Team Seacats

I had hoped to be able to use the paint booth at work during a couple of weeknights in order to get the hulls gelcoated. However, the company requested that I use it only on a weekend instead. Because I have several weekend obligations coming up, I had to initiate plan B…which is; go ahead with reassembly of the boat, rigging, etc. in the evenings until I get the free weekend to take the hulls to the booth. After finish sanding the orange peel I had in my test spot (so it’s ready to spray after some minor cleaning) Tim Owens dropped by to help me move things around. Tim traveled with us as part of our indispensable ground crew last year and will be returning with us again this year.

After we positioned the hulls on flat ground and in general position, I ran a tap through the bolt holes that secure the beams to the boat. Over time, these tend to get gummed up with lithium grease and sealant and it can be hard on the threads to drive in a bolt on dirty threads. Once that was done, we snugged up the beams and took several crossing measurements. The hulls appeared to be racked only by about 1/2″. With a ratchet strap just snugged up, we were able to easily tweak the cross measurement spot on. We will look at it, but there is not much we can do with the toe-in of the hulls because that has a tendancy to change slighly when the boat has rigging tension on it. However, we’ll make sure the hulls are ever so slightly toed out before we actually set the beams.

Once that was done, Tim helped me finish up the rear latching pins for the trailer box. The rear of the box is held in place by two tapered stainless pins that line up with holes in the lip of the lid. The idea is to lift the front of the lid clear and slide it forward to engage the pins at the back of the box. Then the front is dropped in place and there is a flip catch to put a pad lock on. In order to make a firm attachment of the pins, I attached a 1/2″ bar across the inside rear of the box (its overkill – but all that was in the scrap bin today). We then drilled holes sized to be tapped for the 3/8 bolt and then drilled four holes for rivets high enough that they would be covered by the lip on the lid when in the closed position (so they can’t be drilled out). We then tapped the tapered pin holes, removed the bar, and counterbored the rivet holes (the rivets would not grab well if they couldn’t balloon out on the inside when being set). Some 5200 was placed on the bar and it was riveted in place on the box. I then took two 3/8 stainless bolts, cut off the head, and chucked them up in a drill and worked them to a nice taper on a bench grinder with the drill rotating them. It’s no lathe – but it worked admirably. I then put a jam nut on one end, applied locktite, and threaded the pins in place. Then I put the lid on and slid it right up to the pins. With a hammer, I tapped on the lid until the pins left an indentation in the lid and I drilled gradually enlarging holes until the lid closed firmly and the tapered pins put a slight pressure on the top. Pictures are up at the flickr site. This is one high end box!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.