Another 25 Seafari goes under the knife

[Blue_Heron]

Nice work!

What is all involved in rolling that pig over on its side? Mine is only a 23 but I would be pretty worried about trying that.

Thanks, Rod.

It isn't hard tipping it to one side. The keel rests on the dolly, so I don't have to pick it up to roll it. I just put a floor jack under the chine on the side I want to roll to while I remove the supports fore and aft. Then I pull it over as I lower the jack. It doesn't really load the jack until it gets over about 30°.

Dave

[KenB]

Sean, now I've got a shiney hiney, too

Dave

What a handsome transom!

[strick]

Nice work Dave! cant wait to see the out drive and engine go back in her!

strick

[Blue_Heron]

Nice work Dave! cant wait to see the out drive and engine go back in her!

strick

Me too, Chuck, but it’s gonna be a while. I was hoping to have her ready for a trip to the Keys mid-June, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I’m running out of weekends.

But I have made progress. I talked my buddy Dennis into coming up from Lauderdale for a long weekend to lend a hand. He’s pretty handy with a set of tools and will keep on working as long as there’s a cold Budweiser available.

So I ordered a disc brake kit for my trailer. Mike Rawdon at trailerpartsdepot.com was very helpful. When I ordered on Monday, I told him I wanted to be able to install them that weekend and he made the extra effort to get the shipment out the same day. When Dennis got here, he went to work on them. He even read the instructions.











While Denny was working on the trailer, I started cutting out parts for the molds for the outer boxes for my fish box and live well. Then we put the molds together and I worked on lacquer and clay fillets while Dennis cut the glass mat and biax.







I ran out of clay and had to make a run to the craft store. Found a neat tool that really speeds the process. It’s a clay extruder and it comes with a bunch of different plates for different extruded shapes. So I could make clay strips two feet long at a time. Definitely worth the $15 cost.



I took the week off, and Dennis had to be back at work on Wednesday, so I did the gelcoat and layup on the boxes after he headed south. I got some instruction from the shop foreman at Mirage manufacturing , where I’ve been buying my gelcoat, poly resin, and 2408 biax. We talked about my issues with alligatoring in the gelcoat and it looks like I was spraying it on too thin. He recommended 12 to 15 mils, so I got out the calculator and figured my gelcoat quantities instead of guesstimating. This seems to have solved the problem. The only spots where I had any alligatoring on the boxes was where I couldn’t get good coverage with a spray gun. Gelcoat sprayed on one of the boxes:



And my fingers were too sticky to take pictures during layup, so here are the boxes popped from the molds:



The boxes were the biggest and most complex layups I've attempted so far. While I seem to have the alligatoring under control, I had a couple small issues with my layup. The boxes are both good structurally, but there are some spots I'll have to patch and fair because of bubbles between the gelcoat and the mat. It would have been nice if they'd popped out perfect, but the patching won't be too bad.

Quit a while back, I posted pics of a two compartment box that will go under the deck at the helm.





Last week, I finally got around to fabricating the deck that will go on top of it.







And a trial fit in place:






And finally, a trial fit of the outer boxes for the fish box and live well:







That brings the progress report up to date.
Dave

[McGillicuddy]

Dave,
That's looking fantastic! Indeed those boxes look very tricky. Thanks for yet another lesson to aspire to. And for inspiration to get some brakes on my raggedy trailers.

Are the big cylinders for dive tanks, tuna tubes, fire extinguishers or maybe rocket launchers for the next Bay of Pigs invasion?

Keep up the good work.

[Blue_Heron]

...Are the big cylinders for dive tanks, tuna tubes, fire extinguishers or maybe rocket launchers for the next Bay of Pigs invasion?

Keep up the good work.

Hee, Hee. They're for my coiled wash down hoses. Fresh water on the starboard side, raw water on the port. And possibly for 'possum dens. I need to make some caps to keep critters out. 4" probably wold have been big enough, but I wasn't sure and I had a piece of 6" PVC layin' around...

Thanks for the encouragement, Gillie.

Dave

[gw204]

Wow...that deck addition and those boxes came out great!!! Nice job!

Got any plans for that old brake actuator?

[uncleboo]

What an awesome job! Can't wait to see the finished product. Keep the pics coming.

[Old'sCool]

Clay extruder = Playdo machine

[Seacraft84]

Now thats some purty custom work there. One of a kind.