Temba's home-made boat By Temba Middelmann (7)

I made the boat during July 1998 and my Dad helped. He also helped typing this.

First we drew a picture of the boat on paper and tested the shape. Then we cut it out from metal from a motor oil can using tinsnips. (In the real one I actually wore gloves!)

 

To join the boat at the front we bent the edges together and then pop riveted it together with some epoxy glue. We used the drill I won at the fete.

This is the pop riveter we used to do the boat. It was fun to use. You put a pop rivet in the machine and push it through the hole you made with the drill and then you just squeeze tight. You have to squeeze three times and then it pops.
We had to make a battery holder for two batteries. We went to the Mica hardware store and in the back the man found an old window cleaning thing with a red plastic handle just the right size to fit batteries inside. He cut off a piece of the tube and gave it to us for free! Then we blocked the ends with pieces of dowel (I had to file it a bit to make it the right size.) Then we put metal strips in at each end to connect the batteries and an old switch to control the motor.
We made a wooden transom and glued it in place. You can see the masking tape we used to hold it while the glue set.

Then we added a thwart to hold the motor. We bolted the motor onto the thwart. When we were coming back from the hardware shop my dad found the red plastic tube we used to connect the motor to the propeller shaft. We used a big needle from my mum for the shaft.

We borrowed a propeller from my brother. The problem was to get the shaft through the transom without water leaking in, so we drilled a hole, filled it with Vaseline, and then glued rubber over it. The needle got pushed through the rubber because it is sharp.
Here is the finished boat!
Here it is in the water.

It works!