Sept. 1 - 8, 2002
Day after Labor Day Update
I picked up the slightly used trailer this Saturday morning. It's an Escort galvanized, single axle trailer designed for a 22'/8'beam Bayliner Trophy. I believe it has a about a 6' 6" or so bottom, so it is close to the Jumbo's size. Guy I bought it from had it less than a year and sold it to me so he could buy a tandem axle trailer. His Bayliner is a heavy boat and he felt the single axle trailer wasn't heavy duty enough. It's in great shape with no noticeable corrosion. Lights all work except for one marker light and the left tail light is a little wiggy. Shouldn't be an issue. 
It is missing a fresh water flush for the brakes, but I'll soon remedy that. I'll do a quick brake inspection and bearing lube before the trailer sees any use, so not to worry. It came with a spare tire but no mount for it, which I'll soon remedy also. Trailer towed and tracked well for the thirty mile ride home, although I must say that if I were to drive around these bumpy roads with an empty trailer bouncing around on a regular basis, I'd have to spring for a support bra. Ouch.
The rest of Saturday I cut some practice wood for the bottom just to figure out the width of strakes I wanted. I decided that 3/4 x 3/4 was just too tiny for either the side strakes or keel strakes. Finally figured out that 1" width x 3/4" height was good for the side strakes and I settled on 1 1/2" x 3/4" for the keel strake up to the bow piece. From here to the bow the keel strake was 1" wide x 3/4" tall. I'd monkeyed around with small sizes as specified by Renn and also larger sizes, but proportionally my final measurements looked better. I also figured that both the keel and side strakes would benefit from the wider and more stable stance.
Sunday I committed and started by cutting out the side strakes from the giant piece of UHMW I have. This sucker was heavy at some 47 pounds and ended up asking my lovely and slightly pregnant wife to assist in ripping it. Might as well get the little (girl) bean used to the sound of powertools. Once I'd ripped the UHMW I got the router out and rounded over two sides on each piece. Then I tried cutting the front and rear ends to 30 degrees with my Japanese pull saw, but I must say that this is some very, very tough stuff. Me thinks it would have taken forever and I probably would have lost a few saw teeth, so I gave up and use the Radial Arm Saw. I hate that thing since I still have a thumb that aches when it gets cold. One too many kick backs has me very respectful of that beast.
Made up a jig to drill the UHMW since I don't happen to have a drill press. I do have an old rig that holds my drill in a vertical 
and plumb sorta way, so I used that to help with drilling this "tricky to drill material".
I got both side strakes glued up with black 3M 5200 before I ran out of light. Did I mention that the 5200 mysteriously gets on everything in sight? What a bloody mess. Now I carry a rag or bunch of paper towels in my pocket and religiously wear my gloves. I'm on my fourth box of gloves. Buy the mother load of gloves when you folks start building.
I've decided that after climbing around the bottom of the Jumbo for the past few days, that I don't like 
the flat look of the sanded graphite/epoxy mix on the bottom, so I'm going to give the bottom one final coat after I finish the keel strake. I see a couple of spots where the glass texture is showing through, so I reckon it wouldn't hurt. Trouble is that I've gone through way too much epoxy. I don't think I've put too much on the Jumbo and I didn't thing I've wasted all that much with pots going off, but perhaps I'm delirious. Anyway I'm going to have to order a third 7.5 gal kit of epoxy soon. Sigh....
Today I cut out the keel strake and routed round corners on the face side. Drilled the holes and cut the V into the back two pieces. Cut out the bow strake and monkeyed around forever getting the transition right from the 1" to the 1 1/2" strake. The first version was way 
off and I ended up cutting off 8" which then made the second piece too short. Damn. This stuff ain't cheap. Back to the giant piece of UHMW to cut out a fresh new rear piece.
I ran out of energy before gluing up the two rear pieces of keel strake, but I did get the holes drilled. So an hour of so of gluing in the morning will finish up the strakes.
