until pulling several skiers or having tubers tubes go underwater. You are right in the fact that being solid doesnt give a huge difference, but it will certainly help from kinking at the floor. The aluminum is very "spring like" as I thought mine was going to hit the engine cover, then sprung back.
                                 Jeff...

Sorry to sound negative Dave but I think you're looking for trouble. Make it solid, I would be more inclined to design it so it doesn't bend than to come up with an easy way when to replace it when it does.

just my .02

Fill the hollow tube with concrete and don't worry about it collasping or leave it hollow and most likely you will be replacing.

I'd go into the engineering of tubes versus solid, but frankly I don't remember it from engineering school. I do remember this though - solid round stock is only marginally stronger than tubes of the same material. In some configurations, it can actually be stronger (for instance, an elliptical tube is stronger in the long direction than solid round stock of similar dimensions).

Maybe I will dig up my old engineering books and calculate the thickness and diameter of aluminum tubing required to support the same static and dynamic loads of a solid one. Anybody have any ideas about the force exerted on a ski rope by a skier? Maybe this summer I'll attach a spring scale to my rope and measure the forces involved.

Okay, now that I think about it, the force on the pylon can't actually exceed the maximum force I can pull against the rope without having to let go. I bet for a 260lb skier (like me) that can't be more than a few hundred pounds. So, if I engineer the pylon to be able to support 800 lbs peak it would seem the odds of buckling would be pretty slim.

It would be interesting to make a pylon out of carbon fiber. It would be pretty easy to make a three ~ four foot piece of carbon fiber tubing that would support 3~4000 pounds without buckling. That would be cool - the stiffest pylon ever.

Do you really think a pylon could collapse fast enough to crush an engine box? That's a pretty dramatic failure. I would expect some small bending to appear first. What do ya'll think?

Sounds like a new episode of Mythbusters coming up. Actually I have no idea so I'm looking forward to the results.

    The one major difference between the "tube" and "solid" is that the "tube" will buckle if stressed too hard (unless its real thick), while the "solid" will bend, and remain relatively strong after it bends. This is only true on material that isnt so hard that its brittle.
                                    Jeff...