The Creation of the Bridgedeck Sections

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14/3/2024 - Cut down 20mm foam length ways at 45deg to make triangular pieces ready to glue to 50mm x 75mm foam to make stringers for the bridgedeck.

15/3 to 18/3/2024 - Gardening catch up

19/3/2024 - Road trip to pick up Foam & Fibreglass.

20/3/2024 - Unloaded foam and layed out it out on the floor to construct bridgedeck.  Cut 75mm strips for the stringers.

21/3/2024 - Trev glued the foam sheets together on the floor and cut our fibreglass for the layups.

22/3/2024 - Up early, sanded all the joints ready to fibreglass.  We did every second section to make it easier to reach each side of the section using 400 UNI and 600 Double Bias Glass.

24/3/2024 - Marked out where the UNI runs across the bridgedeck.  Made sure we were square enough.  Fibreglassed the in between sections as well as doing the Uni runs for the bulkheads.

25/3/2024 - Pulled Peel Ply off and started marking where the stringers are to go

26/3/2024 - Sanded where stringers to go and fibreglassed those.  2 Layers of Uni 150mm wide and offset 12.5mm

27/3/2024 - Finished sanding and routing the top corners on the stringers. Marked out where stringers to sit with a string line and checked heights with the laser level and wedged low spots. One done by lunchtime and the other 4 done by 6pm

28/3/2024 - Trev sanded ready to do the coving at the base of the stringers using a  quick set mix for the cove.

29/3/2024 - Cut fibreglass ready to do layup on the stringers.  Nice day so we went for a fish 🎣. T=5 A=3. Did a bit of sanding on the stringers.

31/3/2024 - Started fibreglassing the stringers. Only got 3 done.  Does your back in working on the floor.  Not to mention your knees.

1/4/2024 - Trev's birthday - Went fishing 🎣 with family friends and got 8 keepers. Moved bridgedeck back a it in the shed to make room for the front section of the bridgedeck - it's build separately.

2/4/2024 - Trev glued the foam sheets for the front section.

3/4/2024 - Finished fibreglassing the strings on the large section and the middle of the front section which allowed for working the next layers from each side.

4/4/2024 - Squared up front section marked out where bulkhead and bridgedeck layers of UNI will go.  Trimmed the front edge of large bulkhead to 10 deg for the join later.  Made more stringer by gluing the wedge pieces to the 50mm x 75mm blocks.

5/4/2024 - Turned the front section around to line up with the long section of bridgedeck.  Trimmed edges and cut stringers for front section ready to glue into place and fibreglass.  Glued them down and did the coving at the base of the stringers.

7/4/2024 - Sanded the coves and fibreglassed the stringers on the front bridgedeck.  As with the large section the stringers have 5 fibreglass layers wet on wet.  That's why it was a back & knee breaker.

8/4/2024 - Sanding and Fairing 

9/4/2024 - Sanding and Fairing - the novely wears off.

10/4/2024 - Sanding and Fairing - not fun anymore.

11-12/4/2024 - Spent time with Grandkids and went fishing  🎣  with our son. 6 Flathead and a Whiting. 

14/4/2024 - Sanding and Fairing

16/4/2024 - Power outage - YAY - took power tools to Port to get repaired.

17/4/2024 - Our friend Alan came to give us a hand for the morning on the fairing of the front bridgedeck section. We took some time out to have a look at what could be done to get the little boat to get on the plane a bit quicker.  Added a few wedges and took it for a test run. Trev did some sanding afterwards.

18/7/2024 - Sanded everything but one stringer.

19/4/2024 - Trev finished sanding that last stringer after work and wiped the front section down with metho and blue food colouring.  This help locate low areas when sanding.  

21/4/2021 - Sanded the whole of the front section and then faired both sections again. 

23/4/2024 - Found the Fairing had amine Blush which meant we had to use scotchbrite pad and hot soapy water to wash it all down before we could sand as it clogs up the sandpaper.  Did the front section before lunch and after lunch got a one section totally done and the next one washed and blued ready to sand.

24/4/2024 - Trev helped a mate do a concreting job, left at 4:30am. I got up at 5am and went out and washed and blued up the rest ready to sand.  

25/4/2024 - Finished sanding and put fairing compound on areas that required a little touch up.  