Got the bottom strakes bedded and installed. It was a busy morning of crawling around on the bottom of the boat, with my kneepads a sliding and my feet a sliding. Durn near fell off a couple of times. That graphite/epoxy bottom is slick, I tells you. And now it's getting slicker since I started recoating the thing to cover up all the scuffing I did to give it a flat finish. I'm a little over halfway in recoating the bottom and should finish it in the morning. Then back to scratching my head on the issue of spray rails.
Amazing how fast a week goes when you're not at work and you're fiddling around with boat building stuff.
Today was mostly spent chopping away at a variety of bushes and plants that line my driveway. I was somehow able to gain a foot or so of width and had the intention of opening the driveway up enough to be able to back my trailer in. Well, I succeeded. The trailer makes 
it's way all the way back to the Jumbo and I have another 4 or 5 inches to spare. Eeeeeep! Yep, I pushed it into place by hand and nope, I don't don't think I can do this with the truck. I will need to get one of those trailer hand truck thingys.
I didn't have to cut down the Plum tree. But when the Jumbo is on the trailer I will have to do some fairly major surgery on the tree. Oh well. Sorry Gary.
I also monkeyed around with the trailer and succeeded in taking the fixed angle bunk mounts and modifying them via angled blocks of wood to have the correct angle of the dangle of the bottom. I made up a 1/8" door skin template of the transom, complete with little bumps to represent the keel and bottom side strakes. It fits perfect. Now there still is the issue of the dingdang trailer being a might bit too high. But for now it's just gonna have to stay that way. I'm thinking of taking out one leaf spring from each side, since my Jumbo isn't gonna be as heavy as the previous 
trailer held Trophy. I figure this will help lower the bunks a tad bit but also smooth out the ride. My friend Dick, is dubious that I'll make this sucker work and suggests that launching and retrieving the Jumbo may be a bigger pain in the patooty that I'll desire. But at this point I'm still $1700 richer by using this pig in a poke trailer and I'm not about to just fritter away the savings. After all I've got a motor to buy, and a about a bazillion other noodling doodling boat pieces and parts. My list of stuff to get just keeps getting longer and longer.
I also did a bit more fairing at the transom to better hide the taped joint transition. But I must say that I'm getting impatient and all the sanding I've done so far appears to have not been my best work. And it's bloody impossible to get a nice smooth finish working out-of-doors. I've got bugs, I've got dust, I've got bits of UHMW all over the place. I've vacuumed up the driveway several times but it doesn't seem to help. My 5200 looked fuzzy in places because of UHMW hairs and goobers floating all over tarnation.
Next boat I build be built in two different shops. One shop will be for cutting,sanding, building and making a mess and other shop will be only for epoxy application and painting. Hrrrrmph.
Sent an email to Capt. Davey the other day, asking him about what primer to use with his very lovely Trawler Yellow paint he so kindly sent me. He says the Interlux Brightsides Polyurethane Primer works fine and dandy with System 3 Epoxy and is totally compatible with the Trawler Yeller paint. So this is what I'm-a-gonna go for. If it peels off, then you can tell me you told me so. Till then I'm a guinea pig. And if it doesn't look as purty as some perfect boats out there, well then it'll just have to be tough, yessir. After all I'm building a fishing boat and not a Steinway. It's gonna get filthy stinking fishy guts and all and this will make me immensely happy.
I still haven't gotten the spray rails installed. And I guess you can say I've stalled on installing the suckers. I just am not crazy about doing four lifts of 3/8" plywood to make these things. Anyone used a steam box for bending spray rails? I'm very tempted to go buy some clear something or another wood and steam it so it'll bend nice and easy without breaking. Hmmmm.
Well, it's a couple days later 
and I don't have the spray rails done yet, but I do have the plywood scarfed up to make the spray rails. First layer is cut out and ready for fitment. I'll try and get therest of the spray rails cut out this week and screwed 
together, so I can rip them to proper angle and width.
I had scheduled this weekend to turn the hull, but since I don't have the spray rails done, I've decided to postpone the turning for at least one more week.