Glen-L.com

After what seems to have been inumerable designs and mock ups I have finally decided on a dash design, with help from the responses I received to my earlier 'Dash Design Dilema' thread. The photos are mostly the 'prototypes' I've made prior to cutting the actual finished pieces.

The central area of the dash has to have the old compass, for sentimental reasons, since it's been on two of the boats I've owned. It is surface mount and therefore prodrudes outwarde quite a bit, ergo I have drilled angled holes into 'wedge' shaped piece of wood to create 'collars' that space the tach and speedo outward and allow me to angle them towards the operator. The switch panel will be 'mortised' into the dash so it's face is flush with that of the dash and then the dash left and right of the switch panel will be cut off below the top of the blue tape on both sides of the switch pane.

The auxillary gauges will be mounted to a panel that will be fastend to the left side frame member of frame 4. These are water temperature and pressure gauges (to closely monitor my venerable '59 Mark 35A), and a voltmeter to keep tabs on the charging system. Since they are really only of concern or interest to the operator I decided to mount them down low and not 'clutter' the dash

The gauge mounts started out as round plugs that I had left when I cut holes into the 8:4 white oak that my trailer cradles are made out of. I then bored out the middle to accommodate the gauge body and glued two pieces end to end. Had to get creative to sand the ouside of the cylinders, so scrounged some old wheel bering races I had from a former life as a mechanic, one large bolt and some washers and I was able to use the drill press as a 'poor mans lathe' and sand the outside of the cylinders.
Currently 'tweaking' the backer board that the gauge mount cylinders will be epoxied to and 'fine tuning' the angles and fit.

_________________
This is my first, last and only boat build.

http://www.gdzipbuild.blogspot.com

I've also finished fabricating all my floatation pieces. They were 'poured' into molds and I have two pieces under the fore deck, one under the mid deck and one under the rear seat bottom. Should be plenty enough to float the 'non-wood' parts of the boat.

I used brass 'anchor nuts' designed for use in wood, but since they are primarily used in particle board I had to make a few adaptations to use them in hard oak. The first adaptation was to use a lag bolt to precut some threads into the battens for the anchor nut. The second was to devise an installation method, this was to 'double nut' an appropriately threaded 'bolt', run the anchor nut onto the 'bolt' and then use the bolt to run the anchor nut tightly into the white oak. loosen off the 'double nut' once the anchor nut is flush with the bottom of the batten and the 'bolt' comes out of the anchor nut easily. The top side of the battens will be backfilled with thickened epoxy as an additional way to secure both the anchor nut and threaded rod.

To mount the floatation there are wooden washers top and bottom, and some cut to length pieces of 'ferrules' from gutter screws that I inserted into the foam to reduce the risk of crushing the foam when tightening the nuts. I used plain old aluminium rod and used a die to cut the requisite threads onto the two ends of the rod once cut to length. Now to fiberglass and encapsulate all the floatation,

_________________
This is my first, last and only boat build.

http://www.gdzipbuild.blogspot.com

that's looking real nice, G.D. I like your whole cockpit design. The control levers at your right side, on the floor, the steering wheel on the left side, and the whole guage layout. Can't wait to see the top deck on and finished!!
Bob

Thanks Bob, SWMBO was nice and let me spend part of the holiday on the boat.

Couldn't resist posting a few photos of the rough assembled auxillary gauge unit with the finished materials.

_________________
This is my first, last and only boat build.

http://www.gdzipbuild.blogspot.com