Page 4
Tonight was grind and itch night. I've invested 4 hours into the coffin cover so fat and have another 3 - 4 hour left. There were a number of holes from the seats installed, but some of the screws "ripped out" and left large holes. There were also a number of screw holes from various installs inside the console to the coffin cover. To fill the holes I used resin, but to keep it from just dripping through the holes, I used plain paper and dabbed resin on the surface, applied the paper and followed with more resin. Since the paper acts as a dam and also absorbs the paper, it does a good job without posing an issue.
I will be buying a sheet of plywood for the core and also building a camber table to make sure I have the proper shape to shed water. Layup could be as soon as this weekend and there will be plenty of images to follow.
Turkey day was a
success and we only had 20 people this year, this is down from previous years
and it allowed us to get cleaned up and give me 2.5 hours of free time to get
some Mako stuff done.
The coffin cover is ground down to just the bare skin and I purchased 5 ply
plywood last night (exterior). While I would have gone marine grade, I plan on
having the coffin cover sealed and with extra glass, so I could not justify the
cost and lead-time to get it.
I will be picking up more resin tomorrow and also some strapping to make sure I have full adhesion. I've been thinking about this over the past two days and while this is a perfect candidate for vaccuum bagging, it is not worth the expense and time. I have an alternate plan and will post the images in process. I will have camber built into the coffin cover and will measure the camber in my (for sale) Mako 20' tomorrow and for reference.
I used random cuts in the plywood so I would not have the same mode of failure and the original unit where everything was inline and voids allowed water to saturate the core. I have also drilled air relief holes because this is not vaccuum bagged and there will be air pockets that not can escape though the holes. Layup is tomorrow night if all goes well. I need to fill a couple LP bottle and cut the direct vent hole in my wall to get the new heating system going.
Lay up is now
complete. The holiday combined with a delay with my supplier of resin dragged
this out. Since I will not be doing lots of fiberglass work, I've been buying
material gallon by gallon, so I do not have excess material. Hindsight being
20/20, I should have bought a 5 gallon bucket since the resin cost is
$21.99/gallon.
I laid up the core along with a later of 24oz woven mat and the layup went
great. I had several areas of bubbles, but this was due to severe "tucks" in the
glass which I knew would be an issue, but this was only on the edges. A simple
hit with a die grinder and injecting them with resin solved the issue. Tonight I
laid up one extra later of random wove glass and another gallon of resin and it
will be cured in about 1 hour. I'm getting anxious to get the boat inside since
temps are dropping and things are moving, but slower than expected. Due to work
related interuptions and other things, I've throttled back on the to-do list.
Filling in the holes from multiple seat installations
Layup of additional "overkill" random weave over previous layup
The bucket you see
was tapered just right for the indented port access lid and allows resin to pool
without pouring out. It will be removed and faired to match the function of the
indented port. It took me several runs to Home Depot and local hardware stores
to find the right diameter with the correct taper to use.
More Awlgrip is on the way and I should be re-shooting the console later this
week with "whiter" pigment. The oyster color did not provide the look I wanted
and was more khaki than the factory color on my 20'.
I took Friday off from work to get some boat stuff done. My goal was to sandblast the t-top and all the other aluminum parts. Unfortunatly, most of my day was spent looking for sandblasting sand. The two previous suppliers I used no longer sell it and I was told to drive 1.5 hours away to get the stuff. I wound up stopping by a friends bodyshop and he was able to send me to his supplier 1/2 hour away. Since I had wasted so much time I decided to buy 1000 lbs so next time I would have it on hand. Here's all 1000lbs -
The sandblasting went ok, but I had to set up a portable kerosene heater blasting right on the sandblaster itself because it froze up. I was able to get the t-top blasted, but it has black hard anodizing on it and that stuff takes forever to get off. The rest of the parts came down to bare metal without any issue. I was blasting with a large nozzle with a tip pressure of 110 - 120psi, Media was Black Beauty slag - medium. The parts look great and are ready to accept powder coating.
