Jon,Chart, you guys are doing a great job. I helped a friend work on his old IMP it was great fun. Best of luck ,we need more pics

Talked with Jon yesterday, and he has not progressed on his faring since the last pictures were posted. Something about being a good little business man and not working on his boat when he is susposed to be working for his customers.

I don't have a nice shop like Jon, so my progess depends on nice days, and being in town to actually do the work. Sunday, I removed the windshield from my boat, and took some detailed measurements of the deck around the windshield. Then spent too much time trying to find material that could be bent into complex curves to act as a template. Don't want to fight with the masonite templates until I'm pretty sure of the curves. More details on the curved faring for the 1985 302 will be posted in the other tread.

Just tried to post a picture of removing the windshield, and to get it under 75K, it is too grainy. Sorry.

Chart if you want to send the pictures over to me and I will resize them for you.

Jon

WE Want PIctures . Keep them coming Jon. Regards RickG.

I will be working on it today

I will grab the camera on the way out the door

Jon

Ok guys sorry it has been a while since the last update. Business has been taking front row and I have been a good little boy and not worked on the boat when I am sapposed to be doing work work I did make a promise to the war dept. To add insult to injury the upload cable to the camera got lost. Oh well finally I have the pictures from last weekend. Last weekend I bonded the front fairing to the hull. This was a little difficult as I had to figure out how to hold it all dogether for the drying period of the resin. There were so many angles in there that I could not find a easy way to hold it in place. There was a lot of grinding that had to be done to the deck so that I could get through all the gell coat but I did eventually make it there. One thing that you can not see is under the deck I made a bracing system (just some 2X4's from the floor up) to hold the deck ROCK solid in that area. If it moved while I was placing the front pieces it would have ruined what I was doing. This first picture shows the port side corner of the fairing. If you look on the inside of the fairing you can see were I did all the grinding. On these old boats the idea with gell coat was if a little was good a lot must be better!!!! It is about 1/16th to a 1/8" thick in some places!!!! This thick gell coat is one of the reasons that these things always have cracks in the gell. Thinner is actually better as it will flex a little.

This is he starboard side. You can see that I used quick clamps to hold the window in place on the outside edges. In the middle I just used tape. Again the bonding was done with a mix of resin and micro balloons to make a nice thick paste. Kind of like the mortar for tiles in your bathroom. You can also see from this picture that a job like this is not for the week of heart. It is a dusty mess and believe me there is a LOT of clean up that is required when you are done. You can see on the dash the LAYER of dust that is grinding through the gell coat.

Once I got the front all done and it was all dry so it would not move I started to make the inside pieces. This will make the top of the fairing wider so it will be a more comfortable place to rest your arm. It will also make the fairing look more fitted on the boat. The problem........ is that the inside edge is not straite and the outside piece is angled in slightly. That means that I have to be able to bend a compound curve into the NIDA core!!! OUCH!!!! I think I am close to figureing this one out.

Hopefully this picture shows the bend that I have to do. You can see if you fallow the top edge that it gets narrower and on the bottom inside I had to make shims to keep it out were I wanted it.

Coming along nicely!