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  #61  
Old 10-12-2018, 12:08 AM
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Man, you guys in Florida be warned. The hurricane that just hit, started here and it was nasty here about a week ago. Today another depression just started and we really only got until about 11am of sunlight and then got hit with the best rain I've seen in my 11 years here. Super high wind, just nasty weather we usually don't see. I hope this one doesn't come together and start heading north or it might be a repeat of what just happened.

But, before the storm hit, in the 3 hours of pretty weather we had, I managed to get all the console pieces cut out of corecell. We got half of these glassed as well, and all the glass cut, but the weather made me run at the end and I didn't get pictures.




And then we decided to make the back door smaller. I was going to go with a meter (3 feet 3 inches for us Mericans) but we decided it was ugly and we are going to take it down to 80cm (2 feet 8 inches in Merican). We are going with a single too instead of a double because that's just easier. We can still fit motor blocks through the door at 80cm, it'll be a little tighter, but hopefully we don't have to do that too often. This is rough, but here's how it looks now. Harold added the squares in the top corners because he wants to try a rounded top door, but if that doesn't work we'll just make it simple. He wanted to play with it, happy workers move faster so why not. I wanted square...







Tomorrow I'm headed back to San Jose to do legal BS, so I'll try to get some more pictures up here on Saturday!
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  #62  
Old 10-16-2018, 12:04 AM
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Fairly productive day. Alot of the stuff we are doing now doesn't really show up in pictures. We patched all the bad wood in the cabin roof with corecell, cut the foam to fit and glued it in with cabosil/resin. Tomorrow we'll get the final 1708 layer over it and the roof will be done. We took out the AC out of the top of the cabin so we could build the back windows. Got both windows cut, and then got the door cut too. We are going to do double doors, a single would be just too big and would be terrible to open and close. We made the top outside corner of the windows curved, I probably could have done a longer radius on the curve, but it's done and I like it so it's going to stay.




And then Harold thought he would be able to get the foam out of the two layers of glass with a router. I didn't think it would work, but he pulled it off. We took out an inch of foam core around where the door goes and replaced it with cedar so we can screw in door hinges. And then we took a half inch out around the top and bottom of the door and around the windows, where we will replace that with cabosil/resin/glass strands putty that we made. We got the wood in but it was after dark, and we started with the rest but didn't get done. There was light rain all day, so I didn't get to glass all the foam for the console. We can work in the rain, but it slows us down as I have alot of tables that aren't under the roof. And we worked on the back wall a long time. The boat isn't level, so we had to do it with all measurements. We'll get the boat level soon though, that'll make everything easier.

Here's Harold taking out the foam core with the router and not hitting the sides! Too much time using power tools...

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  #63  
Old 11-06-2018, 12:42 PM
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Having trouble getting in the groove, but we got a little more done. It's kind of like a shotgun approach right now, we keep starting things and then starting other things, I need to get more focused and start finishing stuff. We had Coast Guard inspections last week across the fleet, so that seriously slowed us down, and then we had a pair of motors blow up, and a transmission go out, and a boat hit a log. So it's been a fun week. Hopefully this week I can post some finished projects.

Here's a drone shot of where we are working. Reminds me of the happy ending in Shawshank redemption:





Here's the console upstairs for the electronics. This was from about a week ago, we've already got two layers of fairing done now.





And we replaced alot of the roof of the cabin with foam core and that is all done. The original had some sewed vinyl as a headliner. I can't do that, so we did a grid of 1 by 2's and we are going to do a thing glass sheet on the table for a headliner. We are going to angle the upper corners to put in lights and speakers. That'll make more sense when I shoot a picture. Here's the grid we did on the roof:





And I decided against my ice storage upstairs. We are going to instead just make benchs, and under the benches we are going to have our inflatable rafts and life jackets.




That is a picture from 5 minutes ago. That will all be glassed in before the end of the day though.

Harol is borrowing my crew right now working on a roof, but that should be done this week. Hopefully we can find a groove and get this boat in the water and fishing. I'm aiming for February 1st, and I have already sold a few trips, so I really hope I don't miss. When we start finishing more stuff, I'll post more pictures.
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  #64  
Old 11-07-2018, 08:23 AM
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Good looking work

We are headed to Costa Rica after Christmas and Quepos is our last stop. Was going to try for roosters one day and offshore another. You have any connections to guides for either?
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  #65  
Old 11-10-2018, 04:33 PM
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Mostly fairing lately on the boat. Not too much to show, but we get the top wrap around bench installed, we are going to have to cut out a few hatches. On the left I'm planning on putting all the life jackets and then up front under that one the inflatable life raft. We need two, one will be in the box on the bow, but the other one is in a bag.







