It’s been a bit quiet on the “attention-whoring” side of things this week. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing boat stuff. I just haven’t been to the boat. I’ve been doing various little jobs in any free time I’ve had. In no particular order:
- I have finally finished making all the backing plates for all the massive cut out holes in the boat. Barring the discovery of any more holes I think the “Every Hole is a Goal Family” is now complete. You can tell I am getting better at this fibreglass thing. Not perfect but it’s getting there. This will stand me in good stead for when I actually repair the holes the backing plates are for. Whether these will actually do what they’re intended for I have no clue. If not it’ll have been a coloosal waste of money, time and frustration.
- Slot Gob
- Liar Liar
- Port Bullet
- Star Bullet
- Whilst I have been making the backing plates, I have been doing some experimenting with any leftover activated resin. But let me take a quick step back first. A few visits ago I removed the dashboard from the boat, with the aim of replacing it. Which I have to some degree. I’ve bought some plywood which will be cut down to size to replace the old one. There’s a plan for the dashboard which I’ll get to in a bit. Marine plywood is fuuuuuucking expensive, and I don’t have the budget to purchase it en masse. Instead I went online and researched whether there was a way to seal normal wood for use on boats. The general consensus as far as I’ve managed to work out, is to apply an epoxy resin to the wood in question, which should do the job. With this in mind I have been applying any left over resin to an old locker cover to see whether it’d do the job.
- I’ve been working on drawing up plans for each of the little side-projects I need to do. I’m doing it via Power Point, because it’s easier to format and add illustrations. More importantly you can export as a PDF. Which is what I want, so I can stick them up around The Meth Lab. This is very out of character for me, as most of you will know. He’s actually trying to plan things! These are still a work in progress. There are currently 25 slides, which still need a lot more detail adding to them. Here’s an example of the type of thing I am trying:
- The dashboard. As mentioned earlier, I removed the old dashboard with the aim of replacing it like for like. If you recall it was a red faux leather covered piece of plywood which was screwed into the pilot’s side of the cockpit. I’ve gone out and bought a piece of plywood which I am hoping to:
- Cut to size – there’s a delay to this because I am petrified I will fuck it up. I may enlist Zed to cut this for me. I’m bound to cut it skew.
- Seal with resin as described above.
- Cover in faux leather – Colour to be decided upon, but I’m headed for white.
- Fit hinges the top half of the plywood – This may not be a permanent solution. Way back when I wrote So What’s the Plan Stan? I mentioned that at all times I had to keep in mind that there are multiple projects on the go, and allowing the dashboard to be lifted open would help with access to any electrics that needed fitting.
- Fit tension clasps to the bottom half of plywood – Again it may not be a permanent solution. This is to lock the dashboard in place when closed.
- Add rubber seal around the inside border of plywood – Still may not be a permanent solution, but this is to seal off the dashboard and with the help of the tension clasps should keep it water-tight.
- Here’s what the dashboard cut-out looks like without the cover. I think I may tidy it up so it’s at least straight and square. I’m guessing that one-eyed Casper the ghost shape is, is where the steering wheel gets attached. In a previous post I mentioned that I’d forgotten to fill screw/bolt holes which were covered by tarpaulin. Those you see here, have subsequently been filled and sanded.
