It's Thanksgiving weekend and I have sons at home to help flip the boat. I was thinking about priming the deck before the flip, but didn't get that far before this weekend. However I did finish glassing everything on the topside of the boat and I gave it a once-over with the Sureform and sander.
I have to again thank the previous builders who have provided tips on not only building the boat, but also advice on how to make the project easier. The single best piece of labor saving advice was to put castors on the boat building cradle. It was very easy to roll the boat out of the garage, up the driveway and to put it right next to the front yard. From there we picked it up and placed it on plastic sheeting on the grass
Once the boat was on the grass, we rolled the cradle back into the garage for modifications. The picture on the right shows the cross braces that we aded to support the boat in the upside-down position. These cross members line up with frames 53.5 and 169. I shaped the support for frame 53.5 so that it fit the contour of the deck and the front of the cabin.
The next step was to roll the boat up on its left gunwale. One of my sons had the good idea to tilt the cradle over on its side as well so that it lined up with where we wanted it to meet the deck of the boat. This was a great idea because we just rolled the whole thing (both the boat and the cradle) back onto the castors. Very little lifting required and no injuries.
A little bit of adjusting on the cradle came next so that the supports lined up with the frames and we were done with the flip.
On this Thanksgiving, I give thanks for having very strong and smart boys. The three of us did all of the lifting, and with a bit of help from my wife and a neighbor that was passing by were able to flip the boat.
The photo to the left shows my two helpers.
We moved the boat back into the garage. I couldn't be happier with the condition of the hull. I really think that using angled scarf joints between the panels (using a West System scarfer) gave the boat a naturally fair surface. I highly recommend this approach to prospective boat builders.
Here are a couple of pictures of the deck with the release cloth removed. There are a few bubbles that need to be removed and a few places where the release cloth didn't make contact with the epoxy that need to be filled, but over all the surface looks really good. A bit of prep work and the deck will be ready for priming.
I glassed the deck of the boat tonight. The pictures to the left and below show the boat with the epoxy/glass coating. I've used release cloth on top of the epoxy for a smooth surface. We'll see tomorrow morning how it all turned out.
