Translate

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Getting the new Hull ready.

We took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather this week to make the new hull ready to splash, including some really rather unpleasant stuff.  Let me say up front, I HATE working with fiberglass, and am spectacularly bad at it.
This is Barrier Coat, a gnarly two part epoxy paint to seal the damaged hull surface.  Three coats.

Once mixed, you have about 1 1/2 hours to paint it on before it gets too thick, but it hides a host of ills.
The worst of it, though, was trying to get the propshaft out so we could address the stuffing box (the part where the shaft goes through the hull).  I wound up crawling on my belly underneath the cockpit with an angle grinder to cut off the rusted collar that once connected the shaft to the motor.

Cleaning out the gutted interior was also a bit of a challenge.
But the good news is:  we've gotten most of it done.  As soon as the temps bounce back up a little (today's a bit chilly for the paint to set) we'll do the final barrier coat and slap on some antifouling paint, and then we'll be more or less ready to splash.

Then the REAL fun starts :)

Stay tuned.  More adventures abound.

Indiegogo site is still going if you wanna lend us a hand and get some neat custom artwork.

More shortly.

M

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Making Progress

So spent the last couple of unseasonably warm and beautiful days working on the hull of the sailboat, fiberglassing over the disused thru-hulls and filling in some of the damage an incompetent soda blaster did to the poor hull.  The boat is a mess, but it will do beautifully to let us try out the electrical and drive systems. 

Have I mentioned that I absolutely suck at fiberglass?
So we'll finish doing the fill-in stuff tomorrow, then it's three coats of barrier coat (an epoxy sealant) and two of anti-fouling paint, then we can splash her.

Then the fun REALLY begins.

More shortly, and new stuff at Life, Art, Water.

M


Thursday, February 16, 2017

Quckie

Here, as promised, is a rather hurried shot of the former "Guilded Lady" which will serve as the test hull for the new boat.
Soon to be electrified
We proceed.

M

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Some Really Good News

Some really good news ( and I'll post a picture as soon as it stops raining) is that we've essentially been given a free 29' sailboat hull that we can use to test our our drive system.  I'll have to, over the next few weeks, put a new barrier coat on the hull and some antifouling paint, but this will let us do a really solid test of systems for the new boat without building and having to re-build if we're wrong.

This makes me happy.  We're still short on our indiegogo campaign, so if you'd like to participate, you can do so by just clicking here.

More shortly

M