Wow, today kicked my butt. I'm not really a welder, but I've always had a welding machine and I like making metal puddles, but today was a lot of welding! In order to put the back section of floor in, i had to build the bracket that holds the rudder on one side and the piston on the other. And then something I started doing a couple of boat back is I also weld a bottom part onto the bracket that has two screws through the hull and where the zinc goes. That way the steering piston and rudder are hard wired to the zinc and last longer. Here's what we started with, this was 2 inches wide and yesterday I welded the pieces together to make them 4 inches wide:
Then we drilled alot of holes, in the metal and the hull. I didn't put them in a straight line as I thought this would be stronger. The two ends are in the middle so they sit good, but the middle I staggered.
Here a picture of when we only had two screws mounted and we were drilling the others. I always try to drill everything in place and weld it assembled. We then went with a hole saw on the outside to take off the first layer of glass and foam to hide the nuts.
And then we actually took our time and lined up carefully the top rudder support and I welded it in place.
Then i added the bottom part where the zinc will go, welded all the screws in place and took everything off to finish up the welds. I tacked it in place, but I don't want to cook my corecell, so we had to weld it outside the boat. While I was tacking everything (with it touching the hull), somebody was spraying the hull with water, we made lots of steam.
Since I'm going to Panama tomorrow and Harold can't weld, we put in a late day. I'll post daytime pictures when i get back, but in the meantime here's some finished pictures taken with a flash
We mounted it in with really thick resin and cabosil behind it to really give it a good base, it fit pretty flush, but the putty will make it stronger. And we grinded the back of the stainless with 36 grit and cleaned it a bunch with paint thinner to make sure it got a good bond. And then we filled the outside holes with resin and cabosil also, to hide the bolts!
And now I'm home and going to bed! No pictures tomorrow as I'm out of country, but we'll post some more up here Friday!