BnzFam5

Well it is Fall...  Time to start thinking about getting the Fall projects done on the boat.  The two main things I would like to get accomplished for the off season are: 1. Build a Bimini Top. 2. Build and install a removable front casting deck and mount the trolling motor. Other items I need to finish: a. Fix the Bow Eye b. Install a flush mounted horn c. Install mounting brackets for the batteries I will add more items as I think of them.

June 23, 2012 Here is another video of the boat running on Carlyle Lake.  There is a little bit at the end of me doing some tubing. I did get up on water skis.  It took 4 tries but I finally made it. 

 June 3, 2012  Much Much better day to be out on the lake.  The winds were about 5 mph and the lake was calm.  We spent about 4 hours out there today and even had to get more gas.  Sally has an app on her phone that told us that we went about 47 miles around the lake.  From Boulder to Keysport to Carlyle.  We checked out the 2 silos and went looking for the lost island.  It was a very fun day!!

June 2, 2012 OGRT is now splashed.  There is a short video of the experience.  The winds were 10-15 with gusts up to 20 and the water was very choppy so we didn't stay out for very long.  Our first attempt at trying to splash the boat ended in failure.  There was a hole in the back of the deck that used to have a mechanism attached to it and I decided not to reinstall it.  Well water came rushing in and needless to say the bilge pump I installed works just fine.  So after a trip to Walmart for a plug we were able to get the boat out on the water.

May 27, 2012 The wiring is mostly complete (Thanks Jack!).  Now all of the lights are working and the bilge pump is wired to a switch on the dash.  Also the rats nest of wires has been cleaned up in the battery area! We are now getting down to the nitty gritty.  Just the final details of what needs to be done to get us out on a test drive. I spent Sunday and Monday working on the seats and seat boxes.  One of the boxes was in such bad shape that I decided to build a new one.  I also have decided to apply Red Guard to them before I staple the vinyl back on to them. TO DO List: -Finish Cubby hole cover and install -Finish Seats and install -Clean up the cut out above the Bilge, install Bilge pump and run hose -Get Tachometer wired -Take for a test drive!!!

May 25, 2012 I took this day off of work to work on the boat.  I wanted to get the deck ready to be Gel Coated which was ordered and received. First I gave the deck a good sanding.  It had been a while since we fiberglassed so I wanted to make sure that the surface was ready to receive the Gel Coat.  After I was finished with the sanding I moved the boat outside for a good cleaning.  Using an air compressor (Thanks Jack) I blew off the deck and then gave it a good acetone wash. That pretty much took up the entire day.  I had to wash the van because it got covered with dust.  Sorry no pictures of the progress today. May 26, 2012 The deck is now Gel Coated.  The four person team of Jack, Sally, Nina and myself worked for a long time again to get this job accomplished. We took the pigment for a gallon and added it directly to the container and then took turns shaking the can to thoroughly mix the color.  I believe that it looks great!...

May 19, 2012 Another 13 hour day is in the books on the boat.  The deck has been prepped and fiberglassed.  Here are some pictures of the progress. May 20, 2012  Lined up the seat boxes so that I can glue the cleats to the floor and then fiberglass them down.  The Battery Box is on the cleat that it will be mounted to. TO DO LIST: -Install cleats for the seat & battery boxes -Fiberglass those cleats down -Gel Coat the deck -Install Seats, Batteries & Gas Tanks -Take it out for a test run!!!! 

May 6, 2012 This day I started out by installing bilge pump, then cutting a relief in the board that covers it.  I got those edges covered with Red Guard.   Nina and Kenny worked on installing the foam in the hull sections. By that time the crew was assembled and ready for final installation of the deck boards... The two pieces fit very snug against each other.  So now comes the fun part of screwing the boards down.  It sure is a good feeling to be standing on deck again and without a soft spot in the back. I ran out of stainless steel screws so Jack and Sally jumped on their bike and got us some more.  So in the mean time I gathered a few measurements and cut that last 2 deck boards that was needed. Nina packed those sections with foam and I applied Red Guard to boards that will be covering those sections.  Now everything is covered.  Cory and I have most of the new wood screwed down but that is were I decided to stop for the day. ...

May 5, 2012 1st Deck Piece ready for fitting I started the day grinding out the relief holes that I cut throughout the low points on the stringers.  That way water will be able to get back to the bilge.  After finishing that task my brother in law Jack and his wife Sally joined Nina and I to fit and cut the pieces of the deck.  The wood is 1/2" x 4' x 8' pieces of 1 sided MDO Plywood.  Since we are splicing in the deck to meet parts of the old deck that were not rotten we had to make a few specialty cuts.  It was sure nice to have 4 people working on this as 2 of us could stay in the boat while the other 2 made the cuts necessary to fit the pieces in. Piece 1 is now cut and ready for Red Guard. Here is a picture of both back deck pieces that are now cut and ready for Red Guard treatment. We finished the day with painting Red Guard (which is a water proofing membrane type paint) on the bottom sides of the deck boards and all of the cle...

