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I still don't have the new transom core in but I have spent a lot of time preparing for that moment. Nearly every hole that will be needed has been drilled oversized and re-filled with resin/glass. Not shown in this pic are the holes for the trim tab hinge mounts, lower drain, engine rigging tubes and hydraulic steering bulkhead fittings. They have been drilled out as well however.
I also tapered the bottom leading edge to accomodate the setback of the transom. And all edges of the core got a layer of resin and 3/4 oz mat.
Each hole was covered with vinyl tape on one side to trap the resin and glass until it had cured.
I used little disks of 1.5 oz mat to fill most of these holes. As of last count, I'd drilled 49 holes in the transom and each hole got anywhere from 15-35 disks or more. I'll let you do the math but there was more scissors work than I care to remember. And wetting them out and stuffing them in the holes was no picnic either.
Here's the core after most of the holes had been re-filled. Not shown in this pic are the holes for the engine rigging and hydraulic steering lines.
The forward fish box lid needed a lot of work. Several hundred trips over the last 4 or 5 years had taken its toll. Every side of the lip around the rim had been busted up, chipped and cracked. Mostly from slamming the lid on a green fish while the gaff was still in the fish. More than once, I've watched half dollar size pieces of glass go flying off into the abyss. It took several rounds of glassing, grinding and shaping to get her back to normal. She's 98 percent done now.
I also completed construction of the transducer housing. I was pretty happy with the turnout on this piece. Look familiar?
I decided a while back that I was going to build a mold for my transom cap so I threw this one together with a few pieces of MDF and some hard fiber board. Bondo was used to form fillets in the corners. I matched the radius of the corner boxes by shaping a putty spreader with a sanding block.
1/2 inch marine ply will form the core for this piece. Here's the cat helping me put a little camber in it.
I had my 3rd coat of wax on it when I
realized I'd made a slight engineering error and would have to re-do it.
So I had to start over and have already started re-building the thing. If anyone
wants the first one I built, let me know and its yours. There's nothing wrong
with it except that it's just a little narrower (bow to stern) than what I need.
I have also spent some time on the transom skin. I wasn't happy with the
condition of the glass in the area of the trim tab hinge mounts. The tabs were
originally installed with silicon and 18 years of water exposure had taken its
toll. In my opinion, this was the primary cause of the failure of my transom. So
I ground out the bad stuff and re-glassed. I did the same for the trim tab
actuator mounts since I'm going with shorter actuators to accomodate the
bracket.
