Transom Project 2
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Transom Project 2 |
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Holy crap! I've been away for way to long. Between building a new home and having our first child, I've been tied down with no hope of ever returning to this project. The last thing I did was the livewell which was finished in March of 2004. Now its May 2005... what a hot weekend to decide to start working on the boat again. Saturday, I spent he day trying to make the motor run. I guess you can say I was successful... I had built a new stand to keep her upright so I can crank her... I never envisioned that she would be laid up for 3 years! it ran, but not great. I drained the fuel from the powerhead today and I'll run her again in 2 weeks. When I do that I'll probably add in some injector cleaner or something like that.
Today (Sunday), I fiddled around until well after noon, then I finally got the
energy to go out and make some dust. There really isn't much to show, but I took
pixs anyhow.
The core in the port side gunwale was rotten around the rod holders. Luckily,
the core material stops about here the rod locker starts and a new piece begins
when is totally separated from the aft section which was rotten. Since I am a
die hard glutton for pain (Perfectionist), I went after this thing from the
underside. It really wasn't hard to get to, but the dust blowing down in your
face leaves something to be desired. Oh well, that's what they make face masks
and goggles for. I survived. I cut the bottom skin out and peeled the dry but
rotten wood out. Then got back in there and cleaned everything up.
Next weekend, Hopefully, I'll cut a piece of 1/2" marine plywood, hit the edges with a round over and then glue that puppy back in there with some epoxy and mat. I can use the existing rod holder holes and screw holes to pull it up tight with some screws. Then I'll throw a layer of 1/2 oz mat followed by some roven woven... probably 2 alternations of that combo.
Deck drainage, I made a little mold out of MDF. Its to make
a rectangular channel out of fiberglass. It will have a flange at one end so
that I can glass it through the transom and to the transom of the boat. These
will be the drains for the
deck. Maybe next weekend I can get the holes cut in the transom and get them
installed.
I wrapped the mold in plastic so nothing will stick to it. Once the part is
cured. I'll just pull the part and plastic off the mold. No sweat... no waxing
or part all to deal with. Its a non cosmetic part and all I'm looking for is
functionality.
I laid one up. I made the mistake of laying a layer of 1.5oz mat first (doesn't
work well with epoxy, it doesn't make those radiuses well because epoxy can't
break down the binder in the mat). After that I wrapped the thing in 6 oz cloth
pulling it real tight. We'll see how it comes out. The next one I will probably
wrap the whole thing about 4 or 5 wraps with 6 oz cloth and see what that does.
I also realized that the drain and flange being a 90 angle will not work here.
So I'll have to take an angle measurement of the transom and deck and then
re-tool my little molds accordingly.
Next I tackled laying out the drain channels on the transom. Not difficult... but wanted to make sure the boat was level and the floor was level and so on... Looks like I was about 1/16" to 1/8" from one side to the other when I put the deck in... Not bad for a dumb rookie.
I still have some grinding to do on the transom to make it eve close to level. Once that is achieved, I'll probably lay some more glass to build up the extreme low spots and then cover it all with one layer of good structural glass.
I have decided to abandon trying to make the drainage channels in the cockpit match up with the old molded in channels, I am going to fill all of them in around the cockpit and that will also allow me to place the scupper tube about 3/4" higher than before... Every little bit counts! I am abandoning this idea because I don't think I can make it look factory. Looking back, I should have made a mold with those in place and molded the entire thing (floor) and then set it in the boat and tab it in. I would cut the floor out and do it over, but I'm running out of gas to be taking one step forward and two steps back.
I also noticed a few low spots in the floor (about 1/8" low). No clue how that happened, but I'm guessing that I'll have to flood the floor with water and mark the low spots (where water pools) and then lay glass (several layers of 1808) to build them up. Oh well... just more work. Kinda depressing.
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