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  #41  
Old 03-27-2018, 11:49 AM
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Ok, sorry for the late post! I found the boat, it was down under a tin roof near Panama. Took about a week of asking around and we followed a bunch of leads until one played out. Not an easy task. And then for fun, we went across to Panama without passports and got into a little trouble, but another story for another time...I knew I should have brought my passport...

Ok, so here is the boat we were looking for!








The owner was really cool. We showed him the mold we were building, and he showed us his warehouse with all the parts he plans on putting on his boat. He bought this thing for very little money from the marina in Quepos, and then took it all the way down to the glass and is starting a full rebuild. It'll be cool when he's done.

Alot of measurements that I was missing, like the overall original length, and the border height, and where the motors go, and the height of the floor in the back and over the motors, and the height of the cabin, width and height of the stringers, just lots of measurements i needed so I could start. And of course, the width in the back, which was the main one.

So we got back to Quepos, and realized that when they took this mold, they didn't go all the way up the sides because of rubber bumpers. So we need to add on a little bit to the sides. So we screwed some wood pieces to the side, and then we are making some glass laminates to butt up to them. but in the process, I realized the point of the boat is old school. Like the boat has a nice flare, but that goes away right at the nose. So we are going to cut the nose a little bit and continue the flare all the way around. I'll put some more pictures of that up in a bit. Here's where we are now:


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  #42  
Old 03-28-2018, 06:59 AM
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Keep us updated Gringo!
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  #43  
Old 04-23-2018, 12:16 PM
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Wow. I have a feeling I'm just proving how much I don't know, but here's what we've been up to! We spent a solid two weeks just body filling (bondo) the mold and sanding. And then I need my 40 feet, so we added on two more feet. The back is going to be round, so the bottom part I'm going to make a little longer, and we'll cut it after we do the transom.

Alright, here are the pictures. I started taking pictures after the main hull was already sanded, as there isn't much to see when we are sanding. We wanted the extension to be straight, so we got a bunch of 1 X 1's and stuck em on.




Then we glassed the pieces on from the back side.And then they also got glassed to each other, and it really firmed up nice.




We really could have used a good carpenter. We are kind of the "measure once and cut 4 or 5 times" type of carpenters. But we really got the rythm down after a few days of cutting and throwing wood away!



ANd then we painted everything with resin so that the new glass won't stick to it (wax and PVA coming too, but before we do the mold)



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  #44  
Old 04-23-2018, 12:16 PM
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Then we just body filled the holes and did some more sanding and a heck of a lot of measuring. Everything looks perfect, I'm super happy with how everything turned out.





And that is a wrap until June. We wrapped everything up in plastic. The other boats I have, that are fishing and paying for this project have alot of down time in May, so we got to refurbish and fix some small stuff before the tourism peaks again in June. I guess they mostly paid for this project, thanks everybody who sent me boat building money! Completely appreciated and hopefully you guys will come fish with me so I can pay you back! Anyways, that is a wrap until mid June, we are buying glass and resin now and as soon as we get enough we'll try to get the thing laid, maybe in 2 or 3 days (or longer/shorter? I have no idea) I'll post tons of pictures of us laying up a new old bertram soon!
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  #45  
Old 04-23-2018, 01:20 PM
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Very impressive ! Keep up the good work and reports ! thanks
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  #46  
Old 08-19-2018, 09:29 AM
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Not the best picture, but it means we are getting started again. We had alot of trouble at the other yard, he was involved in stuff we are not involved in, and it was getting a bit out of hand. So we decide to move yards. This yard didn't have a roof, so we bought some metal and we are going to build a barn! Those poles are 25 feet high, so that we can also pull our boats under there to paint them if it's raining without taking off the tower. The 31 mold is getting sun baked as well, and it's getting damaged a bit, so this week I'm going to have somebody fill all the holes where we supported the boat, and then we are going to microsphere the whole thing and gelcoat the mold.

