by Weston Farmer
LOA 18', BEAM 6' 4", DISPLACEMENT 2,198 POUNDS, DRAFT 12 3/4"
Hot off the drawing board is this saucy little steel 18-footer, designed for the man who would rather work metal than wood.
There are many good mechanics who do better working metal than wood. It is for this group of craftsmen that Tintillee was designed. Built of simple 12-gauge steel arc-welded to a simple bar and pipe frame, Tintillee’s construction follows the currently accepted methods of fabricating a welded steel hull. For the building of Tintillee here is the size welder you’ll need: for the 3/8-inch plates and bars, use 250 amperes at 45 volts. For the 3/16-inch side frames, use about 200 amperes at 35 volts. The 12-gauge plate (7/64-inch thick) will weld up properly at lower current, say 120 to 130 amperes and not more than 30 volts. Amperes is the quantity of current, volts is the pressure. These currents will produce the proper heats. Use shielded welding rod, obtainable at all welding supply stores and do all your work “down weld.” That is, have the weld under the arc. Reverse polarity will help feed the weld into the seam. Now about Tintillee herself: we have a simple V-bottom hull with the proper entrance and breast for an 18-footer which will drive from 10 to 16 miles an hour. Also, this shape will plate topside without billowing between frames. You will notice from the lines drawing where the fore body and aft body are shown in section that there is a dotted line on the forward frames. There will be a tendency of the forward plates to spring away from the frame. Let it. The inner 1” x 3/16” stringer bars can be sprung out to the skin, tackwelded, then welded to their slits to provide final welded security for the forward breast plates. Because welded steel construction is slightly heavier than wood—about 20 per cent in this size boat—one cannot expect much planing action. Rather, the boat is designed as a bangabout for rough service, and will do about 10 to 12 miles an hour with a 25 hp Universal Utility Four, about 12 to 13 miles with a Gray 33 Lugger, and will do about 16 miles with a Gray 6-72, which is about the top limit of economical powering.
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