26/4/2024 -  Sanded the patches, vacuumed, wiped down with acetone and taped up.  Spray painted primer undercoat on both sections.  Really showed up the imperfections that were hiding.

28/4/2024 - Starting sanding and managed to get most of the large section of bridgedeck done but the undercoat was still a little bet soft in places like it hadn't gone off.  So we decided to go away for a couple of days to visit family.

30/4/2024 - on the way home we dropped into Port Macquarie to pick up some tools we were getting repaired.  DeWalt's are dying.  Picked up some more paint and acetone etc to continue working.

1/05/2024 - Where is the year disappearing too

Continued to sand and did a small amount of paint patching on pit holes and spray painting with leftover paint that was manufactured in 2023.  Other paint still a bit soft.  So we did some investigating.

Had a look at the bottom of the cans and the soft paint was manufactured in 2019.    The 2023 paint was sanding great.  When we checked the date on the new cans we bought it was 2020.

2/05/2024 - Returned the paint to Port Macquarie for a refund.  Weren't going to have that problem again.  Clogs up too much sandpaper and wastes a lot of energy.  Purchased fresher paint from another store - only had 2 litres but that was all we needed to finish off the bridgedeck undercoating.

3/05/2024 - Sanding and more Sanding.  Got the front all sanded and then patched spots with paint and resprayed.  Continued to sand the large section and marking spots to have some spot paint.

Next we will do that spot painting on the large section, sanding everything and then roll them over to fibreglass the other sides.

5/05/2024 - Sanded small section.  Patched painted all of the pinholes etc.  Spray painted stringers using up the rest of the paint.

6/5/2024 - Sanded all of the bridgedeck sections.  Rigged up the endless chains. Added eye bolts with steel backing plates to hook the endless chains too.  We used straps to start with on the end to reach the ground then pulled up and propped to remove the straps to be able to get the chains to pull the bridgedeck right off ground.  With the straps we would not have got enough height.  Lifted and rolled the large bridgedeck sections over and lifted rotated and lowered front section.  Both ready to fibreglass.

7/05/2024 - Sanded foam joins and filled any gaps.  Marked in Layups for the bulkheads.  Prepped Fibreglass, already cut, layed out ready. The layup will consist of 1 layer Uni Directional and 1 layer of 600 Double Bias.  Where the Bulkheads go will have varying layers of Unidirectional.

8/05/2024 - Fibreglassed every second section. Trev cut fibreglass for front section, sanded and filled any spots needing filling and we managed 3 sections today.

9/05/2024 - Fibreglass two more sections on the large bridgedeck and two on the front smaller bridgedeck section.  Done with 400DB instead of 600 which meant we had to do another layer of 400DB.  This is in the mid section on the front.

10/5/2024 - Front section done first and then we did another two sections on the large bridgedeck and in the afternoon when the front one had cured a bit we did the extra layer on the middle of the front section.

12/5/2024 - "Happy Mother's Day".  Finished fibreglassing the large section and started setting up the spreader bars and the endless chains ready to lift the large section up and reposition in in the middle of the shed with a hull on each side.  Hindsight says we should have probably built it there in the first place but we had intended to put it up on it's side against on the shed but once we build the cabin top and lift that into the ceiling we wouldn't have roof access points to lift the bridgedeck up and over a hull.

13/5/2024 - Bit of trial and error with the bridgedeck spreader bars.  One of the timber pieces got a bit too much flex in it and so we added another board to it to strengthen that.  Bit by bit we managed to lift the bridgedeck up, roll the hull across to the other side and lowered the bridgedeck down to the level it will eventually be fitted.  Very excited to see that.  It's BIG!!!

Lowered it to the ground and moved it forward in the shed ready to build the cabin top on top of the bridgedeck.  Once it is built then it will go up into the ceiling ready to be lowered when the time comes.

We will put the bulkheads in and then lift the bridgedeck into place.  Fair bit to do before that will happen though.

No updates for a couple of weeks.  We are waiting on ATL now to do some CNC Routing of Cabin Top pieces.  Will update weekly once we get that happening.

I imagine it will be around the 31st or maybe not until the first week in June.  gives us a couple of weeks to catch up around the house and garden.