And just being honest, I'm not 100 percent happy with how the electronics console looks. I like the idea of having a ton of space to mount everything, but it would have been prettier if I made it less wide and put it in the middle. But then it would be harder to do the cables and stuff. I stuck it on the right side, and then I'm going to make a huge area to put cables in going down to the motors and batteries so that it's easy to replace stuff quickly. If it was a low use private boat I would do it different, but I know there will be days when its dark and raining and I have to change a cable, so I want it to be easy to fix. Hopefully with everything mounted it'll look a little smaller. It's just a lot of blank space now.





If nothing else I took out several hundred pounds. Also with all the benches and everything being one piece, there are no more screws to rot the floor with. Not one screw is being used upstairs now, and everything I put in is foam and very light...
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  #66  
Old 12-01-2018, 08:15 PM
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Still doing alot of sanding. I have some decent pictures of the interior I'll try to post in a bit. But we started on the top. Used my old 2 inch crown formula to cut some plywood jigs and then line them up:







Then we put some foam on top of them and stuck the foam together with Cabosil.










Then here is the tricky part, we propped up the side so it was flat, and glassed one side. Then we flipped it over and let it be curved like the jig and we fiberglassed the other side. When we fiberglassed the second side, we pulled the foam down with thin wire to the jig. After the second side dried, you can pull the wire out leaving very minimal damage. The idea is the foam with one side glassed is very flexible, but once you glass the second side it will not move at all, and will hold it's shape very well.







And then we put some 3m microglobes on the top part to get some sanding in. Probably jumped the gun a little, I want to make the edges 2 inch thick so it look thicker as a whole, and then we need to make a bump where the radar mounts so we can hide the cable up there. We'll get that done soon. I dig through the phone and see if I can find some cabin pictures...

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  #67  
Old 12-01-2018, 09:22 PM
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I guess not too much to show. We built some benches on the sides








And then we cut some holes in the top of those benches. We don't have to be too exact because we are putting an awesome big pad on top of the benches, and then another on the wall so usually all this will be covered. You can also see we built a wire chase in the corner of the boat and then we made the top corners of the boat angled and hollow for the lights. I didn't want anything under the middle as that's a pain to get to, but the corners will be nice. We got some nice color changing LED's for the cabin, the cockpit and the bridge. We got all our LED's already from our friend Larry who has helped me a ton on this build at Yacht Supply Depot in Pompano Florida. If only Larry sold chilling plates for my fridges, I'd be set. But everything else he has! The starboard side corner wire chase runs straight from the motor room under the floor right to the controls upstairs. Should make it easy to wire this thing and change stuff when it goes bad!




Then stuck another piece of foam below the holes as door jams.




And then took the part we cut out and made doors I hate hinges, so they just sit there, but again, there will be a big pad.





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  #68  
Old 12-02-2018, 08:50 AM
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Awesome work as always Capt. One question: What do you hate about hinges?

Ok, 2 questions: Are you going to cut little finger holes in the doors to open them easier, or just grow your fingernails really long? Lol
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  #69  
Old 12-31-2018, 10:00 AM
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Wow, it's been a crazy couple of weeks, we are really working hard, and I'm taking pictures, but I can't find time to post. So this one should have probably been about 4 or 5 posts! And then Christmas, and of course I had to go visit the Alamo too (and rent a new corvette) so December was crazy. So here we go

We finally got the rear ice chests installed under the windows. I found a really good company that doesn't give me any trouble shipping to Costa Rica, and really they weren't that bad. The unit is called IsoTherm, and they are around 850 bucks for the compressor and the big element. They should both be able to freeze or refridgerate, I'm going to do one of each though. They ended up looking smaller than I wanted installed, it's weird because on the bench they looked soo big. I guess I'm just used to working on smaller boats, but either way, we'll put a big pad on top and that'll grow them a bit. They have about three inches of injected foam, plus they are made out of foam, so hopefully with the freezer element in each, they will get our beers and cokes cold!


I'm hoping they look bigger with the pad on them. That ladder is coming off of the left side, but we haven't gotten the tower built yet. We are going to climb up the tower leg and get more cokpit space.



This is a mid process shot of injecting them. We got ahold of some crummy foam, it didn't grow like foam I've used in the past. It did grow though and work, but I ended up with alot more holes.



And then we got the holes capped back up and the fairing done.



Sometimes the things that take the longest are the most unimpressive. The transom was a mess of rotten wood, a big heavy door, and no live bait area. We threw the door out to make room for a huge live well and tuna tube area. And then it took quite a bit to make the transom look normal again. I'll have to go back out and take some more pictures in a bit, these are about a week old, but this is kind of the idea




And then the tubes we did something cool. Instead of the typical PVC setup most people put in the bottom of the tubes, we left the bottom of the tubes open and 1.5 inch, and just put a short 2 inch run of pvc in the tube. But that didn't connect to anything. Then, we put them in a sealed box, one on each side, and then have a 4 by inch box connecting both sides, that we inject the water into. Here's our engineering drawing:



The idea is that the water pressure equals out and all the tubes flow the same. And, there is no PVC to bust later. That is always a problem for me, a few years in the PVC leaks, or the valves get stuck. So all that is eliminated and the flow is equaled out across the tubes. And they overflow into the live well, so one pump can do both the live well and tuna tubes.