I'm on the fence on doing the big (40) or little boat (31). There is a nice Hatt in the marina that is a 41 footer, and the owner has just had a really tough time with managers and it's way behind on it's bills. He bought it so he could fish with his family, so I think it'll work out for him if I get the boat, fix it and keep it ready to fish and then let him go out when he wants to and I charter it when he isn't around. We'll see how that deal goes, it need some work too so those pictures will probably be going up here soon.

Either way, it seems like I have everything just about caught up and should be able to make some types of posts soon!

Here's a picture of the roof as it stand now, should be finished next week!




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  #47  
Old 08-19-2018, 08:17 PM
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Glad to see an update
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  #48  
Old 08-21-2018, 05:53 PM
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Well, it's slow but we are started. I got a call from Harold that his brother needed a job, and since the resin was evaporating out of the glass from not being overcoated, I put Harold's bro on sanding the 31 mold. It looks like I might be closing up the take over of a 40 footer in the marina hopefully soon, so I'm going to move on the 31 first. There are a couple of 31 berts in the marina, and they just have really been catching my eye lately and something about building a new classic just sounds like fun. And it's only 31 feet, so it wouldn't be such a crazy project. So I think that's where I'll start. The other mold is probably going to turned in a commercial boat at this point, but I'm good with that. Anything could happen with the bigger boat still though as neither myself nor the guy building the commercial boat have funds yet. If I don't build the 40 now, I'll definitely do one next though, it just might not be that mold.

Here are the pictures of the mold after Harold's brother sanded it it. He is starting of the fairing up top and probably tomorrow or the next day will be sanding the whole thing. There were various points where the jacks were, so we got all the holes in the mold sealed up, and then cut off the edges so it looks more presentable. We still haven't gotten the final cut down the center, but it's progress.


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  #49  
Old 09-08-2018, 07:01 PM
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Well, this week is that week of the year where i take out my 1983 coldmolded Gamefishermen and start poking the bottom to see how bad we beat it up. This year I found a good one! Oh the joys of owning a wood boat! But man it raises fish, and we'll be done in about a week or less so I guess I can't complain, but man this was the worst wet spot I have seen so far...

Here's what it looked like when we took off the layer of glass on the outside:


Bill106 puts this 1700 biaxial kevlar on the bottom of his boats. This is what he prevents...I sure wish I could get that stuff here..

Anyways, so we took out the bad wood and then are opening up each layer a little bit bigger than the last. Tomorrow we will put removable jigs/ribs behind the damages spot and then put some laurel wood in there. This boat has 3 layers at 1/4 inch ish. Today i had to make a trip into the mountains to find a farmer that had laurel in the top of his barn that was dry. Anyway, here is the MASSIVE hole we made in the bottom of the boat today. This thing has a trip next Friday, this is going to be close...


And then while it's out, we are changing out some tubes in the tower. Since we don't have enough to do with the hull. But I'm really happy with how this is looking, the original tube was 1 inch and was always breaking, so I got some nice thick walled 2 inch tube from Western Extrusions in Florida (the only company that will deliver to my freight forwarder) and so we are going back with twice as thick new tubing.




And then we did a little bit of work to the Bertram Hull too. Got most of the fairing done, and then I remember that we took the mold from below the aluminum bumper, so i lost 2.5 inches. So we setup little sticks and we are going to make the mold 2.5 inches taller so it's like the original. Here's a couple pictures of that progress...



An something extra the original didn't have, we are offsetting the hull where the guides go. Should pick up at least .1 knots, right? Either way, smooth is better and it doesn't cost anything extra. I know most boats nowadays do this, but the original did not.

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  #50  
Old 09-10-2018, 01:38 PM
OwenRiley OwenRiley is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GringoJohn View Post
Well, that's half a boat mold!



So we demolded, and then got a bunch of drums, set the mold on the drums and rolled

it away!











We spent the rest of the day putting on more PVA in the bow string and on the bottom.

