For anyone who's built their own boat....

Rick,
Curious, what do you use to fill the gap between the thruster tube and the hull. I know the tube gets glassed into the hull, but just wondering if do something with the gap before glassing it in.

When my thruster was done, they used a drill bit and the fit of the tube was extremely tight, this is why I am asking.

PS
everything is looking great, hope spring comes early :)

Do you have an ET on completion???

Walter
 
Thnx Flutters & Bob.

Walter, the glue used is a mix of pecan flour and epoxy. It's used as the primary glue on the boat. I've gone through about 4 gallons of pecan flour so far and will likely need more. Fairing compound will be made a similar way with microballoons, coloidal silica and epoxy. There won't be any gaps on the tube when it's glassed in. I wanted to do this now instead of after the boat is flipped. It screwed me up a bit working upside down but I managed to get it right.

I've got just under 4 yrs till I retire. It'd be nice to have this thing in the drink in two. Maybe three. I'm in no hurry and want to do a decent job of it. We've still got our old boat if we get the urge to go play on the water.
 
Rick,
Did you choose which thruster you are going to use??

When I did my homework in 2004 (things may have changed since then)
I choose lewmar (sp) for the following reasons:

Warranty was twice that of others, if I remember correctly it was a three or five year warranty.

If there was a motor failure and the motor needed to be removed, it could be done while in the water. Other manufacturers you needed to haul the boat.

Lastly, the sheer pin for the prop was in the hull and very easy to replace (matter of minutes with no motor dis assembly).

7 seasons later the only problem I have had was a sheer pin (stick was caught in the prop) and I had a bad button on the controller at the helm. Manufacturer sent both the pin (I list the spare one that came with the thruster) and controller at no charge. No questions asked, just sent the controller and I returned the old one.

As far as the quality of the thruster compared to others, doing my homework and speaking to people, my opinion was that all the major brands were the same or close.

Walter
 
A pic of the Admiral mixing up some glue. Just like mixing a cake batter.

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quote:
Originally posted by walterv

Did you choose which thruster you are going to use??
Click to expand...

Hey Walter

I would say that somewhere along the line I may have read about your, and others experiences with various thrusters. All of the reasons you mentioned in your post I used as a selection criteria.

I chose the Lewmar 140TT2.2 (3HP).

There is one other reason I bought the Lewmar. They allowed me to buy it now and will start the warranty the day I put the boat in the water. All others would have run out of warranty before I actually got the boat built.
 
If you're interested Walter I keep track of everything I've bought for the boat on a spreasheet.

http://www.editgrid.com/user/knottybuoyz/Spent_To_Date

You'll find the thruster on the "electrical" tab

I sometimes get forgetful and have to keep reminding myself what I've bought already so I try to keep pics of the major pieces on Photobucket.

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff166/KnottyBuoyz/KBIII/Inventory/?start=all

We have a blog site setup as well. Someday I'd like to put this all in book format. Maybe the grand kids will be interested.

http://she-kon.blogspot.com/
 
Glad to see you re still able to mix epoxy up into the frozen north!!

Just ordered the western red cedar for my project, next week we re going to pull the "boat" from under the patio ( not high enough to turn it there) , flip it upside down and out it back in so i can start planking. Hope to launch before snow melts in your backyard!
 
Thanks for the link Rick and glad I was able to help with your selection. It took me a long time to decide on the brand of thruster, many conversations, many hours on the internet. I don't think there has been anything I have ever bought for the boat that took so much time and effort to decide upon.

Your posts and watching you build this boat has been very enjoyable, I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Walter
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Just ordered the western red cedar for my project, next week we re going to pull the "boat" from under the patio ( not high enough to turn it there) , flip it upside down and out it back in so i can start planking. Hope to launch before snow melts in your backyard!

Click to expand...

Way to go Pascal. The flip is definitely a big milestone. Watching intently.
 
Rick;
Haven't looked into your reports for a bit. My loss; what fantastic progress! Nothing morer frustrating than listening to the cracking noise as something lets go. Great work; have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
 
Pretty much shut down for the winter Brian. Shed is too big to heat in the dead of winter. I'll definitely be back at it in March and could possibly be a full time boatbuilder this summer (job's been eliminated) so it looks like early retirement for me.
 
Putting the amazing pictures of progress aside, i'm very impressed with your level of committment Rick! I hereby promise that I won't complain about doing anything to my boat this year!! Been a while since I dropped in, after discussing your endeavor with some boating friends over the weekend at the Chicago Boat Show I thought i'd catch up on the progress! Sorry to hear about your job elimination.
 
Thanks for looking in Michael.

Looks like any sort of "golden handshake" is out of the question so I'll likely have to stick this out for another 15 or 16 months then retire. Not a bad deal in the grand scheme of things. There's a lot of other people out there worse off than me.

Looking forward to getting back to work on the boat soon. Standby....
 
The weather's starting to warm up so the Project Manager and I inspected the boat shed on the weekend.

483ffc68.jpg


He gave his "Paw of Approval" so we'll be restarting operations soon! :-)

Gotta get Wayne on the mend. I'm goin' to need help soon!
 
Rick, you get a couple Nurses over and Wayne will fall right into line behind them. He's used to that!
 
quote:
Originally posted by Thudpucker

Rick, you get a couple Nurses over and Wayne will fall right into line behind them. He's used to that!

Click to expand...

That's all I need Thud, the miss's to catch us in the boat shed with two nurses! Knowing my luck though they'd both be twin Nurse Wratchets! :-)

Anywho, it really wasn't much of a winter but still seemed to take forever to end. Spring is here but it's still a lil' too frosty (+2 deg C) to do any epoxy work. So I puttered around the shed figuring and planning next steps etc.

What we're looking at here is the upper bulwarks of the hull. It's a separate part that gets glued onto the hull. Stations on the frames locate it properly. I ran into a little issue with a fairly large gap developing when I lined up the ends of the panels.

7c081741.jpg


The gap was about 3/8" and much to big to just fill with goop. I started at the ends, which were easiest to properly locate on the hull and worked my way into the middle. The gap got bigger as things tightened up. I cut a few kerfs to relieve some of the stress and used screws & washers to hold it in place.

No gap now! When it warms up these will get glued into place permanently.

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Looking around I figured it was time to dryfit the bow thruster and get it lined up so the tube can be glued and taped into place.

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I seem to remember reading somewhere that thruster props are typically serviced from the port side. It was only through pure luck that I got the holes cut in the right place so my thruster prop can be serviced on the port side! I had to scratch my head a few times 'cause I'm working upside down on this thing so port is starboard and starboard is port! *lol*

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That's it for now. Hopefully it'll be a lot warmer next week and we can get some epoxy & fiberglass work done.
 
I keep wondering about that Split on the bow, the Fiberglass set in the summer and cracking in the winter and all those creative other Fiberglass accoutrements and future winters.

Did the Fiberglass split because the "Warm weather mix had moisture that froze?" If so what about some other Fiber glass fittings etc in the coming winters?
 
You mean this one Thud?

3b836b78.jpg


There's a backing piece to go in there yet. That'll get done soon.
 
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