Another 25 Seafari goes under the knife

[Blue_Heron]

Are you going to bite the bullet and make the cabin door entry with the little flip up thingy so you don't bang your noggin on the way in? Seems like a necessity now that you have raised the deck.

Yep. It's on the to-do list. Thanks for suggesting it.

Dave

[SBD]

My flip up is a Bowmar hatch, it captures the door but also lets light in and you can use it as a vent in an intermediate position.

[Blue_Heron]

My flip up is a Bowmar hatch, it captures the door but also lets light in and you can use it as a vent in an intermediate position.

Thanks for the tip, Sean. I'm going to try the DIY approach and see how that goes. I haven't spent much time puzzling over it yet, but I have a general idea what I want to do.
Dave

[Blue_Heron]

So, I wanted to make a live well with rounded corners so my little liveys won’t scar up their cute little noses while they’re unwittingly awaiting their tragic death in the maw of a nice grouper. So I devised a plan for a live well mold that involved plastic laminate for the vertical surfaces, mostly because I had some laying around. It should work well for the 6” radius corners, right? Or maybe not. Even with a combination of contact cement and hot-melt glue, my livewell mold experienced a catastrophic failure.



So the live well tub had to be pulled from this week’s production run. I found a thin plastic at Lowes that I’ll try when I have some time to rehab the mold.

But I still got a lot done. By the end of the day yesterday, I had used up another two gallons of polyester resin.



Pulling one-off molds from a new fiberglass part is a little like opening a Christmas present when you were a kid. You’re hoping it’s what you wanted, but you know it could be a disappointment. And sometimes, it’s almost, but not quite, what you wanted. Here’s my collection of parts popped from the molds today. For the most part, they were what I wanted. The’re not perfect, but it looks like I’ve got the alligatoring thing under control, and they won’t need much touch-up.



This afternoon, I cleaned up the parts and trimmed off the excess glass so I could trial fit them and see how they look. The fish box tub is 40” x 18”. I based the size on my igloo 151qt. cooler, which is what I use when dolphin fishing in my SF 20. I’ve never filled it up, but big dolphin don’t fold very easily, so fish box length can be an issue.



The fish box lid is in two parts. The forward lid will have a seat mounted on it and will be hinged at the front so the companion seat will rotate forward when the lid is opened. The rear lid will be hinged on the port side so that it opens against the coaming. Here are the lids trial fit.



The live well lid also trial fit.



Because I raised the deck at the helm, it gave me an opportunity to reconfigure the location and orientation of the wheel. I temporarily mounted the helm seat so I could get a feel for where the wheel should go. I wanted it to be comfortable whether I was seated or standing. The seat has a slide, so I can slide it forward when seated, and back when standing. Here’s what I came up with.



I think that covers the progress to date. This week, I guess I’ll be doing some planning on what comes next. All these boxes and lids still need to be cored, and that’s probably the next push.

Dave

[77SceptreOB]

Lookin' GOOD, Capt. Dave! Very custom, very nice.

[SBD]

Super sweet. Fit is incredible. What killed the gators?

[Blue_Heron]

What killed the gators?

Thanks, Sean. I had been going by the seat of my pants on how much gelcoat to use. I was told a good rule of thumb was to use a mold material with a contrasting color and then use enough gelcoat to hide it. Turns out that wasn't enough. I consulted a professional and was told 12 to 15 mils of gelcoat minimum. So I've been calculating the correct amount for each part and laying it on as evenly as possible except a little heavier at corners and edges. That seems to be doing the trick. The outer boxes and the parts I did this week have no alligatoring except a few tiny wrinkles around the margins, most of which trimmed off.
Dave