Tomorrow we start the other side!
this is very impressive
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  #51  
Old 09-15-2018, 10:08 AM
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Here's the hull patch. This is when we cleaned up the hole:



And then we made a frame to stick the wood to



Here is after the first two layers:



And this is after the third layer. The middle layer has opposing grains, and all the layers are stuck down with cabosil/resin mix, and we screw them in with weep holes, and then pull the screws and fill the holes with the same mix. And then we took out the frames from the back.

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  #52  
Old 10-04-2018, 01:04 AM
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Ok, this post is going to take a left turn. I got the 40 footer from the marina. Monday I signed away my life to the marina for this thing! I have until April to pay off everything this boat owes to the marina for being there the last two years and making no payments. So as soon as we signed the paperwork, we jumped in the boat and pulled the boat out of the water. There was nasty current in the estuary in the first picture, I hadn't driven a twin diesel boat, all mine are singles, so it was a trail by fire I don't know if I like the keel on this thing, I always imagined they would turn better, but either way, we made it.




So we take it out and then we got on it right away and chopped the tower down. I didn't see the point of leaving the super high tower (think lightning rod) on the boat, so we decided we will just leave the fly bridge. Here's some process shots.




And then we parked it under the big roof we put up two weeks ago. The roof worked out perfectly, it fits right in there with the flybridge and roof, and we can completely finish the rest of the boat in the SHADE! I love shade, and no rain. This is going to be easy!

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  #53  
Old 10-04-2018, 01:07 AM
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Alright, so here is the plan. The boat looks old, and we can do better. So what the plan is, we are going to copy the windows on a friends boat, called the Pescadora. it's a 40 foot Ronin, and it has the same "hat" style fly bridge, so i think I can make mine look almost identical to this one



Then I hate the back of the boat too. It has an AC and fridge instead of rear windows. I wish I had pictures. But when I'm done, I want a pair of nice windows, a big wide door in the midle, and all plexiglass in the back so that from inside we can see what's going on in the fishing area. And then I want two ice chests that double as seats right below the window. I want something like this, but without the two extra chairs.



And then I want to make a hard top out of DivinyCell. And then the most fun is I want to add a bunch of LED's. I'm thinking green LED's, but I'll probably buy adjustable LED's so we can change if it gets boring. The marina wants us to do something cool looking and they are going to park the boat right in front of the restaurants, that was part of the way they gave it to me. I love the green LED's on the bottom pic.



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  #54  
Old 10-04-2018, 01:08 AM
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I'm in a first aid class this week, so we aren't working as fast as I'd like. This was Tuesday, we just got some hammers and a pair of sawzall's and started taking out the old stuff.







This was Monday while we were waiting on the paperwork to get the boat out of the marina. That was the rotten kitchen. The roof leaks and it was nasty so it's all got to go.

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  #55  
Old 10-04-2018, 01:10 AM
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And here's some pictures from Wednesday (today). We got all the windows out. This was really hard honestly, all the frames had corroded screws with weird square heads, and it was a nightmare getting them out. And then they were all glued in. It was just tough.



And then the reason the inside of the cabin was so nasty is there was a water leak in the floor of the flybridge. On striping down the interior, I learned (and also larry (tht member who has helped me a ton) told me) that the cabin is all balsa cored. i thought it was completely rotten, but there were only three smaller areas that were rotten. We will get all that sanded tomorrow and put some divinycell in the hole hopefully tomorrow. Here are some pictures. Yes I cut the back wall of the cabin halfway out....







A good surprise. I was going to rip out the whole back wall of the cabin, but after I started cutting I found out that the back wall is foam cored. I am blown away that Hatteras was that far in front of the foam cored tech, this has to be one of the first foam cored boats. Larry (my THT hatteras guide) also let me know the bulkheads are probably cored too. This boat is actually going to be fairly light for it's size. Here is a picture of when I discovered the back wall was divinycell.



And I wish I had a before picture. We bulldozed the whole upstairs. It had a 1 inch plywood console with a trillion switches and things, and I don't know that any of them worked. I am going to simplify this alot. For as impressed as I have been with the rest of the build, I don't know why they put a 1000 pound console upstairs with uncured plywood that absorbed a ton of water. There were cable everywhere, half of them hooked up half of them rotten. It's easier to just start over. Going to make a cool console upstairs, all foam cored and just what I need without all the switches and lights. Don't have a before shot, but this is the after.





