Turning the ugliest boat in Costa Rica into a respectable 28' Center Console Diesel

[swamp snorkler]

Looking great Green-Go. I've been trying to convince the wife Costa Rica is where we need to take our next vacation.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Looking great Green-Go. I've been trying to convince the wife Costa Rica is where we need to take our next vacation.

Love to have you guys, fishing has been really good out here lately, right now we are in offseason for billfish, and we had 15 sailfish hooked up and released 9.

[jl8200]

Gringo John, my wife is a travel agent and she's sending some clients to Quepos and they were looking for a guide. Ill give her your contact info if you can send it to me.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by jl8200

Gringo John, my wife is a travel agent and she's sending some clients to Quepos and they were looking for a guide. Ill give her your contact info if you can send it to me.

Sure my email is FishCRJohn@Gmail.com and my website is www.QueposFishAdventure.com so she can see the boats that we have running now (and this one should be running by late January or earlier)

[jl8200]

Thanks bud...

[bobo23]

This is the coolest thread. Keep the updates coming.

[GringoJohn]

Well, we got some of the floor down. The two strips of floor by the motor we had stuck down yesterday with cabosil and then today we glassed the edges. We did a 12 inch strip on those, 6 on the floor and 6 on the wall to hold the pieces down. And then we sanded it off flush to wrap another 12 incher into the motor compartment and the bathroom to tie everything together nicely.





The front had a weird angle on it, I don't know that we did that on purpose, but we are going to build a wrap around bench up there, so you won't see the front of the floor anyways, up by the nose. But because of the angle we couldn't build that on the table, we had to glass just the bottom on the table, and then glass the top in place, and then I put another 10 inch strip around the edge for a little more strength. Got a nice resin burn on the face from that one, lots of vapor, but we got it done.





And then for some reason, we didn't make the little piece of floot that connects the sides to the front, so we are put those on the table to glass in tomorrow.



I think tomorrow we are going to cut the foam for the console also, maybe start glassing those pieces so we can get the console in place in a day or two. It's starting to look more like a boat!

[GringoJohn]

Here's some pictures I shot yesterday. It's center console time! Building the console has got to be the most fun part of building a center console boat, it's such an important part it's even the boat's first name Before I post the pictures, i have to make a disclaimer. We are grinding glass alot, and instead of throwing our clothes in the washing machine every day and getting glass on the rest of our clothes, we go to this used clothing store, and gets big sacks of clothes for a couple of bucks and then throw them away. The bag is getting empty, and today Harol got stuck with a women's shirt so that is why he's dressed like that! I had on a terrible shirt as well, but I edited myself out of the pictures!!!

Ok on to business! Here is the first drawing of the console.



I copied this off of my other 28 foot boat. We cut it out and mounted it in the boat, but I thought is was a little too tall.



So we took off 4 inches and then we decided to put a small step on the motor side so the captain can sit on the motor box and have somewhere to prop us his feet. We came up with this:



Satisfied with the design, we made a copy of it and then figured out how wide the motor box was going to be. We then cut out a ton of panels at the width of the console, one for every different face, and labeled them, for example here is number 5:



Then we made two more tables to glass on, because its a lot of pieces and glassed both sides with one layer of 1708 and they are drying right now. With the console moving forward, we went ahead and installed more of the back floor, we had already glassed the underside of this part, and since there is a little crown, we have to glass the top side in place. Here the newest section of floor:

[keakar]

this is great stuff

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by keakar

this is great stuff

Thanks!

[jl8200]

I love this thread! I think its so cool that there are people out there than can do stuff like this on their own.

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by jl8200

I love this thread! I think its so cool that there are people out there than can do stuff like this on their own.

I'm not really alone, there are two of us that are on it full time, and if you read alot, it's not as hard as you would think, everything you need to know is on the internet Sometimes being covered in glass powder is grueling though, but at the end of the day looking over what you get done makes it worth it.

[swamp snorkler]

Nice Blouse!!

[TidewateR]

keep it up gringo!

[GringoJohn]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

Nice Blouse!!

[GringoJohn]

Crappy day yesterday, we had all the console pieces laid out on the table, the day before, and yesterday we were supposed to put them together, but the resin decided not to dry. We put the pieces out in the sun yesterday and by the end of the day they were drying but still not ready to unmold. Today will be the third day on the table, we're hoping another day in the sun will get them ready to come off the table, but we'll see.





So with nothing to do on the console, we just spent all day trying to figure out the design of the front benchs. Here's what we came up with.

[GringoJohn]

We had previously finished the two sides of the console though, and then we made two of the pieces to connect the console, so while the rest is on the table drying, we figured we'd put together what we have. We put boards in the corners to hold it in place while we let two small tie ins of glass dry. The boards will come out when we are done. Here's what we have got so far today:













As soon as this dries we're going to yank out the lumber, and hopefully late in the day the other pieces will dry and we can finish our console!!!

[GringoJohn]

Had a nice super hot hour out there today with no clouds from 12 to 1, and finally the resin kicked on most of the pieces. There were a couple of spots where it wasn't drying so we just cut those sections off and cleaned in with thinner, and put all the bad places on the outside and we'll cover them with a 1708 when we do the corners. Very productive day though, i've always wanted to build a center console out of corecell, today was the most fun I've had in the shop to date. The whole console like it is now without the corner glass tie ins weighs about 30 pounds, my console on my 31 ocean master weighs about 250 pounds, so we have taken out a ton of weight! I got carried away on the pictures, i had the camera in my pocket all day.

We used these 2X4's to square everything up, and stuck everything together with cabosil and PE resin. Here's the 2X4 guides in place for the first two sections:



And then we stuck the two sections on:



And then we stuck the big board on top of the front piece, and to keep it lined up we put in three screws from the bottom while it dried. The front also had the slightest bow to it, so we straightened that up as well with some 2X4's



And here is Harol trimming up the "whisky plank" of our console



And here's the finished product. Not bad for two days worth of work (and three days of drying time on the table for bad resin! )





Tomorrow we still have to glass all the corners and cut out the door to the bathroom. I'm thinking of using the cut out for the door as the door itself, we were going to do a teak door, but the corecell door would last longer and be lighter so I think that's the route we are going to take. I hope to have this thing glassed into the boat by tommorrow night, and maybe start on the front bench?

[meaux fishing]

man i cant wait to see it all put together

[swamp snorkler]

This thread is moving along nicely.

What motor to you plan on putting in it? Maybe I missed it?