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Prep work on the hull is moving along and I'll be ready to order gel-coat sometime next week and then schedule the boat to shoot it in my friends shop. The hull looks worse than it is, remember this is an ex-Florida Marine Patrol boat and the color is gray and is heavily oxidized. With this in mind you are seeing some shadowing. I'm filling everything that is even a remote blemish, which is overkill for gel-coating.
Transom glassed with two layers and epoxy/cabosil used a fairing material. The hull will be spot filled and then faired over the weekend.
While they were gone,
I started working on the Starboard, cutting it into sizes that could be handled,
the stuff is heavy.
From there I moved inside and started ripping to width on the tablesaw. I find that with a 60+ tooth carbide blade, it provides an edge that is flawless. You'll notice more chips then normal because the dust collection hose popped off in the middle of cutting.
After getting everything to length and width, it was time for shaping. A router table works best and allows good visibility for what I was doing. Various radius edges were used to match the black OEM units I'm replacing.
It's tough to see the comparision of the white to black pieces.
This week not much was accomplished on the boat, but it was a big week for logistics and supplies. I ordered LED replacment bulbs for for the OEM deck lighting off Ebay. I tried them in the dark and they seem to throw a fair amount of light. Now that I am happy with the quality, I'll be ordering more for additional lights. The one concern is Nav lights because the array pattern of LED lights needs to be specific, so drop in LEDs are not all created equal. (LED on left, sorry so blurry)
This one was on sale for $10.16 each and is a bargain. It is very thick and rugged. I bought a couple extras to have kicking around.
I was trying to get OEM blue rubrail and after finding the last purchase of mine from the OEM supplier to Mako had gone up to $7.50/ft I looked elsewhere. Marine Liquidators came to the rescue at $3.50/ OEM Mako in black. I'm still going for the white hull and blue accents and black should not be that far off. It took several calls to Marine Liquidators, but I finally got in touch with Jake and he was very knowledgeable and also threw a few Mako goodies into my shipment for free. Shipment arrived quickly and in great condition.
In another thread I mentioned the damp garbord drain hole. I'm in the process of planning this one out, but first removed (hollowed out) any core material around the area in advance. I'm going to make a fiberglass tube and glass to the inner and outer hull skins. I will then inject resin all around the tube with some vent holes I have drilled and then install the garboard drain. This should be far stronger than the factory setup and no risk of galvanic issue with bronze or other metals. The drill setup is nothing more than a 3" finish nail bent 90 degrees.
Yesterday I dropped the t-top off at the powder coater and he will give me a call during the week to let me know when it is ready. I also dropped off the windshild frame and a bunch of other misc aluminum parts that are used on the boat. I'm looking forward to seeing these done.
The hull is all prepped and ready for gel-coat. 1 gallon of gelcoat was ordered from Spectrum and they agreed to mix an Awlgrip color code for me without the cutomer color charge (at jobber coat). The material should arrive in 7 - 10days and then the boat makes a visit to my friends shop and we will shoot/sand/buff the hull out. This will be the big day for me and really start showing progress.