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  #70  
Old 12-31-2018, 10:01 AM
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And then I did something which I'm sure some people won't like. I painted the boat Dukes of Hazzard orange. Besides the fact that I loved watching that growing up, i figured that we will probably catch pretty good fish compared to most of the boats around us. And then people on other boats will notice the bright orange boat next to them that is always hooked up. And when they look for me in the marina afterwards, there will only be one bright orange boat.









And then we are playing with the window, not quite right yet but closer




Then I have a different crew working on redoing the roof. Harold brought his dad out from Puntarenas to help us get finished before February. His dad wanted to do the roof. So we started by making the tube that holds the actual top. I copied the old roof, which was rotten small aluminum tubes, and we went with a big fat tube.




I believe a few posts back I showed how we got the arc on the first sheet of foam. We used the same arc formula to make the bent on the tube so it has a nice arc too, and then cut the front with the same line. Then we mounted the aluminum tube on the faom, and doubled up the foam around the tube so the tube sinks into the roof. And then the top of the roof will have crown (arc), but the bottom will be flat so that it's hollow so I can run wiring. The first picture is a roof I helped Harold with earlier this year. It's kind of the same, but not really. And then the second picture is the roof we are building. It's a process shot, so not polished and finished but you get the idea.






Headed to the shop now, i'll try to take more pictures and post more often. I'm typing quick, so I'm sure there will be lots of typos...
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  #71  
Old 12-31-2018, 10:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt G View Post
Awesome work as always Capt. One question: What do you hate about hinges?

Ok, 2 questions: Are you going to cut little finger holes in the doors to open them easier, or just grow your fingernails really long? Lol

Ha. Definitely not on the long fingernails! We usually just hit a one inch hole in the middle to make them easier to open.


On the hinges, I just can't seem to find any that make it years. I guess we use them too much, but they either start rusting, or the screws come out, or they just straight up break. I have to use them on the live wells on my 30 footers, and we end up changing them every 6 months. So on things that don't need hinges, I just don't do it. If this were a boat I was going to redo to sell, I would probably have to do things different, but for what I'm after, it's fine. And then the inside benches we cover with big pads so they will be covered up anyways.
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  #72  
Old 01-02-2019, 03:29 PM
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A little more progress. Maybe this shows how ghetto I am, we just quickly stuck some PVC inside the roof before we put the bottom on it. We are putting 4 LED color changing lights in the rood, a spreader light in the back, and then one day when I'm not so broke, we are going to add a big LED light bar up front. I'm going to do it the easy way, and bring all the cabling up through a dedicated tube right from the top of the console, and then I'll run the wires out to where they go in the PVC. Here's the tubes we glued up under the top:





Then we put the top on the thing with another layer of 1 inch foam





And then I did all the fairing, or at least put it on. We will sand it in a few minutes when it dries. The hole is where all the PVC's run to, so I can wire it once we install it.




Then, we decided to put that space to use in the cabin up front. I wanted somewhere to mount the speakers and a TV. I'm not sure what I'm going to put there still, I'm thinking either a computer with a touch screen, or a wall mounted Imac. Something that can watch videos either way. And then we'll put a marine stereo and speakers in as well. But something is going to be mounted on the right (starboard) side.













Pretty much all that is left is fairing and painting. The tower guys are slow slow slow, but I'm really hoping to get them over to the boat so i can install my top and get it all wired up. I'll try to post on here more too as I get a ton of DM's asking when the next pictures are coming!
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  #73  
Old 01-19-2019, 12:26 AM
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Sorry for the lack of pictures, it's been a day and night type of deal lately. Pretty much everything is getting close now, but nothing is finished. First thing we did was a bunch of fairing. We would paint primer on thick with a brush, sand it with 100 grit, and then use a pencil to circle any imprefections and then use body filler to fill the spots.





And then we masked off the area that we will put non slip



Then masked off the orange to keep it orange. We still haven't hit that with the final two passes of sandpaper



And then we started painting!!! Just primer, but Monday we will do the topcoat I believe







The inside too, but not the top yet as they are still welding up there. But the bridge is ready for paint once they get done welding either tomorrow or Monday.





