Starting to look like a real boat

Huge update today. Ira and our friend Josie came out and helped me get the floor in and the boat off the trailer. By the end of the day we had accomplished both tasks as well as getting the engine painted. As usual, it was messy, smelly, itchy, and all around unpleasant. It was nice having friends help.

First, while Josie and I prepped the wood, Ira sanded and cleaned the engine shaft for paint. fortunately for me and the engine he has much more patience for this kind of minutia than I do. He painted it with two coats of Moller engine paint. It was labeled to be the same color as the engine was originally. It, of course, was not. It's much more of a darker almost gun metal blue. So the engine is now two-toned which would normally bug me but it actually looks pretty good.

Hard to see in this light but the difference in color is pretty distinct.


We started the floor by laying in the center piece Dad and I prepped a couple weeks ago. Last week I had laid in the bow piece. With the top still in it was a pain but I was able to successfully seal the edges and get it glassed in fully. Unfortunately in my haste and excitement to lay in some flooring I neglected to make sure it was strait. as a result when I placed the center piece it wasn't square and there was a sizable gap. It's not the end of the world just kind of ugly.

This is the bow floor piece with its glass skin on pre-installation.

So after prepping, trimming, sanding, resining, and dry fitting the pieces we laid them in. First Josie screwed them down with stainless steel screws and sealing the holes with 3M 5200 fast cure. Then I spent just under an hour in my socks fiber-glassing in the whole floor. Much of the side tabs were bubbled up and extremely difficult to get in with the CSM tabs I had brought around from the under side. This seemed like a good idea at the time but turned out to only cause problems. As a result there are a few sections on both sides that didn't laminate properly and will need a sand down before painting. Again, not the end of the world, just a challenge.

NEW FLOOR! You can see the bubbling glass along the edge, I'll have to fix that once it's back on the trailer.

While the glass on the floor hardened we lifted the boat off the trailer. Originally I had intended on building my own stands to save money. Then my Dad came up with a much better solution. He called his buddies at Master Marine in Mt. Vernon, they have worked on the boat every time it needed any engine service. They were kind enough to loan us some proper boat jacks, two for the stern and one for the bow. We rolled the boat out a touch on the trailer then Ira and I lifted the stern while Josie pushed on the bow. This was to get the requisite 2' of stern off the trailer so we could get the jacks in. Once placed we jacked the whole rear up, clearing the trailer skids by about 1/8". Then we lifted the bow and rolled the trailer right out. All in all, this was the easiest step so far.

 Very surreal to see it off the trailer. Almost like it's flying.

As always, as I look at the trailer sitting there in all of its rusty, no working lights glory I'm daunted by the work that needs to be done

Huge day, lots done, ut as I crawled under to take a look at the outer hull I found much more damage than I would have expected. Sanding, filling, coating , and painting the underside will take more time than I expected, as usual.

Thanks to Josie, Ira, and Dad. Without them it wouldn't be a boat. Which I am proud to say it is again