Airplane Jacks or Boat Jacks - Lifting Seeker's Bow

I think it would be best for you to spend at least 6 months on this boat at least 5 miles out before you take on a crew of any kind. I have been on a commercial fishing boat smaller then this and not made out of steel that sunk in bad weather out of Cape Canaveral at about 3 miles out. We had 2 Detroit diesels with twin turbos on each and we still got beat down by the waves and sunk. I have said this before. This will not be a sea worthy boat unless its picture perfect weather. When we had the boat salvaged we were back to fishing in it the next day but the boat was not 50 ton. The boat was named the miss Renae. Good luck

Doug,
To avoid dicing with death operating the shut off valve why not put it at the pump end of the line?
Admittedly that puts stress on the hose but suitably speced hose should handle it.
Cheers Eric

This gets 9/10 sketchy as f points.

Doug, I have enjoyed watching and being inspired by you for years (you have certainly contributed to my motivation on many completed projects around my house/shop). We use Amazon Smile to contribute frequently to The Sea Chest Foundation. Thanks for all you do for the boating/confab/engineering/critical thinking/common sense communities!

Doug it seems like you have much knowledge with many different systems. I’m enjoying the series and looking forward to the splash, well done! On a side note, do you do anything to get your mind off the boat? Just curious

Balls of steel!!

I think i might come watch the entire process of getting it out of the backyard all the way to the water. What are the details surrounding that?

NPT is National Pipe Taper. It uses the taper of the threads to seal with some thread sealant or Teflon. There are also NPS fittings which is National Pipe Straight. They use the same thread form and pitch except the NPS fittings use a sealing washer or gasket to seal the fitting to whatever it is threading into.

You know nothing about hydraulic... the coupling are the most common, they are called ZERO LEAK COUPLERS . you can have them in different versions..

Never cease to amaze me!

Good work, and great video as always!

Wrap all the spare fittings in bubble wrap, add a lanyard and let it follow behind the boat!

It's a long haul in Building the SEEKER, but man she looks marvelous, Far waves and Following seas Mate!

Looking good, FYI most aircraft jacks are on tripods so they will remain stable on uneven ground and only make ground contact at the end of the legs to prevent rocking. Learned much of this the hard way when I dropped my brothers Beech Bonanza off the jacks doing a gear retraction test. Ouch!
Hello Dave yeah hay would you grab me a burger on your way to the hanger because I have a feeling we're going to be here the better part of all night. Why? Because I just dropped the Bonanza off the jacks onto the hanger floor, but there is good news, the gear retraction time was spot on, And they fully retracted before crashing go the floor

Oh, $47,790.74 later good as new!

That day is near... when you'll retire to keep working your butt off on your dream.... I do have to say I do feel a great deal of envy!! best of luck and God bless!

Will the boat be a place to have fun as well when your not researching? You should add sailing dinghies maybe to teach people who dont know how to sail and make them better. Plus it would be super fun!👍⛵

Hey Doug when you're in the water are you going to be able to ensure that boat and truck it with a buddy here and we're just wondering how you protect your interest good luck to you hope you have time to respond

A check valve in parallel with your stop valve,ie, your raisy lower tap.......?

What a waste of time this boat is never going back in the water

As NAVY hyd tech, Those fittings are used mainly on Test Equipment to run test hyd cyl. pressure range from 3k psi up to 9k... for the NEW super hornet stuff. never got chance to work that range but all the older stuff F/A18c stuff.. getting them cheap great deal... seems allot stuff cleaned out of old ships typical lazy gov waste resale at super discount is your bonus.. PARKER makes some great products.

I been watching this build and let me tell you magnificent story

Love the build!!! I've been a fan since the very start and I'm so very excited to see the launch! Problem solving is my favorite activity, seen lots and lots of it over the years of your build. I've always been fixing and building things. At 17 I enlisted as a heavy construction equipment repaier in the Army and that really refined my problem solving capabilities and laid the foundation for my ever expanding knowledge. Hey I have a question for you. Im going out on my own to work for myself. I do construction work. Would you by any chance have an old grade laser you would be willing to sell me? Just a plain Jane grade laser with a rod eye. I can get a tripod and a grade stick need be. I have paypal and zelle. I can't afford a fancy new one at the moment and I've had a difficult time finding a used one in my price range. Thank you and can't wait to see her on the water!

Those fittings do not like to hook up with pressure in them. Because of the amount of moving parts on the flat faces. Work great otherwise. Use them on bobcat.

Well I'm happy to say I'm glad you're in the home stretches of getting her launched.

beautiful to see it getting so close to being ready to move

Having used quick connects for hydraulics for many years my one word of caution is how quickly built pressure can make those quick connects damn near impossible to get on. Sometimes it helps to bleed the pressure from the system. Although we did have ours used in a very dirty and dusty environment which definitely affected the connections.

Heavy duty metal protector spray from Amsoil might help unpainted steel from rusting. It's some sort if wax.

Good luck with disconnecting the quick connection under pressure. I know from experience.

It's called a holding valve so the hydrolic is held in place it has to have pressure to open the valve on the otherside to bring the fluid back so that was a important safety feature that was just eliminated and if you were to blow a line the hole thing will come crashing down.

To do this right and safely the holding balves should be at the cylinders.

Why not put the valve back by the pump?

if you use power down with the hydraulic fluid once the cylinders are full on both sides and the lines are charged the reserve tank will stay the same level

If you hook a hose from the top of the cylinders to the reservoir drain and let them suck oil in as the cylinders go down, then add more oil, now the top of the cylinders is your reservoir expansion cambers. As the cylinders are pumped up, oil will be forced out into your pump reservoir.

Tractor-connectors usually stay corrosion-free, when you let them leak a little :-P

I've been watching since you pinched the bow plates together.

Just amazing!

The engineer who designed the engine used in the WW2 Spitfire had a dream where Merlin told him how to prevent oil starvation during extreme manoeuvres. It worked, so it was called the Merlin engine. Arthurian legend says Merlin will return when Britain is in peril. The Spitfire actually helped prevent Hitler invading Britain.

glad to see your progress

Those hydraulic quick connects look just like standard skid steer fittings, and you can get those in stainless steel. But a big thing with those connectors is when they have pressure behind them they are damn near impossible to re attach. You have to bleed the pressure off before you can connect them. Also the hydraulics your dealing with will never get air bound when they have a load on them.

I have been watching since the beginning and I can’t wait too see this thing in the water!!!!

So...jic can be used as o-ring boss, adapters especially, if the wrenching flange is wide enough to back the o-ring

stand well back. Hydraulic pressure leaks are no joke.

The reason why there is JIC, NPT and about 20 other systems for hydraulic fittings is, the hydraulic manufacturers got together and worked out they could sell 10x more fittings hahaha

Make sure when possible the top clevis and bottom clevis are orientated 90° out of alignment. That way there shaft only has axial forces and no bending forces. Hydraulic shafts are relatively easy to snap of they get any bending forces on them.

Hi Doug,
Looks like some of those hoses are Eaton H280 hose with Z-series fittings? If so they don't look like they are crimped all the way. There shouldn't be the bulge above the crimp and the part that was crimped didn't look crimped enough. Do you know if you are using the correct tooling?
As a side note. I personally love using the h280 line and the Z-series fittings. They are a big improvement over previous gen Hose ends.

I though French fine thread/French metric thread was very common in vessels. The in famous Poclain excavator uses them fittings and uses Poclain flange fittings. Fishing boats still uses them here along with Poclain piston motors for winch’s