Thanks Luke!! Ive struggled against rotting wood ever since my Dad bought that boat in 1972. Those covers were OEM just cheap 1/4" plywood. That fell apart in 1985 so I made these up out of 3/4 stock with a plywood cover; again, more rot. I finally wised up and did the aluminum diamond plate. Ive also been replacing wood as I go with aluminum. Notice the white panels next to the gas pipes? Those were 1/4" wood for years and usually lasted about 4-5 years. That damn rot will work itself to the nether regions if I dont catch it. Those are now 1/8 Al painted with Perfections (like Imron) and are going on 5 years this year. The plate treads used to be brown non skid rubber pads with stainless trim that held water under the rubber. That stuff all turned to mush as well. Even that cream colored deck was fir plywood with a wood frame underneath. The frame is now al Al. and the deck is 3/4 plywood thats fiberglassed on both sides off of a junk semi trailer i bought for that job. Trailer was $200, I got the material, and junked the rest with the axles etc for $300. I won THAT TIME LOL! The pics are from 2016. The panels are indeed rolled and brush tipped by MOI(!) and the templates of rotten stuff are to the left in the shop. ws
Very nice, my friend. You have much more patience than myself and probably 99% of the rest of the world. I get dragged down on a 2 year car build, can't imagine keeping motivated on the years long exercise this is, but it's B-E-A-utiful.
Ship shape and bristol fashion! I'm63 this year and hope it all lasts another 20 or so. Hmm... By then, it probably wont matter cause they wont let me out long enough to do anything about it LOL. "Ah nurse; can you hold this wrench for me, an, uh, oops, can you help me change my....." Longevity runs in my dads side of the family, and I dont want to leave a mess to someone that wont do anything with it. Hell in 2063 itll be 100 years old. Cant say that about too much stuff except mechanical junk; we must leave our legacy to haunt our successors! ws
Been kickin' around them Lucas Boxes for a while now; like since November! Finally had a few minutes to spare with some 320 paper and a nice coat of good varnish with a nice brush. They screwed back on just like they were supposed to. Ha! Debating whether or not to sand and do a final 3-4 coats tomorrow or do some white paint touch up stuff. Depends on the weather I guess. Pat has spent the whole weekend with the wrecking crew (!) so in the a.m. its breakfast with my pal then back to the grind. Tuesday still looks like welding day. Counting on < 2 weeks for the H2O. Chinaman always uses work abacus to keep worker bees accounted for. Thats one per day LOL... ws
So here it is... Tuesday THE day for the weldor. He needs to finish up a previous engagement today and should start tomorrow, weather pending. I really do understand the business of fabbing, but I get to twiddle my thumbs now until he either shows up, or I get a bottle of argon and butcher it myself. I am realy reluctant to do the welding as my hand-eye coordination is gawn; that makes for lousy welding! Ill give the guy 2 more days. Summer is burning away up here! The last pic shows the final cutting in where the varnish meets the white with a taped caulk seam betwixt the two. Looks even better in person! ws
Looks beautiful, buddy. Did your guy show up? Waiting on others sure sucks, that's how I've learned a lot of what I can do, and I'm sure its been the same for you
Just ordered up my coating. Found it at Hardwareworld.com for $28 to my door. Got almost everything done on the cars (hopefully for the year), so camper restoration time.