Well that was the first two days of work. My last day of class is tomorrow (it's been a one month course), so next week it's going to look like we supercharged the build. I'm feeling the pressure so we are going to get this thing together quickly!
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  #56  
Old 10-05-2018, 07:14 PM
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Those green LED's do look great. The full moon isn't bad either.
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  #57  
Old 10-05-2018, 08:24 PM
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Yeah, we really didn't get much done. We built this roof to work under, and it works great when it rains, but there was some type of tropical disturbance Thursday and Friday and the rain was completely horizontal. And that passed today around 3pm, so we pretty much only got to work from 3-6pm today. But we did get a little done. I need more storage space on the boat, and it has NO ice chests really. I am going to build two below the back windows that are going to double as seats, and then a wrap around up top that is going to double as a bench, but I'm going to extend it into the area up front so that the ice chest is bigger than the seat. And while cutting this, for some reason hatteras stuck down plywood all the way around the bridge "hat". They did that so they could put those dang square headed screws in. We took ALL the screws out this afternoon, and then took out all the plywood, and we are going to make everything solid. I don't see any reason to have a boat that comes apart, so I'm going to lay some good glass in that corner and make the thing solid. And then with the bench in place, the vertical divinycored side of the seat will make the floor strong. Right now there is a little flex with the dry balsa. Hopefully we can get a full day in tomorrow, it's supposed to be pretty...

Here's the destruction we did upstairs today. The cut is going to be the seat height, and the ice chest will extend towards the inside of the wall. On the left we are just doing life jacket storage, up front we are going double walled and poured in foam, probably 3 inches, maybe four. Have to measure and see how much I can put. I don't want an ice machine because I don't want to have to fix the ice machine. So I'm hoping to hold enough ice for a few days to go to the fads. Somewhere to put all the food and drinks. That's the idea now, subject to change...



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  #58  
Old 10-06-2018, 11:30 PM
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Nasty day. We got everything upstairs sanded, sanded all day and tomorrow we are going to come in for a couple of hours and glass the top on. I really don't like how they did the top. Just alot of plywood upstairs, and the only point of it was so they could screw in the top. I guess that is faster than just glassing it on. But all the plywood upstairs was rotten rotten, so the top was just sitting up there. I'm glad I took it apart, it really could have just slid off into the ocean. But it's going to be solid now. All one piece. Here are some of the pictures of the ENORMOUS amounting of sanding we did today. We spent some time downstairs today working on window ideas, and just taking stuff apart. But the only thing worth taking a picture of is the sanding...

​​​​​​​










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  #59  
Old 10-10-2018, 07:57 PM
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Looking great Capt John
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  #60  
Old 10-11-2018, 01:59 AM
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Found a cool program on the web called TinkerCAD. So, I measured all the electronics and made a drawing of the center console we are going to build tomorrow. I made a few, it'll make it easier to build in steps. Going to use all PVC foam and then glass is. The last two are hopefully the finished product. The blue divider in the middle is to put a piece of plexiglass on the right covering the top 6-8 inches of the radar and sonar and gauges so they don't get as wet. On the left, that is the GPS and the VHF, so I'll leave that uncovered so it isn't irritating to use. The radar and sonar once they are set you don't have to fiddle as much.











And then in actual work we had a decent day. We got the front windows glassed in, inside and out. I didn't get a picture of the inside finished, but it should be dry by now.











And I didn't get a good shot of this either, but we are moving the door to the middle. That'll make it where we can have two equal sized benches on either side of the door. We are going to make the door a double so that we can get motors through it when we have to.




Here is the goal for the back again after we get done:




And then we got rid of all the nasty screws they used to put everything together with, sanded a few inches on either side and then double 1708 to make it all one piece.







We'll see if I make progress tomorrow on that console...
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