Blue walls

Well, we have blue walls... at least the first coat.

Since our last update, I've been busy making smaller pieces of plexiglas out of larger sheets. I had never tried to cut that stuff before, but a metal cutting blade (fine teeth with little set) in a jigsaw does a great job. One note is that this stuff can really scratch pretty easily. Be careful of getting "sawdust" under the jigsaw skid plate.

I've gotten the 6 side windows cut, more painting and trimming on the frames done, and the "glass" mounted. Came out fairly well on most of them.

Well, as fitting for a Mother's Day, yesterday was is the two year anniversary of the start of my build, and we're still going.

May 10th, 2007 I ordered the plans with a bit (well, maybe more than a bit) of trepidation. A few days later they arrived and I started figuring out how this thing would go together.

Many home boatbuilders seem to be master scroungers. They can find cheap and free materials all over the place.

Well, I guess its not really in my nature, although I'm getting a little better.

In the last couple of weeks, I've managed a couple of good scores. In one instance, I happened to be at Lowes for something else and wandered down to find their plexiglas/lexan display. Was checking out prices and stuff to try to figure out how I was ever going to afford something to put in those window frames I've been working on.

Sorry about the dry spell... things have been busy.

Since last time, the exterior changes have mostly been sanding and filling, painting around windows, and the big one, the installation of the sampson post. This is the forward "bollard" to use with the anchor or whatever you need to tie off.

After the grass side deck fiasco, I've spent a while sanding that off. Then we used the truck bedliner material and coated both side decks pretty well. This looks good I think, and is tough as nails.

I have moved on to more window work. Got the frames routed to allow for the insert of the glass (actually Lexan or plexiglas).  Don't look perfect, but I think with some epoxy filler, we'll be ok with them.

Got the new cabin sides planed flush with the roof and sealed the seam with epoxy. While that was tacky, put on a layer of fiberglass tape with thin epoxy. This is the same construction that the hull chines have. I hope it is similarly waterproof. Well, thinking about that sentence, I really, really hope the hull chines are waterproof. That will be a much bigger issue than the roof if they aren't. This should strengthen the cabin significantly (although it already seems rock solid).

The last couple of weeks have been involved in reworking and adding to the cabin sides.

I got 5 more sheets of MDO delivered. I'm going to use it to replace the cabin sidewalls that I have in place. One side is "ok", but not great. The other is warping and bubbling up. You can't seem to get decent 1/4" ply around these parts. 1/2", 3/4", no problem... but any 1/4" I find doesn't hold up.

Man, sometimes things are really good in the boatbuilding world here.

One update is getting the the starboard side window frames to have their "top curve"... that went fairly easy.

Window frames

As I mentioned in the previous post, some of my "progress" is sometimes in the negative direction.

After a bunch of our rain in the last couple of weeks, I've discovered I have a few leaks. Not from above, but below. Not where you want a boat to leak (is there really anywhere you want a boat to leak?).

After a rain/pumping session, I got to looking at the keel a bit, looking to see how the temperature changes were doing on the seams and found a problem. Actually several.