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Iggy · **Posted:** Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:13 am

Photo's will have to wait till tomorrow folks. I got home to find my lovely wife had cleaned out the garage, moved everything around so that she could put her van in the garage. There was some hail damage done a few dozen miles away earlier in the day and it spooked her pretty badly because she has a new van and still is very protective of it.

So.. I basically lost my working space for a few days till this threat blows over. I was not a very happy camper about it yesterday.. however my boat name & engine chrome lettering FINALLY showed up in my mail so that kinda-sorta helped cheer me up. I was stuck in customs and then in the mail (thanks to Canada Post strike) for about an extra MONTH. Good thing I ordered this stuff early!

I should be back at it in another day.. and I plan on dragging my wife into the garage so she can help me (again) get back on track!

Iggy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:33 pm

As promised.. here are a few new picture of the build so far.

I've been doing some mental math trying to see if I am going to make it this season or not. I cannot paint if the outdoor temperature gets too cold at night... and that happens FAST here in Alberta. Its not the daytime highs... but the night-time lows that can cause me some big issues. I cannot heat the garage either.. as my forced air furnace that would simply cause a dust storm unless I managed to dig up a LOT of radiant heaters.

My 'list' to get done before the cold evenings are:

1. Encapsulate 2nd side of upholstery backing. (1 night)
2. Pre-encapsulate plywood deck sheets (1 LONG night, 2 coats, +/- 6 hrs between coats)
3. Cut Templates for deck (1 ~ 2 nights)
4. Cut Deck & Layout (4 nights)
5. Epoxy deck to subdeck(1 day, with help)
6. Epoxy deck lines (1 day, with help)
7. Sand Deck (1 day or ~2 nights)
8. Fiberglass Deck (1 LONG day, 3 coats, +/- 6 hrs between coats)
9. Cut & Mount Deck Trim (2~3 nights)
10. Encapsulate Trim (1 night)
11. Sand everything (3 nights)
12. Clean/prep everything (1 night)
13. Clearcoat everything (2 nights)

Thats 17 nights plus at least 3 full weekends (with help) to fit into August and early September, if I am lucky with mother nature.

After the clearcoat paint cures then weather is not such a big deal. I can reassemble / mount hardware/ wire electrical in colder weather and then pop it on the trailer for the engine mount near last.

Its going to be tight... really really tight... but I think its possible!

Iggy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:40 pm

Pictures of my rear rolling bench.. complete minus the top upholstery cushions:

Iggy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:44 pm

My top-deck mockup... note I did not use the actual width of the top deck panneling.. just some scraps with different grain directions to check to see if the white epoxy would 'bleed' into either grain ends. The pre-encapsulation did its job and there was no bleeding into the end grain. Its been sanded so the color is dusty as a result of that. 2 coats of unthickened epoxy seemed to be enough 'filler' to allow me to sand the white epoxy joints and not dig into the veneer at all.

Iggy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:51 pm

Photos of my side rub-rails. As I mentioned before, these are not the traditional 'fin' style, but rather more akin to a car door bumper. 6' long, 1 1/4" wide, 3/8" thick Sapelle lumber with rounded over edges (3/8" router) and tapered front / angled back design. I made both sides at the same time.. cutting the tapers and routing the edges over on all sides first then splitting the 7/8" lumber in half (minus 1/8" saw blade).

Iggy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:59 pm

Some photos of my seat/back plywood encapsulation. The custions will be adhered to these plywood backers with the upholstery. I am using a technique that Don @ boatcraft.com has used for quite some time. He gets bolt 'grommets'.. but not the kinds used for wood with the 'spikes' that dig into the plywood... Don say's the teeth cause water penetration issues over time. Don gets the weldable non-teech grommets. You rough them up with a Dremmel stone but (or something like that) on the inside.. then add a bit of thickened epoxy and hammer them into a tight hole. He says they hold tight and don't dig into the plywood edges over time.

Roberta Hegy · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 4:21 am

Very Nice, Ian.

Roberta

Onplane · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:51 am

Iggy,

Good stuff!

I like your pinned design. Although, I don't understand how the extra threaded rod? figures into the pin works... You have the solid rod that pins the seat in place, and then there is another rod (looks like it's threaded maybe?) that's attached to the triangle which goes to an L bracket on the intermediate frame. What purpose does this serve?

Charles

upspirate · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:39 am

It looks like a spring to hold the rod in place, not threaded rod

Onplane · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:28 am

I'll bet you're right Warren, I was going to ask about a spring to keep the rods locked as well after I posted that, and then thought hmmm... I wonder if it's actually just a spring instead of threaded rod? :lol:

Iggy · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:17 am

Yup, its a spring. The spring is there to keep the pins from vibrating out of the holes during operation.

You can also see the white tinted epoxy used to line the holes around the rods. I had some extra from when I did my deck-seam test mockup that I used to fill the oversized holes I drilled for the rods. Makes a nice bushing. Overdrill.. fill... re-drill.. tada!

The only place I am not over-drilling, filling and re-drilling with epoxy is places where there will be no threads to dig into the wood... so my seat cushion bolt holes are just slightly oversized and lined with a bit of epoxy... same with my sump outlets and a couple other spots.

Onplane · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:27 am

I wonder if you could just rough up the outside of PVC pipe, and then epoxy that into the wood and use it as a bushing in the same way? Seems like PVC pipe is pretty cheap, and that way you wouldn't have to waste so much epoxy either...

On the other hand, I'm not sure there is a common size drill bit for PVC pipe outer diameters either...

Iggy · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:33 am

I thought about the PVC pipe concept.. as well as SS or bronze pipe as a liner. Both are fine ideas, work basically in the same manner for edge protection. However, epoxy allows me to do ANY size easily.. smaller holes like the one's I made for my floor plywood.. as well as the large holes for the bench rods.. both are the same process and its really quick.

Blue or green painters tape to cover the opposite side.. fill with syringe... and if its a vertical hole then tape the open side shut after overfilling slightly. Re-drilling is a snap. And if you make a mistake or if the hole gets stripped from overdrilling... just re-fill it again and do it over!

Its really just preventative maintenance.. I think. Ask me in a few years and I will have a better idea if it was worth the effort

Iggy · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:06 pm

Another busy weekend.. long weekend!

After thinking about it for almost two years, I finally got my top planking deck epoxied down today with a LOT of help from my loving wife Trish. I would not be close to where I am tonight without her help. My daughter Nicole also provided some assistance in handing us washers and screws while we feverishly drilled and screwed down about 250 holes today.

I took a few photos of the process we used. First I made the side & center boards from the same sheet of plywood without much left over. Then I cut 1 full sheet and a bit of another sheet into 2.25" wide strips... 22 lengths, that covered the entire front and rear deck.

We used 1/4" plywood shims for setting the spacing, however we removed them and used thin/long finishing nails to act as 'rails' so we could remove the plank and drop it right back in the same spot later.

So basicallly it was cut... sand... fit... sand... fit... set nails 'around' the plank... rinse & repeat till done.

Then we removed all the planks, flipped them over, coated everything with straight epoxy first... then I floated a layer of slightly thickened epoxy around the nails and on the entire deck and we started to move all the planks back into place and screw them down between the groove lines.

On my surrrounding outside boards I decided to drill them and fill the smallish holes after I remove the screws. They will be hardly noticeable and I made sure they where evenly spaced anyways.

I will remove the screws shortly and then prep to fill all the groves with white tinted epoxy. Deck fiberglass prep will be next.

Iggy · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:08 pm

Extra pics...

Glen-L.com

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