We had a guy working on the hard top too lately. All the speaker and light holes are cut out. We are going with 4 LED color changing lights in the hard top, a pair of Rigid lights to light the cockpit when we need bright lights, and then 4 fusion audio speakers in the top, and 2 in the top of the cockpit. We will have a seperate cabin radio with 4 speakers as well, and the outside radio will have 6 speakers. I'm going with the JBL marine head units. They are the round ones, and they are really easy to connect to via bluetooth, so the customers can play music off of their phones. The inside radio will be connected to the screen also, I'm thinking about getting a big tablet or touchscreen computer so people can watch movies on the overnight trips (or I can watch movies with the kids in the slip). Heres the bottom of the hard top:



Then we started on the doors. The doors are all foam cored, except for 1 inch on the side where the hinges go. We are putting in two pistons to shut the doors so you can just pull them open and walk in and they shut themselves. We are going to put two windows in them, that will line up with the side windows so it almost looks like one big window across the back. I thought about painting the space between the tinted plexiglass black too, but I think I'll leave it white for now.




And then we did the biggest thing to improve the quality of fishing. We are taking the ugly ladder out of the middle of the fishing area. It's going to be a bit harder to get upstairs, but we are going to build something to grab onto to make it easier. I lowered the ladder part on one side (it used to have one of those ridiculously high perches). It's hard to explain, but we just cut the base off of one of the ladders and welded it onto the foot. I like how it turned out, although I'm sure there will be some that don't. The cockpit is HUGE now, and it's now it's a fishing boat.





Last little bit of fairing and paint prep tomorrow and then we'll shoot the final topcoat hopefully Monday. And then we move to the wiring and plumbing stage, but there isn't too much to wire as most of the household type of things we are taking out.

On a side note, I was thinking of putting in a 10KW battery out of a wrecked tesla to power the AC during our day trips. We could charge at night, and then run the AC all day without turning on the genset. Maybe just turn the genset on when we need to cook, and then go back to battery power. That might be a whole seperate forum post, but it's something I'm figuring out now.
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  #74  
Old 01-19-2019, 05:26 PM
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Got to spend some money. It's fun spending money on toys instead of bills.

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  #75  
Old 01-19-2019, 08:16 PM
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I was looking through my phone to see if I had any before pictures of the interior. I didn't know how much we were going to do to the boat, so I didn't take too many. Man it was soo full of rotten stuff. Here's a quick shot of the "Kitchen" when I got it, and then here is some of the rotten interior we threw away before we left the marina.




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  #76  
Old 01-22-2019, 02:49 PM
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No time to write much, but we got alot of welding done and put the hard top up top! We have to paint the hard top still, but it fits which is the hard part. We also painted all of the fly bridge and cabin inside and out, I'll shoot some pictures of that when I get back to the shop. My only complaint is I feel the hardtop should be about 6 inches lower, but I'm going to run with this and see if I like and if not we can always come back and change it after i get out of the red







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  #77  
Old 01-28-2019, 12:53 PM
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Looking great Capt. After catching up on this thread since October..... I'm going take a nap.
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  #78  
Old 01-30-2019, 12:30 AM
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Sorry, I've been doing the day shift and the night shift trying to get done, so the pictures are a few days old and that means we are much further ahead Ten guys working on the boat today, I think I have everybody in town that I would work with working on the boat. And then as a special treat, harold called his dad in from Puntarenas and two of his brothers in from Puntarenas to help with the final blitz. Here are some pictures from earlier this week!




















This is a picture of Harolds dad making the frame that goes around the outside of the Smoke colored Lexan windows. I gotta get a picture tomorrow, he mounted them today to test fit them and they are cool. We are going to paint them white, but this was something I don't know if me and Harold could have pulled off as neat. He is also building the doors to the back fridges/benches, I gotta get a picture of that too. It's another tricky project that me and Harold were dreading.




I'll try to get some current pictures up here tomorrow. Been doing the 6am to 9pm thing, so not too much energy left.
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  #79  
Old 01-30-2019, 03:03 PM
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amazed by the speed of this build! It's really in the final stretch. Any plans to make improvements to the head or state rooms? Were you able to find a rudder that you like?
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Old 02-02-2019, 12:31 AM
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I am officially fired as the picture taker. I thought I was shooting more pictures today, I don't know what happened, I looked at the phone and I only found two. Either way, I got the upstairs all wired up, got the Nav lights wired up and the front LED light strips. All the GPS, Radar, Sonar, and gauges have the wires ready to go. The guys put the ceiling in the cabin today as well, I don't know how I missed that picture. We are really wrapping up. I went in to get a date for inspection and the captian of Quepos said there was a month waiting list!!!! I almost passed out. So I took a road trip to Puntarenas today and got a date with them for next Friday (Thank God). So I have to be in the water by Thursday with full gas ready to make the 10 hour hike (I like to go slow to not burn too much fuel) Here's a picture from today, and then a picture from last night when we got done painting everything. The hard top turned out amazing, I'm really happy with it. If only I had measured out 6 foot 6 inches, but hey I gotta leave something for next year...




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