I keep forgetting that this is not a sailboat keel with all of the serious side forces involved. You will get by just fine with hot dipped galvanized rods and nuts. Fender washers are pretty thin. I think you might be able to find some thicker washers in hot dipped. They are called structural washer...

I have used galvanized fasteners without disaster but I have kept them out of contact with incompatible metals and I have sealed them off from contact with the water.

Can you get bronze rod and thread the ends? How many do you need and how long?

Any particular reason not use bronze fasteners? They are commonly available. That way, if you need to leave the boat in the water for a while some time, you won't have that to worry about. Stainless is a great material when you want something to look sweet when left out in the weather. It has a lot ...

Not that hard to measure the brake horse power. Especially at these levels. You just need a way to clamp a wood block to your flywheel and measure the torque and at the same time measure the rpm. Of course, if you are condensing, you will need to provide a heat sump. A bucket of water would do for s...

That first toot on steam is special. When I first sounded the whistle in my yard I discovered several retired neighbors I hadn't known about!

Looking at that bow wave, I began to think about what might be behind it. A short Google gave me 16,500 H.P. from two inverted triples and twelve boilers at 250 psi. That divides out to a bit over 1300 H.P. per boiler. Just within the realm of hand firing. Given that the boiler rooms were probably p...

One used to be able to buy blued stove pipe. It was attractive and cheap. With brass bands it was great stuff on small steam locomotive boilers. Haven't seen it at the stores for ages.

I too am a newbie about hulls. The one I have now is sort of like the people in the town of Lake Wobegon on the radio show Prairie Home Companion. "The women are strong and the men are good looking." It gives every indication of having been built as a mockup of a hull for Hollywood filming. Strong b...

Welcome to the forum!! You will find people on here with a lot of experience and knowledge. What you have in mind can be a great project. A couple of things come to mind. Seven knots seems pretty fast. You will burn a lot less fuel if you back off and smell the stack and the roses. Which brings up a...

I find the stainless very attractive. Especially with the brass bands.
Mike