What a great thread showing us the progression of your project, im assuming that, once your framing is in place you will then glass over the seam at the bottom and glass over the top for a finished look? Will you finish off the inside with upholstry or smooth finish.

Chart if you need a hand just give me shout, i keep my boat at the lake, sometime over at raymonds this year its on the hoist.

Later
Dave

Flew back to my office in Indy this afternoon. Jon and I cut out the windshield parts and mitered them to fit the wings. We thought about taking pictures of that, but it looks like the mock up, so no reason to use server space for that. Before bonding them to the deck, Jon wants to brace the deck from inside the cabin, so as to NOT bond a structural faring to a flexed deck. (His old windshield actually added a lot of support to the deck, and without it, the deck flexes more than he likes. Especially when a couple of people are on the deck trying to bond the faring to the deck).

With the little time left before going to the airport, we mocked up a wind deflecting lip out of the same material as the faring. We've given lots of thought to plexiglass like material to bolt on the top of the faring to keep wind out of our faces, but this may work as well. This will also give a larger flat area on top of the faring. The way this is built, stepping, standing, dancing, jumping etc on the top of the windshild part of the faring will cause NO damage. . . . we hope.

What do you think of the lip in the picture? Is it too big, too low, just right, what? We've got our views, but would like to know yours' too.

Hi Payton,

It's called Nida-Core and is made in Florida. We bought ours from Composits One in RI, but looking on their web site, they have a dist. center near you in Goshin IN. It comes in several finishes on the outside, and we used the chopper gun fiberglass finish. It could be ready to paint or gel coat with minimal prep. As far as Ship Shape, I don't know. Because I'm a boater, I'm too poor to afford cable TV.

Chart

The nida core is very strong, and we think yahoos can try to hold the boat off the dock with it and there will be no damage. It can be punctured easily, because it is only a 1/16 mil of fiberglass, but it does great taking preasure over a minimume area of an inch or two. And that is a lot more likely to happen than someone trying to poke a phillips screwdriver through it.

Personally, I like the thicker look of a faring over the thin look of al or glass. On my boat, I'm hopeing to double the wing thickness to match the gunnel thickness, but will have to see first. I lost count of how many ideas we had that would not work or had to be changed due to the angles of the boat. It will be thursday evening before I get back home to try the templets on my boat.

Olysan: Yes, I moved to St. Louis about a year ago. Still have an office in Indy. We live in Chesterfield, and would enjoy working with you on this. PM your contact info, and we'll get together.

Chart

AWSOME

Yes Jon did remove gel coat. Look in the last picture I posted, and see the El Camino in the foreground? It was royal blue on Friday. Personally, I don't know if I have it in me to take a 36 grit grinder to my boat It was one of the saddest moments we had doing this project. Kind of like cutting into a patient to do surgery. In fact, I'm considering glueing my faring to the gunnell instead of glassing it. Will have a better idea after I get home to it.

Chart

Chart maybe you are working on it now but can you please post up the pictures of the side view with the lip up high and then a little lower. Thanks

Jon

Later: Yes that's exactly what Jon will do. He would like to add padded upholstry to the top after the glass is done. And there will be some work on the inside of his boat, with the wings filled in and smoothed to the cockpit "wall". Because of the angle of the wing, and the tapering of the gunnell as it moves toward the deck, it will be a challenge to fill it in and make it look good, but Jon will do it. He also plans to add bulkheads under the trailing edge of the windshild part going virtically down to the dash, where gauges can be added on both sides of the boat. As my dash is different than his, the jury is still out on how to do this on mine.

You bet I'll give you a shout! One of the most productive parts of the past few days was the brainstorming on design. I'd welcome your help with that to start.

Chart

Jon, for you, ANYTHING!!

This picture is of the lip higher than the wing, as a pelxi lip might look. What do you all think of it high, vs. the next picture with it lower, even with the wing?

And this is the faring lower, even with the top of the wing.