April 22, 2012 I bought foam insulation boards to use as flotation foam in the boat.  Today I cut that up and put them into the different sections of the boat. They were already scored length wise in thirds so that made it easier to cut. To get them down to size I used the my reciprocating saw with the fine tooth blade.  That cut right through them very quickly. Here is the picture with the foam in place.  I want the foam to rise up about 1/2 inch so that there will be some compression when I lay the deck board over it.  That way it will solidify the hull even further. I finished up the day with sizing and cutting the cleats that will create more surface to screw the deck plates down. TO DO LIST: -Cut and attach cleats at the top of the stringers and bulkheads -Paint Cleats with Redguard. -Purchase Plywood for the Deck (2 Sheets -- 1/2" MDO) -Make patterns to use for cutting the deck wood -Cut deck wood and screw to the stringers

April 6, 2012 Started the day out with a couple of other projects that I needed to get done. So after a nice lunch, I started cutting the CSM tape to fiberglass the stringers and bulkheads down to the boat. My plan is to do 2 layers of 1.5oz CSM up on one layup. Then whilst that is curing we will cut the 1708 Biaxual tape and fiberglass that in for the final layer. April 7, 2012 The stringers and bulkheads are now fiberglassed into the boat. We had 3 people (my wife Nina joined Jack and myself) working on this phase of the project and everything went pretty smooth and quickly. It was nice to have help! Observations CSM is horrible to work with...the glass strands get all over everyone and everything!! Nina worked on pre-saturating the glass and then handing them to me in the boat. She would spread resin on one layer of glass and then put on another layer and then saturate that one. When she was finished with that she would hand them to me in the boat where I had already...

April 1, 2012 The Stringers and Bulkheads are now glued into the boat. It has been a long day. We (my brother in law, Jack came over to help) started the day by bracing the center stringer that comes out from under the bow section. Onc e that was done we mixed up our first batch of "Peanut Butter". We started with 1 cup of resin and the right amount of hardener, then about 3 pinches of 1/4 inch Chopped Strand Mat and then Cabosil to thicken up the mixture to the consistency of "Peanut Butter". It worked out pretty well. While that was hardening we went to work on scuffing the resin that was spread on the stringers and bulkheads. We wanted to sand those before putting them into the boat. That took about an hour so then it was lunch time. We noticed that the thickened resin we made was still pretty soft so we moved the boat out into the sunlight while we ate lunch. Sure enough when we came back out the resin had kicked and was already pretty solid. We...

March 27, 2012 My first experience with fiberglass resin is finished. I have one side of the Stringers and Bulkheads covered with a coat of resin. Some of the things that I observed is....it is usually a good idea to have everything ready to go before you venture out to the garage. Running around trying to gather your items before you start is tough to do. Everything's a Dollar rollers are not worth it. They will fall apart right after you start using them!! The Dollar General roller worked pretty good. I think that I will scrap using a roller pan also. I will just pour it right out of the bucket that I am using and roll it out from there. One pint was too much resin to cover so I think that I will only mix up 1 cup of resin to do the back sides of these panels. Some other thoughts about the experience. I bought a pump for the 5 gallon pail of resin and it worked pretty good. Next time I will be sure to have some extra rollers on stand by and ready so that if the one that I...

March 24-25, 2012 I spent my time this weekend sizing the stringers and bulkheads down to their final sizes. Not too much in the line of pictures because I wanted to get as much done as possible. First of all on Saturday I had to take some time and correct a stringer that I incorrectly cut to the wrong height. I cut the left stringer too high and used it and the center stringer to line up the right stringer's height. Since the center stringer is cut to the correct size that caused me to cut the right stringer short. So I had to cut a new right stringer. I still had and have plenty of wood and that was good. To finish out the evening I made the measurements of the deck area. I worked on Sunday to finish cutting everything to the correct height. The left stringer that was too high took the longest to get to the correct size. Not wanting to mess up another stringer I was using my belt sander to sand down the wood. Then I would check the height in the boat to the center and to...

March 17-18, 2012 We are really having some crazy weather around here. Last weekend I was working on the boat with long sleeves and sweatshirts and this weekend it was a tshirt and shorts. But I am not complaining though I didn't think that I could possibly be fiberglassing this early in the year. But never mind that right now I had work to do... I spent Saturday on cutting all of the bulkhead pieces. So now as far as the Stringers and Bulkheads are concerned they are now cut. I made a run also on Saturday and got the following supplies: -Chalk Line -6 small tubes of PL Glue -Caulk gun -Stainless Steel screws (I bought them out of what they had...should at least get me started) I am still trying to find 3M 5200 and a 5 gallon pail dispenser pump. Sunday I mapped out my plan of where all of the stringers and bulkheads are going to go and traced it out with a sharpie... Then I glued in the foam spacers that will keep the wood from coming in direct contact with the hull. After I w...