Be prepared, thats MY motto. I just yesterday, put my big ol' slop brush in some gasoline to wash it out. It was still soft and came "slop" clean after how many weeks??? The stuff in the bilge is walkable on, but the brush never cured, so follow coating thickness guidelines on the can! I just got off the blower with the weldor. He is in the finals of finishing his other job 200 miles away. He expects to be home around 2200 tonight and a 0930 start tomorrow. Called the injun and he should show up too as long as his paint pony doesnt have a sore hoof LOL... Crappola! I just wanna get this thing finished up. Just added: Id have pulled all my MIG stuff out but what a job to do a butcher finish after all that work. That, plus Im down to about 400lbs of argon gas. The eyeballs dont cooperate with the hands no mo'. When the arc lights all I see are shadows. Thats why I was willing to pay a pro. Took today off to straighten out the shop hahaha. After cutting all that aluminum on various saws (table, band, power miter and grinders etc) the entire shop got dusted with silver metalflake. Started at the top with a bench brush and worked down. Even removed tools from box and vacuumed there! Moved everything on the ground and swept up into two shovel sized piles and sheist canned the whole shebang. There was even XGS parts in the mix. Finished off with a blow job (from the air gun you dirty minded guys!) out the door and onto an absolute killer TWO hour nap. Pat said I was crashed with my mouth open catching flies. Ahhhh. Now Im ready for some "Action in the North Atlantic". See what happens when you retire??? ws
I always get so and so liked this from you guys and I sure do appreciate you guys reading this stuff! This is really all part of the Buick owners OCD, needing just a little perfection in their lives. Not that everything can be even close to perfect when yer a German and a Virgo but its all part of deine kampf when yer like us. So the intention was never to try and hyjack the forum about boats, but real Buick guys understand that the world does in fact revolve around US. Real Buick guys have many interests and find all different kinda things "neat". Big day tomorrow; weldor is supposed to show up at 0930. Got all 12 toes crossed! ws
Got about a 0900 start welding today. Things went well then the friggin' wind picked up to the point that it was just blowing the argon away and making a mess. By the time we wrapped up we were about 90% tacked in position, cleaned up and it started a heavy sprinkle for an hour. Glad we quit when we did. Tomorrow is supposed to be much nicer. At least we got this far... ws SIDEBAR: I usually use a full 5.5+MgB pics and just attach them. I was getting file failure and security warning pop-ups tonight. Whats up with that? The were resized to about 4.5 KB. Weird. Plus the forum was down for maintenance this morning. Did I miss something???
HOLY COW !! Yesterday started at 0730; by 0800 the weldor was on his way It was much nicer but up here the wind picks up around 10-11 a.m. and is relentless until 3 ish. Even a little breeze blows that darn argon away, with both the MIG and the TIG. So I cut the weldor for lunch at noon and he took off to DQ. His folks own the one in Two Rivers. By the time he got back, I had every screw out and hanging on two bolts ready to pull the plug. The unit didnt wanna budge and found one small screw hidden in a corner that I missed. Willy-227, BOAT 1 and it was a DKO. Pulled that screw and slid that unit off like a used conundrum. It felt like a part getting sucked out of a mold. Onto the roof and was shocked; that whole thing was probably <75 lbs. We rested it on 2x4s and the got the forklift under all that and clamped the 2x's to the forks. What a master piece of engineering! I can picture the nubians building the pyramids now! As it was still in place and unscrewed totally, not ONE screw hole moved even 1/32". I even impressed myself with that one! Once on the ground, and on horses, we were gonna MIG it and be done. The guys almost BRAND NEW Miller MIG unit failed. Looks like a printed circuit board has a digital (no doubt!) relay that picks up and drives the spool motor. The motor was cutting in and out. The unit is nice as its a push the wire machine and a pull the wire MIG gun. The wind stayed with us and the guy (Nick) stayed with it until 6pm. TIGging it; and that damn wind. Gonna do some grinding and Nick will come back saturday (I hope!) for some touching up. Yesterday was BRUTAL on the old guy, but the job turned out exactly as I had envisioned it for the last 10 years. Now with the PC here, I hope I can load some pics! ws
I swear this bass turd is trying to kill me one day at a time. Three days of work netting one day of advancement. Well, I havent had a real day off in 6 months and the rest is a long boring story. The welder showed up after I did some grinding and blending and started to find little cracks all over. When we started welding the 3/16" aluminum, it was all tacked in place. We put it on the ground and continued to weld on just the outside. Bad move. Yesterday we spent a few hours going over the inside by relieving the tight fitting butt joints with a 3/32 grinding wheel,, clamping it in place and welding that, then repeating on the outside. I fired everyone but the welder so its back to impersonating Bob Dylan. I WILL get the last laugh! ws
Im not going to talk trash about his work but at the very least he needs to do a better job cleaning(brush/acetone) and set up a wind brake. Gotta fill the crater when terminating the weld or youre just asking for cracks. Stick with it Bill youll get there!!
