November 16th, 2004
As I crawled around the Jumbo this weekend it became more apparent that after you turn the hull the required attention to detail increases exponentially as you get closer to finishing.
For example, I thought I'd be very close to finishing the installation of my 30 gallon fuel tank. Well, the connecting pieces, filler deck plate etc did not show up on Friday so I was unable to install this stuff. But when this stuff does show up it will mean a lot of hole drilling, re-coating with epoxy, test fitting, and then pulling everything off for the day that the hull gets painted. After painting then� a significant amount of time will be required for actually installing all the pieces, but of course this won't happen without liberal coatings of bedding compound on anything that gets mounted on the hull, and teflon tape on fuel fitting connections.� Then the first time I fill the tank I'll be nervously hoping (and hopping around) that my installation was proper and leak free.
In addition to all the fuel hose, fittings etc, I will also need to deal with ventilation of the under deck tank. I'm thinking that the whole underdeck will have vent holes at various bulkheads to insure a free flow of air, thus helping prevent mold and mildew, and of course allowing proper ventilation of the fuel compartment. You have to have a rather porous fuel compartment to allow sucking out any fuel laden air and allowing fresh air to replace it. Most certainly I plan on rigging the fuel tank so that there are no leaks what-so-ever. Needless to say all those vent holes will need to be rounded over, and re-coated with epoxy.
While there are all these details to attend to, I must admit that my epoxying is getting sloppier and sloppier for those under deck areas. A single pass of the carbide scraper over tape seams is sufficient I think, and my fillets aren't nearly as purty as they once were. I'm trying to make time.
Over the weekend I pulled the fuel tank out, thinking that I'd give it a coat of epoxy to cover up the Zinc Chromate primer I already have on it. Well it's been quite a while since I painted the tank with the primer and of course I've moved that thing a zillion times and have scratched it up pretty good. So yesterday the tank got all it's bare metal scratches recoated with Zinc Chromate. Next weekend I'll coat the thing with epoxy. Once the epoxy is cured I'll install UHMW strips underneath and along all sides so that the tank will not get rubbed in anyway. It will also keep the bottom of the tank a little bit away from the bottom of the hull and help keep it nice and dry. Thanks to Brian I have an extra heavy duty layer of Glass Roving underneath the tank that extends all the way up the stringers.� There is Zero flex when I walk around this area.
There will be a zillion upcoming details as I finish the decks, the splash well and then start up on the wheelhouse. Lordy it makes my head swim thinking about all those details.
I was able to glue up a deck panel to fit in the area forward of the splashwell. I cut slots in two 8foot long pieces of 1/2" plywood, and splined them with 1/8" door skin plywood. I filled the slots with thickened epoxy, stuck the whole mess together, and then screwed them together with a topping piece of scrap plywood. After they cured, I faired the slot areas, and glassed both sides. One side got 6 oz cloth and the other got 10oz cloth. Renn calls for 6 oz cloth, but the first panel I did just wasn't stiff enough. This will work fine and dandy. I also started fairing the webstringers since the test panel I laid down was not nice and flat. They aren't that far off, but are off enough to annoy me. More planing this weekend.