Engine installation

I have been working slowly towards installing the engine, mostly collecting bits and figuring out how to secure it to the stringer.  I made up some engine logs out of scrap wood, I made brackets out of plywood and then gave it a go.

Its a little hard to see from the photo but the bracket that the front engine mount is sitting on is just plywood.  I design brackets on a CAD program, then print them out, stick them to the ply wood and cut them out with the band saw.  I reiterate the process until I get the design perfected and then send them out to be laser cut out of 316 Stainless and welded up.  Anyway this first attempt was a dismal failure, the design of the engine logs around where the transmission bolts up was completely wrong, and there was part of frame 3 in the way.  So not to worry I pulled it out and had a rethink

So I had a it of a rethink, the front bracket for the engine mount was fine, but just needed to be rebated in. Then I cut the step off.  It looks much better, and fitted much better but still not quite right.  At this stage I decided to stop and wait for some parts to arrive.  I had the shaft log, and associated parts coming from the states.

Placing these part in the boat gave me my first inkling of the trouble I was in. I had until this point assumed that the flange was going to be at least 100mm further aft than where it looks like sitting.  It was at this time I revisited the plans and started to worry.  I discovered that the strut is about 40mm further forward than it should be and the wrong angle.  Its 14 degrees instead of 16 degrees.  To be fair I knew it was the wrong angle but I had never done the maths on what effect it had.  The shaft should have been coming out through frame 2.  So in all its about 150mm too far forward.

Below are a couple of shots of the trial fits. At the moment I am investigating moving the strut pad, and drilling a new shaft hole. This is going to be challenge now that the boat is the right way up.

Rudder installation

	After getting the rudder port in, I moved on to installing the rudder. This was pretty easy. Had to get some machining done to the shaft for a key way. That was pretty expensive.
Then it as just a simple matter of bolting in the top bracket, and then sliding the rudder up into the port. The rudder is offset to one side by about an 1" to allow the prop shaft to be dropped if required without removing the rudder.

Exhaust ports

So in an earlier post I put a picture of my exhaust ports.  These have now been fitted.  It was a pretty simple job, They are sealed in with 3M 4200, man that stuff is sticky.  I masked everything up and still managed to get it everywhere.

The process as pretty simply.  I made a skid for my trim router that turns it into a "power" compass.  Then drilled a hole in the centre of the port location.  A bolt then acted a the centre point.  You will note I didn't cut the full circle, this is because the bit that gets cut out also is supporting the router.  One mistake I did make was I should have started and stopped at 12 o'clock, not 3'o'clock, the centre piece sorted of twisted out under the weight of the router. I had to support it.

The port is held in by 4 x M5 threaded rods that are welded into the port.  These ports have flaps and I nearly got caught out in that the position of the threaded rods around the circumference of the port where not consistent between the two ports.

Painting the interior

I agonized over this for quite a while.  One of the first things that struck me after turning the boat over was that it actually looked quite pretty, the combination of the dark mahagony structural members against the light colour of the plywood.

For a start I cleaned up all the little plastic nails that were sticking out on the inside.  Did this with a combination of the oscillating saw with a blade and then followed up again with a sanding pad.

From there I gave the inside two coats of the penetrating epoxy to seal it.  It stayed like that for quite a while while I started building all the deck framing. I should really have painted it first as the deck framing made painting a bit awkward in places.

The deck framing s fun to do, it was a nice change to get away from painting, which I am not that geat at and get back to wood working, which I am not much better at, but enjoy a whole lot more.  So the above two shots are with the framing in place, but still a lot of tidy up work to be done.

It was at this point I decided I couldn't put off painting any more and so started to research what others had done.  One of the surprising things I found is a lot of people use "Garage floor" paint. The reasoning is that its hard wearing, used to dealing with water, much cheaper than marine paint, and almost none of the hull interior will be visible when its finished.  

So I found a suplier here in NZ of a "water bourne" 2 part epoxy.  It came in various colours including clear but in the end I settled for "battleship grey".  It was great stuff to work with,  mixed pot life is about 3 hours, its can be brushed, rolled or sprayed, covers easily,  had to be a little careful not to apply to thick or it did run.

I started of brush coating it, which as fine but VERY VERY slow, getting into all the surfaces took for ever so I decide to investigate spraying it.  I ended up buy a cheap HVLP spray system ($NZ50).  HVLP is high volume, low presure.  It worked really well, absolutely no paint mist in the air, no overspray, didn't mask anything out, and super quick.  Took a couple of sessions to get the technique sorted but after that I could cover large areas in a matter of minutes.  Really impressed with the spray system, especially considering it was so cheap.  I'll update the tools pages with details of it soon.

So I ended up applying 2 coats.