Tire-Hanging Through-Hulls

There will be small cleats between each fitting to cleat the lines to.

View of the Boatbuilding Shed

Sweeping the roof last weekend to get ready for the rainy season, I saw this unusual view of the boatbuilding shed. Hard to imagine a 25-foot boat in there, huh?

When this is done, I’d like to build a real shop in that spot. Concrete walls, skylights, big rollup door on the street side.  220 Volt wiring for the welder and pressurized air plumbed in. Maybe a small greenhouse on the South side for solar heating and tomatoes.  I have an urge to build some small boats next   

Side Cleat Reinforcements

A lot of distractions these past few weeks have kept me from doing any big projects, so I’ve been attaching hardware and minor jobs like that.

I was concerned that a hard pull on my side cleats (like tying up with a too-short line and being hit with a large wake) might split my gunwale, so I made these bronze plates as reinforcements.  Now, any outward force on the cleat will be transferred down to the hull instead of ripping off the gunwale (I hope).   The material is 1/8 inch silicon bronze plate I bought at Alaskan Copper for this purpose.

I made a cardboard template and traced it onto the bronze plate.  I cut out the parts freehand on my metal-cutting  bandsaw, put them in my bench vise and bent the flanges over on the dotted line with a 5-pound hammer.
 

I pre-drilled the cleat holes through the gunwale, then clamped the bronze part in place and marked the big hole for the through-hull, then drilled the hole a little oversized.
 

Clamped the part in place and marked for the cleat mount holes with the drill bit I used to drill the holes in the wood. 
 

Then removed the part and drilled the holes in the bronze, starting with a 1/8 inch bit and working up the the finish size.

Checked the fit.

I ground down the corners with a 5-inch grinder and 60-grit disk, freehand.  Then sanded with the small dual-action sander, down to 220 grit.  I’m not trying for a really fine finish here – they will tarnish nice and dark soon enough.

My main concern is that I have three different metals here – zinc from the galvanized cleat, stainless bolts and nuts, and the bronze plate and through-hull.  I may look for bronze bolts to replace the stainless. At the least, I’ll put a nylon washer between the stainless nut and the bronze plate.  I need to epoxy-seal the bare wood where I drilled the holes before doing the final installation.

Added – I don’t know if this helps, but here is a rough cross-section of the area, and how I think the forces will be transferred away from ripping off that inside 1×2.

Rubrails

Installed the rubrails yesterday, and the through-hulls that the fenders will hang from.

Pilothouse Paint

Kirby Yellow Gloss paint. I’ll flatten the top coat a little.

 

 
Two more coats of this on the outside and two more coats on the inside, and I’ll be able to mount the windows!

 

Here’s my original color layout from last January. I may install the rubrail today while waiting for the paint to dry. I wish I could see the boat from this perspective, but the tent is too narrow.

Reflections in Hull Paint

Well, it took 5 coats, but I’m calling the hull paint done.  Parts of it are very shiny   Some of it doesn’t look quite as nice but I’ve decided I can live with it.

 

I added flattening agent to the third coat, which made the paint look very thin so I added very little thinner. The paint didn’t smooth out after tipping, leaving tiny ridges along the whole hull surface. I had to sand it down with 220 grit – 400 wouldn’t dent it. This stuff cures hard!  It took 2 more coats to make it look good again.

 

Sanding the 4th coat with 400 grit:

 

Stem:

 

Self-Portrait in Two-Part Polyurethane:

60-HP High-Thrust Outboard Motor Comparison

• The first three are 4-strokes. The Evinrude is a 2-stroke.
• All meet the California Air Resources Board air pollution standards.
• The Honda is new this year
• I’m guessing the steering angle of the non-Honda motors are 30 degrees
• The Evinrude is the only one in this list that isn’t a ‘high-thrust’-style motor. High-thrust motors are designed to power displacement boats.
• All of these models come with power tilt/trim

 

	Honda BFP60A	Mercury 60 hp EFI Bigfoot	Yamaha T60 High Thrust	Evinrude E-Tec 60 HP (E60DPL)
Engine Type	4-stroke, inline 3-cylinder	In-line 4 cylinder	4 cylinder	Inline 2 cylinder
Weight	259	260	248	240
Fuel/Induction System	Programmed Electronic Fuel Injection, in-line 3-cylinder SOHC	2-valve SOHC	SOHC Fuel Injection	Direct fuel injection
Alternator Output	27 Amp (Battery charging power 22 Amp)	18 Amp (225 watts)	17 Amp	25 Amps not dedicated
Displacement	998 cc	995 cc	996 cc	864 cc
RPM Range	5000-6000	5500 – 6000	5000-6000	5500 – 6000
Trim range	-4 to 16 degrees
Tilt range	60 degrees
Steering angle	50 degrees
Gear ratio	2.33:1	2.33:1	12:28	2.67:1
Special features	New in 2009		Dual Thrust propellers	No oil changes
	Easy Dock Steering – 20 degrees additional (needs additional parts)			195 fewer parts than a 4-stroke
	Rudder angle indicator			low emissions
Links	Brochure (pdf)	Specs	Specs	Crap Flash Site
	Specs			Specs

Dashboard Mockup

It’s been too rainy and humid to paint so I spent yesterday working on the dashboard design. I went ahead and bought the hydraulic steering (as opposed to mechanical) so I can add an autopilot later on if I want.    It’s a really beautiful piece of engineering. The fluid pumps are built into the steering wheel post.  Fisheries has a cutaway model – the steering mechanism has a canted plate that pushes a series of small pumps as the wheel turns. The downside is that it’s three inches deeper than I had planned for. Space between the seats and the wheel is already very tight.  It’s hard to see in the picture below, but I inset the mount 2 inches into the dash to reclaim some of the space.  This is actually my third dash mockup.  It’s hard to figure out the design until I have the actual parts that will be installed. The only things I still don’t have are the motor parts – shifter/throttle, and the engine gauges.  The navigation console will mount above the dash so I don’t need it yet.

 

Hull Paint

Meryll tipped while I rolled the first coat of black paint on the topsides. The tipping left visible streaks but I’m guessing that’s normal for a first coat of black over white primer. Halfway through, the paint started getting tiny bubbles that left white spots after tipping. We tried adding some thinner but, although the paint flowed more easily, it made the bubbles worse.  It could be that it wasn’t warm enough (65F), or that the humidity was too high. I’ll wait for better conditions for the next coats.  It took about 3/4 of a quart of paint to do this coat.

Meryll wore a shower cap to keep her long hair safe. I bought her a brand-new respirator for the job.  The horizontal line of dots in the paint are screw holes for mounting the rub rail.

The rolling box she’s sitting on has been a real back saver while prepping the hull for paint. I bought nice big casters so it’s easy to move around.

Gunnel Paint

I added my first external finish paint this afternoon.  It’s the first 2-part poly paint I’ve used. It seemed to go on well, although there are some small runs in places. I think I went a little heavy on the thickness.  I like the cream color. It should look nice next to the black hull and be easier on the eyes than white.  I think I’ll flatten the final coat a little to make it look a little more old-fashioned.  I rolled it with an ultra-fine foam roller without tipping. I think I’ll need to tip on the hull itself, to avoid runs.