My paint booth arrangements fell through, so we made do with the truck bay after work Friday.

Cleaning / Masking / Ready to shoot:

Shooting undercolor / Pearl (Gee - think it's reflective??) / BLING!



Buffing it today.

I've been following this thread since it's inception. Boy, I can't wait to see the complete finished product. Great job!!!

Looking GREAT!! Awesome job. Keep it coming!

Dave

Chuck, can't wait to see your boat. Lookin really good.

Buffed the sides, and she shined right up! The guys then painted the foredeck strip, so she's still under all the masking. We'll strip all the masking off tomorrow, buff the whole thing, and move it back to the workshop.

In the meantime, I made some good progress on the engine bay platform and on customizing the sea strainers. For some reason, the boat came with two right-hand (or left-hand?) strainers, not a symmetric set. As a result, the engines were plumbed competely differently side-to-side. I figured "what the heck", cut off 3 of the 4 fittings, welded patches in, and cut new holes to put them where they would fit into the plumbing layout better. While I was at it, I replaced the slip-on inlet fittings with 1" NPT fittings so I could add (stainless!) shutoff valves. I'm also going to install flush-out fittings in such a way that hooking up a hose will push anything in the strainer screens back OUT the pickups. Since the boat has a hose spigot on the water heater in the engine bay, if I pick up a bunch of sand, all I have to do is hook up a flush hose and push it all back out instead of having to scoop it out by hand and turn the bilge into a beach/disaster area....

Ahhhh..... Real progress - Love it!

Nice work Chuck!!

That hull looks great.

Dayum! Looking good Chuck!

Good thing that I put you off on this one. Somehow I missed the fore-and-aft measurement on the crank and circulating pump pulleys by 1/4"!!! I corrected it by machining 1/4" off of the spacers that go behind the accessory plate, moving the alternator and power steerin pump back, and - Voila!

Phew - that was close.

The boat is now back over at the "work" shop, and parts are going back into the bilge at a good rate. Could be ready for engines on the weekend after Easter. Seems to me that I heard someone was going to be "back on line" about then....

Everyone else: Thanks for the support. This has been a real ball-buster of a project, sucking up almost every minute of free time after work and on weekends. The boat won't go any faster, and you won't be able to see 90% of the work when it's done, but I'll know that it's "better"....