March 10 & 11 - Saturday morning we went out and purchased a 3/4" x 4' x 8' piece of MDO plywood. I chose MDO because it is made with waterproof glue and is for making of outdoor signs. It was suggested by the good folks at iboats forums that the wood would be great to use. It was a little more expensive than I thought it would be but I will only have to have one sheet barring any problems to be able to get all of the stringers and bulkheads cut. The first cut that I made was the center stringer. It starts off at 8" and has a curve to it at the bottom. I had to make that cut with my jig saw. Then I test fitted it in the boat. After some belt sanding it fits really well. After that I cut the left stringer. With some test fitting I found out that the right stringer and the left stringer are not the same like I had previously thought. So I had to make a new template for the right side. Once that was accomplished I was able to make the cut for the stinger and ...

This weekend I worked on creating some of the stringer and bulkhead templates. I will use those to make the cuts in plywood. I have finished the center and both left and right stringer templates. One thing I got lucky with is that both the left and right stringers are the same size. So I will be able to use the same template when I cut both of those. Next I have made the left and right front bulkhead templates and also the left middle and left rear. The hull has a concave curve to it. So I measured out the area and then I drew the curve of the hull freehand. It had a pretty big gap in it so I used a small strip and some duct tape to get the curve just right. Then I took the template with the duct tape forms and created a new template. And wa-la here is the finished product This weekend I am going to finish the other bulkhead templates and I am going to build some racking to hold the stringers and bulkheads in place while I fiberglass them.

This last weekend I did some major cleaning of the dust on the boat that was left behind from all of the grinding. I also gave the area that was ground a good cleaning with acetone. Which by the way will eat right through a rubber glove. Here is a bulk of the area that has been ground and where the stringers will be fiberglassed. I am putting some miscellaneous pictures of the boat on here. Here is the bow section. The prop that came with the boat. I believe that it is a 13-3/4 x 15. Which to me means 13-3/4 diameter and a 15 pitch. The Johnson Hood for a 1975 85hp motor. I have supplies for fiberglassing that is supposed to be here by the end of the week. Which doesn't really matter much right now since it is not warm enough to fiberglass. But I figured with fuel prices rising I would go ahead and get them before the shipping prices go up. This is a good time stop and create a list of things that I want to accomplish with this rebuilding. 1. Form out of the foam pan...

February 19, 2012 Grinding is now complete. I guess that I am one of the lucky ones who doesn't get itchy from fiberglass dust. No pictures this weekend because of too much dust and I don't want to subject my camera to that. Next I have purchased some 3/4" foam board to do my templates of the stringers and bulkheads. I believe that I will be able to get by, if I have figured correctly, with 1 sheet of 3/4" Aruaco Plywood. Also on another note my local lumber yard has MDO plywood in stock!! Both in 1/2" and 3/4" thicknesses. So I know where I am going to get my deck plywood. Hopefully next weekend I will get the boat out to give it a good washing down. I want to wash off the tarp and hang it up to dry and wash/vacuum the whole boat to make it free of dust.

Okay I have done some math on my stringers and bulkheads...let me know if this makes sense. There is 519" of area on both sides of the stringers 288" on both sides of the bulkheads So add those together and that give me 807" of total area or 67.25' or 22.42 yards. I figured that I will use 4" 1 1/2oz CSM tape for the first layer - Which uses 1.25gal of resin for a whole roll (110yards) but I will only figure for 25 yards...or .23 of a whole roll - So .23 x 160oz of resin (1.25gal) = 36.8oz of resin for the 1st layer Layer 2 I will use 6" 1 1/2oz CSM tape - Which uses 1.75gal of resin for a whole roll (110yards) - .23 x 224oz of resin (1.75gal) = 51.52oz of resin for the 2nd layer Layer 3 I will use 6" 1708 Biaxial and according to this website 1708 takes a little less resin to wet out than 1 1/2oz CSM so I will figure at CSM values: - .23 x 224oz of resin (1.75gal) = 51.52oz of resin for the 3rd layer Layer 4 will be a copy of the 3rd layer: - .23 x 2...

January 28, 2012 Does it look like I am ready for some grinding... Day one of grinding is in the books. I will call this a success. Here is the amount of area I was able to get finished: Here are some of my observations: -The safety equipment worked out great. I didn't have very much dust on me at all. -This is the time of the year to grind. 40-45 degrees outside is much better than sweating in the heat.

January 23, 2012 Well the weather just didn't cooperate with me this past weekend so I didn't get any grinding done on the boat, but I did get plastic down where I wanted to try to keep dust from getting. Also I have the tenting structure built and have pictures of those... I don't think that it looks too bad: Here is what it looks like with the tarp on in the inside:

December 31, 2011 I did get some time to do some more inspecting...I have checked the trans om and it is fine. Because I don't have any space to store the cap I am going to leave it on and work around it. I believe that I will be able to do that... Now that I have done some research I am going to remove the bulkheads and stringers from the back to the bulkhead that is under the drivers seat. Everything towards the front of that is dry and solid. There are 3 stringers and the 2 outer stringers end at that bulkhead...here is a Visio drawing of what I plan to do. January 8, 2012 Here is a good picture of what I am up against... This boat has been worked on before but it looks like there is only one thin layer of mat and the resin was just glooped on to keep the stringers up. Also the fiberglass underneath wasn't properly prepared as the "newer" glass is just popping up. It did make stringer removal very easy even though some of the wood was solid. But now a...