Saturday, April 28, 2012

Day 193 - Sittin' in the boat

Another good day.

Started out filling the last of the pinholes up at the bow. The last coat of paint will go on the hull tomorrow. And I mean it this time. :-)

I spent a good chunk of the day sanding. Bleagh. Sanded the front and back sides of the front windows and up under the front roof of same. Sanded around the base of the radar mount. Sanded the edges of the sides windows. Sanded the sides. Sanded here, sanded there, sanded everywh... Uh, yeah, anyways...

Also made some sawdust today. You might remember from a couple weeks back I cut and built some fixtures for holding the fuel fillers. I had cut one side off each one as I had planned on mounting them on the sides, but changed my mind and decided to mount them in the back. Well, I cut and glued new side pieces on them today. Then after some thought and measuring I cut holes in the back wall for them.



Remember the old adage measure twice, cut once? See above. :-)

Brian showed up about this time and I put him to work again on the battery bays. First he gave everything inside a really good coat of white paint. While he had the white paint out I had him paint the underside of the roof outside the door too. Then came the really messy part. We installed the sides of the splashwell and he put in a fillet of peanut butter all the way around the inside seams. There were places you just can't see or get to with any tools, so he got to use his fingers! Said it reminded him of playing with Play-doh. After he finished up the inside, he pushed peanut butter back into any gaps from the outside.



While he was working on that I finished installing the fuel filler fixtures.



Hmmm... No pictures of the back side, or the finished product. I'll get those tomorrow.

Now way back when I installed the forward windows I put peanut butter and fiberglass on all the seams. Except when I got done I had one strip of fiberglass left and couldn't figure out where it went. I can't tell you how many times I looked at that, but yesterday I finally saw it. It was one of the vertical seams. Now I know it sounds crazy, but I never saw it. So today I fixed that by putting a strip of fiberglass over that seam and painting epoxy over the rest of the front and back sides of the front windows.

Then I started measuring the inside for the seats on the port side. I drew some lines, made some measurements and spent some time just thinking. I can't draw this stuff in a CAD program so I've got to draw it in my head.

Brian finished up about this time and I headed off for some dinner.

Afterwards I came back and put another coat of epoxy on the front windows.

Then I went and borrowed a chair from the house that's just about the same size as the seats I'm going to install and set it in place for the forward seat on the port side.

Then I sat it in and looked around in amazement. And got the biggest smile on my face. The view from the boat is going to be amazing! The middle vertical between the side windows is just behind your shoulder and the bottom of the window is below my shoulder which leaves an almost completely unobstructed view. It is awesome! And it's just as good from the seat at the back! Once again all that planning months ago is paying off. Yay!

3.5 Hours - Brian
9 Hours - Me