January 15th, 16th, & 17th
I worked all of Saturday, Sunday and Monday on a special job for work. No boat building at all. 36 hours in three days wore me out.
January 22nd & 23rd, 29th and 30th.
Glued up and nailed arch piece on the cuddy roof. Also, worked on the steering station. Cut a hole for the switch panel and test fit the Navman fuel meter and the tachometer for the Suzuki. Also, made a mock up of a control box mount and tried out a couple different positions. I think I found the sweet spot.
Filleted and taped up all the corner joints of the transom, and taped the outer edges of the transom horns and the 2x8 where the motor is going to be mounted. Finished cutting holes for the splashwell battery boxes.
February 5th, 2005
Last weekend I glassed in the 2x8 on the transom. I had a big piece of biax leftover from the stringers, and since Renn said he was using biax there I decided I might as well go for it. Since the biax is so rough I capped it with another layer of 10 oz cloth. Filleted the inside corners of the transom and taped them with two layers of ten oz tape, and then taped over the horns and the edges. Smeared epoxy all over the splashwell and transom and made sure the edges of all the holes got liberal coatings of epoxy.
One night during the week, I scraped all the tape edges and today I sanded like a mad man. I hate sanding.
Cut out the battery door backing pieces of plywood. These are there so the door only opens out. Will glue those in tomorrow, and will try to glue in the battery compartments themselves.
Drilled the holes for the motor and I was a nervous as a cat. I measure no less than half a dozen times and even went and got the tracing/rubbing I'd done of the motor mount on the Suzuki. Compared the two by laying that tracing/rubbing over the marks I'd made on the transom and was happy with the exact duplication. Drilled the holes and they were perfect on the outside but a tiny bit off on the inside of the transom. I had used a square to help guide the drill and was off maybe a 1/16th of an inch. But after smoothing the holes out with sand paper I think they are plenty close.� Looks like the bolts Suzuki supplied are wayyyyyy too long. Most boats must have much thicker transoms than a Stock Jumbo transom.
Life is good, and I can smell the ocean getting closer and closer.
February 6th, 2005
I'm close to being done with the transom. Got the battery box panels installed with fillets on both sides, and taped joints on the outside. I didn't see any point in taping the inside joints also. I'm getting sloppier with the epoxy. Just slinging it, filleting and taping as fast as I can. Any bubbles I end up with get ground out and recoated with epoxy.
Lids are screwed and glued into place on the battery boxes but still have some bits inside the boxes to touch up, and I will need to fill in a bunch of screw holes, fair and round over the top edges. Will then give the tops a coat or two or epoxy and glass em up. Then I'll have a ton of sanding/fairing and then primer and then paint. The motor gets installed after the transom is painted. I figure I'll need a while to run all the cables and wiring and make sure all that is sorted out. Might as well take my time on that, while I'm waiting for epoxy to cure on the upcoming wheelhouse parts.