You are absolutely correct! I had a close butt fit at every joint, filed shiny edges and washed with acetone during fit up, and we both thought it was enough with just a touch off filler rod to get it on the ground to really finish it off. "Upstairs" it was windier than heck, and with the material being screwed down tight against varnished wood, the stuff became molten and through capillary action sucked itself right up into the weld. We were committed to that method even though the weld was contaminated. Also shouldve V'd out the joint with a pointed burr just a tad. After dressing the welds is when the cracks appeared. A mid stream change of strategy by clamping the stuff flat against a 1/2" 2x2 piece of angle iron and grind a groove in the crack solved that. Plus welding on both sides provided 100% penetration. Heat shrinkage was also one of our concerns. Part of the penetration problem was the gas blowing away and the other (the soot) was the varnish contamination. Even once it was off, a flapper wheel cleaned it up but the crap was still in the gap. We were stuck while upstairs, but I totally agree we should have built a tent on the ground. I have a ton of scaffolding and scrap shrink wrap and we couldve built a doozie! In post haste, hated to waste the time. It was a mess but is pretty much under control now. Field welding aluminum under adverse conditions is no picnic, thats for sure! Gonna be back at it today with about 6 other midstream jobs to get finished. ws
One step ahead and two steps back! Over the past few weeks, a piece of 1/4" safety glass developed a crack through one layer, for reasons unknown. It was there the next morning and was I ever wee-weed'. Decided to pull it back out and get a new piece. The wood frames were glued so ardently that to get them off wouldve produce a fish-net for a template. I got the header off and that left 3 flush sides with the frame to measure off of. My glass guy charged me $50.00 and was in his shop 1/2 hour early to accommodate me. He has quite the collection of iron as well, so its like a museum trip. He's also one of the nicest guys Ive ever met. "Ill cut the glass, you guys have a look around..." By the way, his "original" 1968 Camaro drag car with a fresh BBC twisted the toy starter bad enough to warrant replacing it with an OEM unit. This stuff is in his shop and a BIG BARN full of really nice stuff upstairs. Pat asked me what was the game plan for the day as we pulled out at 0700. 1-1/2 hours to go get the glass, help the weldor finish up, get the flybridge ladder stripped, stained and varnished (3 coats) and make a 12" diameter repair on the starboard side of the boat where corrosion was always a problem. "Itll ever happen" says she... We were back at 0830, and the weldor was there at 1000. I helped him get set up, cleaned the fit where the new glass and new frame is gonna go, did the ladder and the fairing repair and was home by 1600 for dinner. Pat always thinks its weird that I can run 4 jobs at the same time and it all works out... varnish is drying, Im scraping down wind, while the bondo is curing, we are QC'ing the weld job. Today, we are gonna flip the welded unit upside down to get at the bottom stuff for prepping etc. I just cannot lay on the gravel anymore to do a lousy job; knee pads or not. This post started at 0400 today... Its all about "How i spent my summer vacation" in essay... ws
Thanks Jerry, but I am now at a quandry. Zyclon B or glass ampules??? I was at the "job" grinding today and there were a few straps for the assembly that after welding were bowed. No big deal, but one of the structural parts was bowed as well. The center vertical bar was bowed about 1/2". I put some clamps and a piece of 1/2" angle iron on it and it pull flat pretty east, minus the spring back that is. While the rig was on, I noticed that one of the straps had cracked. I was gonna get the rough grinding done and take it up for a trial fit, but now it needs a fix. So as a brain fart, I start taking measurements. These numbers are from screw hole centers so they are relatively accurate. I can account for the bow action because the sides pulled together when welding from 1/4" to 9/16" in varying positions. My weldor hasnt called back yet, but I think I am gonna hafta cut the unit into 3 sections, re-attach to the wood, then make spacers up for te gap and probably MIG it myself. At least the majority of it is assembled and looks good (hopefully each panel will line up screw wise). I guess I am having one of those days thats lasting 6 months... WWGD? (what would grampa do). AH HA!!! My just weldor called and met me at the boat. We took a ton of measurements and figured a few selective cuts will relieve (!) the stretch (shrink) and make it fit again. We'll make spacers as necessary and back it with some .020" stainless shim stock to prevent wicking up burned varnish again and make sure we are well shielded from the wind. When its all good we can get her back downstairs for some paint work. He estimated one hour on Saturday. I can live with that. Hallelujah! On the glass guy... didja notice the single cylinder Harley with a mag on it? Those stupid picker dudes spent like 15K on a busted up POS motor on the show for one. All of his stuff is drive-able. ws
