Another BFN Rebuild

I agree that your overthinking this, if you use the aluminum just screw it in with a reasonable amount of wood screws, into the the coosa with fiberglass on both sides they are never coming out. Put a little 5200 between it the angle and the fiberglass and they are definitely never coming out. If they did somehow strip out you then fill the holes with epoxy and redo... not the end of the world. My wrist still hurts from trying to put woodscrews through my glass covered coosa floor.

Perfect- I think Ive got a plan. Thanks guys!

Tim,

As we discussed on Saturday if you want to go this route put an extra piece of coosa on the secondary on the outside(gunnel facing) where every you plan on putting the aluminum angle on the (bilge side) and the holes that you would drill into. Do the T-nuts like i described so you can bolt the angle onto the stringer. I have some extra coosa not sure on thickness but i do have some if you need it. I just have to ask my father if he thinks he has any need for it lol.
Let me know
-Phil

Phil, thanks again for the suggestion! I think we're good on material- if it comes down to it, I can use several small pieces for support rather than running full 4' pieces. I dont think that would compromise the strength enough to matter for the purposes of supporting the panel.

I would think that some holes in the aluminum angle for the epoxy to bond through would also help secure it.

We've been plugging along, slowly but surely- an update is a bit overdue, I suppose. Over the last few weeks, we have:

-removed the engine mounting tabs from the cradle. These need to be repositioned for the 454.





-covered the front bulkheads in cloth (both sides):



-cut and shaped all of the rear ribs:





The last bulkhead that will act as the front of the engine compartment has also been cut and glassed a bit. The doubled up ribs are also in the process of being laminated together. The front lifting ring backer is in process as well.



Today we test fit the cradle. We marked the locations where the new tabs will be located, as well as where the 2 halves should be welded back together. Hopefully the measurements we took before tearing everything apart were accurate!



Almost all of the parts orders have been placed... just one more misc. order from Race City Marine to finalize. A boatload of hardware and other goodies from Mcmaster showed up last week... the air vent hose (flexible PVC) looks pretty trick.

Pretty soon we'll be glassing stuff down and it will start to look like a boat again instead of a shell! Id like to see an initial water test by Memorial Day, but Im sure we will be cutting it close.

8122pbrainard wrote: Look'n good. I've been wondering where you've been and what you've been doing!!

I figured he was "itching" to get out boating

and to think of the times i said to myself, if only i could cut this cradle to make it easier to ship wtf....lol

Looking good Tim and Gregg.. unbelievably time consuming and expensive.. but looking good. If I was able to be in the neighborhood a bit longer over the weekend I would have loved to see the progress first hand...

Tim- the progress looks great. What would you guess the total man hours are going to be on the job by the time you're done?

Tim keep up the good work, if you need any help on either project boat or cottage let me know. I will try and figure out schedule.

We finally got the approval from the town to start cutting trees down and start transplanting some of the bushes along the driveway where the new addition to the property is going to house our huge garage 38ft wide by 30ft deep. 11ft ceilings with apartment up top.

You were MIA 2 weekends ago or something i was trying to call you and you weren't on here till mid week last week.

I have June 5th weekend off and looking to do some skiing or whatever.

-Phil

We're making progress. This weekend we cut holes in the bulkheads for the batt box, vent holes and cable conduit. Then we test fit the vent lines.





Yesterday we bedded two bulkheads and tacked the front most one in place.





Today, the front one got glassed down, and the other 2 got filleted.







We also prepped the battery box and rough cut the rear floor pieces. Theyre also getting a layer of glass on the bottom.





The goal is to get the bulkheads in by the end of the weekend. There are a lot left (6) so its a tall order- but we'll give it hell.

RainDog wrote: Tim, inquiring minds want to know...will this be the one at Green Lake?

if it ain't one of the boats he brings then I got a pretty good chance of staying for free.....

It is all on here somewhere.. you know just trying to drum up a little excitement for the event.. Me and Benjamin were trying to bait the Doc into bringing Karen's boat out for GL.. Loser pays for all the campsites down in the Shangri-la portion of the Green Lake Campground for the duration of the event. I don't think the Doc is going to bite but you never know... Reidp isn't allowed to play as his camping bill for the weekend is too extreme.

Thanks Pete.

Steve, the intention is to bring the BFN to GL. We're making good progress, so we'd have to hit a major roadblock for that not to happen. Just a warning though- the boat won't look much different from last year... save for the new carpet, cosmetics have been shelved until next year (or beyond). Its no "best of show", thats for sure. If I can coax a few more mph out of it though, hopefully Mr. Fennessy will be paying for my lodging!