Today was a real forward moving day. After a stop by AIH to get chip brushes (in bulk!) and longer bolts (the ones I bought yesterday were too short) I headed for the shed.
First up was getting the Snap-Loc's installed. I painted some thick enamel under where they would go and then I bolted them in place. I'm using galvanized bolts, flat washers, cut washers and nuts. Once these are in, they're in for good. No getting to them without major surgery.
Up next were holes in the rear deck pieces. There's nothing quite like trying to measure to the center of a hole in two directions, marking it on the wood, drilling it out and then setting the deck in place to see if you've just made a three day DDD! Fortunately I managed to go three for three in getting them exactly right. I also cut for two circular hatches for the left and right sides and one square hatch in the middle directly above where the bilge pumps will go.
Speaking of bilge pumps here's what I've come up with.
Both bilge pumps will be attached to a piece of 3/4" ply that will be thoroughly coated in epoxy, epoxied to the hull (after sanding the paint off, and that took work, the stuff's tenacious) and painted with Bilgekote. My theory is that by having the pumps an inch or so above the deepest part of the hull that any solid chunky stuff will stay below the pickups for the bilge pumps.
Cutting of the pink foam commenced so as to fill three of the last four bays. There's no foam in the rear bays to allow for easy access and inspection. All total I've installed two full 4'x8'x2" sheets. That adds up to about 455 pounds of flotation, a pretty substantial amount!
Then it was time to get serious about permanent installation of the side decks. I sanded the tops of the deck supports and the stringers down to bare wood, then the sides for the structural adhesion and I vacuumed everything once last time. I took up the outer most pieces of foam and cleaned under those as well. It was surprising just how much stuff had ended up under those blocks.
I hoisted the panels up into the boat and made some epoxy to coat the tops of the stringers and deck supports, the face of the bulkhead, the sides of the hull and the inside edges of the panels. The extra got made into the first of five batches of peanut butter. I make those batches three ounces at a time to keep it from cooking off as the application of the peanut butter in such small amounts on top of the deck supports takes a lot of time.
After the peanut butter was applied on the port side I set the panel in place and ran a row of screws along the stringer putting as much of my body weight on top of the drill to set the plywood in the peanut butter. Two of the three sandbags went in next, one in each corner as the plywood wanted to bend upwards at the corners.
The starboard side was done the same as the port, except the third sandbag went in the middle of the panel as this piece wanted to bend down at the corners. That's what I get for buying warped plywood and making do. Never again!
The screws and sandbags will stay in place for at least three or four days to give the epoxy plenty of time to set up. Again these joints are structural and since I can't apply fillets and fiberglass I need to make sure they have really cured before I disturb them.
Work then moved to the rear deck panels. I flipped them over and drew the lines denoting joints just like the side deck panels and then coated the entire panel with epoxy. I went to dinner to give the epoxy time to soak in and stiffen a little and when I returned I painted the non-joint areas with Bilgekote. It's looking like I may have just enough to paint everything.
Finally, I painted the bottom of the piece of plywood that will be used for mounting the bilge pumps.
Tomorrow I'll install this piece and the two rear deck panels and start work on the installation of the rear bulkhead. Once that's in place then I can cut and install the last rear deck piece. The entire rear deck will be filleted all the way around and two layers of fiberglass (10oz if I have enough) will be put down. That'll be a real interesting trick to pull off cleanly.
8.5 Hours