Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration
We now return you to original programming, already in progress....
As I mentioned above, work and life and city ordinances got in the way, for a while, but now we're settled into a new home with more room on the sides of the house and I've started working on the Bayliner again.
When I last left off, I had created the new transom, but now it's finally time to start the process of installing it. I had taken some pictures of cutting out the keyhole, etc, but on top of everything else,
I broke my phone's SD card and lost all my pics. New card installed, but man, that was annoying.
The keyhole wasn't too bad to cut out, but I'm not too happy about the job I did carving out notches for the steering knob/cable. I used one of those hole-bits on my drill, but I probably should have rigged up a jig to guide it in, instead of trying to do it by hand. No real structural issue, and it'll be covered with epoxy anyway, but it just looks kind of ugly, and there are nice little marks where the thing ran away from me.
Ah well. I'm going to PL the thing into place, but I'm still having horror-flashbacks to the rotten wood I had to take out in the first place. Instead of PLing the bare wood to the stern's poly, I'm actually coating the back of the transom (and the inner and outer edges) in a quick soak of epoxy to waterproof it. The PL is supposed to be waterproof too, but I'm adding a thin layer of insurance. I'm going to glass over the whole thing once it's in place, but I've become really paranoid about water now.
While the transom dries, I prepped some scrap wood for being bolted to the transom and hull to keep the transom in place until the PL bonds. I took the keyhole cutout (you can see the spots where I used a drill to make jigsawing a lot easier, I wish I had those pics...) and traced an outline on a scrap of plywood. I placed a bigger piece of plywood under that -- the bigger piece will be bolted outside the stern, and the smaller piece will be pressed against the transom. I'm only dealing with a transom a couple feet wide, so I think this is going to be a little easier to clamp into place. I'm most concerned about the gimble/housing area being perfectly flat and the right thickness. The rest of the transom, such as it is, is important to transfer the propulsion forces to the hull and stringers, but I want that center area really nice and bonded tight.
I need to time the transom installation. I want to wait overnight for the epoxy to dry, but it looks like a possibility of rain tomorrow. I need to factor in the time for the PL to dry, then I want to put at least one coat of epoxy/glass over the whole thing, so I need to pick a time when it's not going to rain for a couple days...in Florida in the Spring.
