Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 9:23:52 GMT -5
Designing and fabricating the seat. A lot of thought was given to cut out the center deck and move it back 2 to 3 inches to gain extra room for seating. If the boat was going to be used in a real race scenario, the center deck would have been cut out and a single racing seat installed. That's not the purpose with this one. I want to drive it like a race boat but still be able to accommodate a passenger. 98% of the time I'll be the only one in the boat. In the end it made sense to leave the center deck where it is. I wanted a comfortable seat setup with the capability to easily remove it when working on the boat. Decision made, go with center steering and a bench seat. The seat base is made with 3/4" plywood. The seat base angle, front to back is identical to the original seat brackets that were in the boat. The seat bottom is hinged creating some minor storage space under the seat. The seat back is secured to the center deck support with 1/4" bolts a t-nuts. The seat back is hinged to the seat base with stainless hinges. Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 9:34:41 GMT -5
Mounting the control box. Wanted the control box handle to be even or slightly below the side deck. Fabricated a control box board with several layers of plywood attached to the coming with 1/4" stainless bolts. Also wanted this setup to be removable if needed so didn't want to have the control box board fiberglassed to the hull bottom. Solution, 1/2" aluminum angle bracing the control box to the seat base. Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 9:47:51 GMT -5
The seat back would have 2" foam, the bottom 3" foam. The seat base hinged forward to access the storage compartments. With the control box in a lower position on the side, had to trim the angle of the sides of the seat base ensuring the seat would clear the control box when lifted. Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 10:26:32 GMT -5
Completing the seat fabrication. Professional upholstery or DIY? If the boat was a true show boat, professional upholstery all the way. But since it's not and I'm a DIY'er, let's see what happens. Ordered foam online from BestWay Foam (Foamcraft, Inc). 797033-P1845.3 - Seat Max 1.8 LB density upholstery foam - 1 sheet 3" x 24" x 82" Firm (45 LB IFD) 797029-P1845.2 - Seat Max 1.8 LB density upholstery foam - 1 sheet 2" x 24" x 82" Firm (45 LB IFD) 797025-p1845.1 - Seat Max 1.8 LB density upholstery foam - 1 sheet 1" x 24" x 82" Firm (45 LB IFD) Ordered the 1" foam in case 3" on the seat base wasn't thick enough to absorb my weight in rough water. Turned out the 3" works great. Ordered the marine vinyl from Albrights Supply. Went with a slightly off white color with grey tones. The color works nicely with the paint scheme. Used stainless steel staples to attach to the seat wood. Also added a beer holder, oops I mean drink holder attached to the seat base with 1/2" aluminum angle. Works pretty good. The seat base is attached to the floor with screws and aluminum angle. 2 layers of 3/4" Okume were glued together forming a 1 1/2" tall block that was epoxied to the floor. This supports the seat screws without puncturing the sealed floor. Removing the seat from the boat is fairly easy, remove 3 bolts in the seat back under the center deck, remove 8 screws in the seat base, and remove 1 bolt in the aluminum support to the control box board. Attachments:
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Post by badger on Mar 8, 2021 10:31:42 GMT -5
Thanks a bunch for the detailed info about mounting and the jackplate as I'm there..wedges ect great job on the documentation. I have taken tons of pic's during the last 2yrs. getting closer everyday!
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 10:42:59 GMT -5
Funny side story purchasing rivets from Fastenal, at least I thought it was funny. I drove over to the local Fastenal store to purchase two different sized rivets. I hadn't been in the local Fastenal store before so it was a first for me. Personnel were extremely helpful. Told them what I wanted and they directed me to the shelf with the rivets. Found what I was looking for except the box quantities were either 500 or 1,000 if I remember correctly. Asked if I could get 30 of each as I had no need for 500 or 1,000. Nope, the store only sold in box quantities. What, are you kidding? Drove back home. Went online to the Fastenal website where it let me order a quantity of 30 each with free delivery to the store. Ordered and received a call the next day the order was ready for pickup. Drove back over and picked up the order.
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 11:32:17 GMT -5
Hi Badger, again thanks for the comments. Like you I've taken tons of photos throughout the process. The challenge with the curved transom was I couldn't find any pre-made wedges that I could cut to fit. My brother came over one day with a solution, make a custom fit wedge out of composite material. Cool. He did the measuring and calculating determining my transom had a 1/4" difference in a 4" length. The composite material we used for the wedge is a solid piece of 5/4" composite deck board. Got the table saw out, made the cuts, and smoothed the cut marks with the grinder using 36 grit. This was done before the jack plate came into play. We drilled the wedges for the motor holes and mounted the motor to the transom for test fitting. Dang near perfect the first time. Understand though my brother does custom boat work for a living so this was second nature to him. It would have take me days to figure out. Here's a couple of pictures of the wedge. The length across is 4" to matching the jack plate width. The depth of the wedge is 1/4" at the inner and 1/2" at the outer. In the picture taken from the top down view there's a gap between the wedge and jack plate. As you'll see from the side picture it's the way the jack plate was manufactured. Hope this helps. Note: Because its a 70 hp and its not running extremely high speeds, the composite material works fine. If it had higher horsepower with much higher speeds I would have looked at getting the wedges fabricated out of aluminum. Attachments:
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Post by badger on Mar 8, 2021 12:04:42 GMT -5
That's a great shot went to Vances site feeling it!!
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 13:15:40 GMT -5
Glassing in the engine well. Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 13:22:42 GMT -5
Foot board and hot foot. The foot board design was copied from a member on Scream and Fly documenting his rebuild of a 13' bullet. The hot foot is the model with the cable linkage at the top. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 13:26:14 GMT -5
Center deck support to floor. Wanted something similar to the original design. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 13:34:21 GMT -5
Fabrication is finally done, moving on to the deck. The gelcoat on the deck was a mess. Grinded some of it down and sanded the rest. Faired the transom too. Finally Butters is ready to head for paint, or so I thought. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 13:59:18 GMT -5
Wow it's amazing. It's now December, 2019. I've been working on her for 3 years. When time permits of course. My brother offered to paint her at his place. For frame of reference we live 2 hours apart. Hauled Butters to his house, dumped it off the trailer in his yard, flipped it and moved her into his garage. There's a big difference in a novice looking at a hull bottom and a professional looking at it. All the work put into fairing and straightening the bottom was good but his eye said there's more to do before she's painted. He had some type of finish fairing compound that I'm not sure what it was. Looking at the picture you'd swear it was Bondo but it's not. More sanding, Yipppeee! It's astonishing he could see the small dips and valleys that I couldn't. Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 14:15:55 GMT -5
A major milestone is reached, primer and paint the bottom. I'm not going to bore you with the details of screw ups we did. Let's just say we tried a different primer and paint combination (a cheaper brand) that didn't work out. It wasn't the paints fault, more so the two operators applying it. More sanding yet again, Yipppeeee! Switched paints to a proven product and one my brother uses a lot, Awlgrip Awlcraft 2000. Primed the hull, applied a guide coat, sanded with 320 then paint. Let the paint cure for a couple of weeks, carried her out of the garage, flipped her and back on the trailer. Forgot to mention previously before painting, a new bow eye was installed approx. 10" below its original location. The new location fits the trailer better.
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 16:38:31 GMT -5
My apologies if you happen to have looked at this thread previously and noticed a few photos disappeared. Apparently I exceeded the threshold of allowable attachment space. Went ahead and reduced the number of photos posted in order to get to the finish line.
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