I began in the dead of winter, so the side and bottom panels had to be constructed indoor, in the living room. Luckily, the plastic barrier kept my panels from sticking to the hardwood, or my wife would have had my head.
All the panels were done with buttblocks on the inside and epoxy/woodflour mix in the seam and a layer of biaxial fiberglass on the outside. As it turns out, this flat spot, caused by the buttblock was one of the hardest areas to fair for me. It took forever to make it disapear with countless feathering and sanding cycles.In the end, I think I got it, you can hardly tell there's a flat spot there.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the fairing process, but I have these shots of the exterior flipped, while I'm working on the inside. By this stage, the exterior was more than half-faired. I left the final fairing/sanding until paint time. You can see in the bottom picture how I modified the transom and last frame to create the quarter seat boxes. The boxes also received flat bottoms by gluing cleats on at the highest point inside and then laying in a flat piece of plywood ontop. Of course drainage holes were drilled in everything so that all moisture drains to the motorwell.
Well, again, I missed an opportunity to record the painting process and the flipping process. But here we are with hull painted and working on the interior again. Everything was coated with an additional coat of epoxy and then finish sanded. I only faired obvious areas of fiberglass, like on seats, not the areas that nobody touched. In this next series, you can see some of the mods before interior paint, decks and final console.
You can see the decks are kept as clean as possible, meaning I tried not to crap it up with all kinds of stuff. Rod holders, cleats and light fixtures that's it.
Here it is sitting on the trailer on launch day. I've since made new cushions, painted the spray rails white and am considering a new console now.
Only moments old, just put in the water.
Final numbers:
- Weight: Approx. 300lbs. + motor 100lbs + me 200lbs.
- Engine: Nissan 18hp 4-stroke remote steering 3 gal tank
- Top Speed: 31mph just me light fishing gear, according to fishfinder - Raytheon model.
- Fuel Economy: Not sure exactly, but I can go 12 hours of trolling and occassional top-speed running on a single 3gal. tank.
- Planing speed: 12-15mph with one person.
- Heaviest load: Me 200 + Buddy1 270 + Buddy2 250 + gear The boat did not plane, but we fished for a half day in comfort.