JEM Watercraft

Well, keel taped and all ready to glass tomorrow.

Earvin wrote:

goanywhere wrote: What do people think, should I paint right up to the 'gunwale' or leave the tumblehome panel natural even if it has a few blemishes? It is hard to visualise how it will look either way.

Leave it natural mate. I am in the same boat, pardon the pun, I have bought paint for the inside which looks the worst, but will leave the gunwales and outside natural apart from the graphite bottom. Funnily enough I have yellow/gold as well - 'Gilded Lilly'.

Won't painting your boat yellow make you an easy target for the stinkboaters?
Bob

Bob - Blue camo might be a better choice you think?

goanywhere wrote:Well, keel taped and all ready to glass tomorrow.

Making good progress. Don't know what it's like over you way but it's good weather for boatbuilding here. Hasn't stopped raining since I got on holidays .

Well, half the hull glassed today. Nice weather for glassing. 23deg and no wind.

I came up with a fix for the epoxy being a bit thick. I stood the containers in a sink with hot water for a few minutes and it made a huge difference. The epoxy was much easier to mix and spread. I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier. All those cold nights where the pump would hardly work....

The top panel came up nice with not too many blemishes to worry about. Looks like these will be timber finish after all. The rest of the hull will definitely need painting though, as I thought.

I was not sure how I should rig the rudder cables, but it had to be done, so this is how they are going in.



Then I had to decide how I am going to install the fish finder. After looking at all the options I decided to place it here:






I will be able to access it through the console I will install.

Getting there!

goanywhere wrote:

Getting there!

Understatment mate your storming home............ tarp under build's a nice touch........my workshop floor bears the plan view in epoxy of every boat I've built

Cheers Paul

Thanks Bemm, but I'm putting in the hours too! It takes me twice as long to work out how to do the job than to actually do it. I installed the tankwell tonight.



I had to sand quite a bit off the top of the frame and wedge props into place to get it to fit, but once it was in place it looked like it was meant to be there

Filled the transponder window with thickened epoxy.



And put in the foam base panel for the cooler box. I'm using broccoli boxes I pick up from the fruit and veg stores chucked out in the bins. It's going to take a bit of trial and error to get all the bits to fit, but glassing the inside should make it nice and strong and totally waterproof.



Picked up the paint for the hull tonight. I've got just about all the fittings now, but I still have to make the rudder.

I've got the kit and the carbon fibre sheet I will be using, but it's going to be quite a job on it's own.



I hope to have her ready for a trip to the Coorong in two weeks. I should have her completed enough for a bath even if not totally finished. We'll see.

Oooh carbon fibre . Is that for the rudder blade?

Earvin wrote:Oooh carbon fibre . Is that for the rudder blade?

Yeah mate, I decided to splash out and buy it. I could have made do with fibreglass but the CF will look pretty smick to impress the crowds , oh... and it is three times as strong as FG.