March 16, 2013 - Day 342 Hey guys. This week Matty and Craig are in Somerset, NJ promoting FishingNosara at the Saltwater Fishing Expo: This means that Jack has the shop to himself and can get some work done without getting distracted by our shenanigans. We are so satisfied with the way the foredeck came together that we are repeating the same process on the side gunwales. Here you can see that Jack has peeled back the top layer of fiberglass to expose the rotted wood beneath. We turned out to be pretty wise in this decision, because if you look closely several sets of rod holders have been drilled in this boat's history. The only way to be sure that OUR rod holder holes will be strong to replace this entire section with a fresh piece of marine plywood.
March 26, 2013 - Day 352 The whole team is back together in the shop and we have some great progress to report. First off Craig Jr. has finished his modifications to the tower: The extended hoop on the rear will provide extra sun-shade to the fish-fighters in the cockpit. The real trick part of the modification is that now the tower can be removed for road transportation: Great work by Craig Jr. and the whole crew over at All Jakd Up Motorsports! Meanwhile we saw in the last post that Jack has completed gutting out the old rotted wood on the side gunwales, so Craig came in and fabricated epoxy plugs to fill the voids from the old rod holders. The epoxy is really clear but the plugs look blue in the pictures because of the painters tape on the bottom. Now we are ready to start fabricating the new wood. We will be using the same marine-grade plywood we used for the foredeck, and as before want it to be as tight as possible to the edges so that the wood carries the stresses, not the fiberglass. Craig is busy sanding the "floor" of this repair so that the new piece has a solid surface upon which to bond. The next step will be to encapsulate the new wood in fiberglass. Once it cures we will set it into place and start building it back up to the level of the gunwale. This used to be difficult, but now that we've got the hang of the fiberglass process this one should go smoothly. April 1, 2013 - Day 355 The fur has really started to fly in the boat shop as Craig and Matt are half-way through the replacement of the cockpit gunnels. This area had been completely eaten away by water intrusion with about three generations of rod holder holes to show for it. In the prior post we cut the new wood and prepared the 'floor' of the repair to accept the planks. There is still an important step in preparing the planks: fully encapsulating them in fiberglass matte. This adds another layer of protections from future water intrusion, however if we install the rod holders correctly (with 5200 and through bolts) then this element shouldn't ever come into play. It's a little tricky to made the fiberglass tape wrap around 90 degree corners so we encapsulated these pieces in two separate pours: first the top and bottom, then the sides and edges. In hindsight this was the backwards way to do it so I will use foresight and say that next time we will start with the edges. We don't want to leave anything to chance so we added another layer of protective fiberglass over our previous rod holder repairs. This is a little bit overkill but better safe than sorry. We gave the planks and the floor a final pass with the sander and mixed up a batch of epoxy resin to glue the whole thing together. This is the strongest epoxy that Fiberglass Coatings makes and takes a full 72 hours to cure. Rather than fuss with complicated jigs and clamps we opted for an old trick we've developed over years in the car industry. Any ballast would do to apply this steady downward pressure, but hey we have lot of batteries around so why not? Craig made a quick save when he noticed wet epoxy falling out of the back of the floor and thoughtfully lowered the boat trailer to level. This leveled out the pour, but there was still some voids that Craig filled by hand while the epoxy was still wet. While we wait on this to cure we have tackled a few other projects around the boat and are feeling good that our 'to-do' list is shrinking by the day. Here are some of the side repairs: Fiberglass Belly Band Fill Voids around the tower mounts Repair cracks in the cabin bulkheads Finish leveling the side seats This has been one busy week but we are stoked about the rapid progress. This week we will be finishing the gunwale repairs and tackling the last rotted element: the rear gunwale and deck. We should be able to apply everything we have learned to-date on this, the final repair before spraying our base layer of gelcoat. Comments are encouraged and welcomed. Stay tuned! April 5, 2013 - Day 359 Hey guys and gals. It's been another busy week and we are really on a roll now. Little taste of Costa pulled up to the bar next door, and the office staff in CR got a kick out of this picture. We were excited to remove our battery ballasts to find that our new wood has indeed adhered to the gunwale floor. The next step is to pour epoxy resin mixed with phenolic microballoons to fill up the voids between the new wood and the old hull. This epoxy sets up slow and (with the microballoons added) has a paste-like consistency. This makes it easier to work with than straight liquid epoxy. While waiting out the 48-72hr. cure time Craig busied himself with a few nagging repairs in the cabin and around the exterior. When working with slow-curing material it is essential to have other things to work on, otherwise one is tempted to rush into an area that is still curing. There are still some low spots on the inner gunwale that need to be built up so Craig got into it, while very carefully avoiding the still-curing epoxy around the wood. This is a step when the details really count, and by paying special attention to the corners and seams we are hoping that our final layers of fiberglass mat will set up smooth and flat. Once these low areas are built up we can form the new gunwale lip and lay up a few sheets of woven roven to finish the side gunwale repairs. April 11, 2013 - Day 365 More updates at the FishingNosara Blog or Florida Sportsman Boat Building Forum.
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