How to build a boat in your kitchen and other stuff.

First the other stuff, then building a boat in the kitchen...
Yesterday I wrote about the raw water pump and how little space there is to remove the impeller. Well here is a picture.

There is 3 1/2" of space to pull the plate off and pull the impeller out. Not much....plus it will have to be done in the confines of the engine room.

The completed painted windlass. It looks much better now. It took a bit of sanding and chipping to remove the paint but it looks like it was worth it to me. Some of the chrome was flaking off so I tried to remove as much of it as I could. The chrome was over bronze so I will not lose any protection for the parts I removed it from.

Your so pretty...oh so pretty.

Aluminum for the engine mounts. I went to Industrial Metal Supply yesterday and scored a bunch of 6061 alloy (structural marine grade alloy) 1/2" thick by 3" wide stock. I need two pieces about 28" long for the the bed rails and a few 6" pieces for spacers. The nice thing is all theses pieces were remnants so that kept the price very low. The smaller pieces are all 12" long so I can get two spacers out of each one. Plus the long ones will have at least one spacer as a drop off after I cut them to size.

 

 

How to build a boat in the kitchen of your house...OK not build the whole boat or even build a part of the boat. How about how to use your wife's kitchen while see is at work and not tell her. She will find out soon enough when she reads the blog.....this might be my last entry.....we'll see.

OK so its cold here I'm talking in the high 30's. Yes in southern California, whats up with that and where is the climate warming when I need it? Al Gore you lied! Oh sorry back to the kitchen. If you remember I have my rudder cheeks and boomkin back from H&L Marine. I put a coat of penetrating epoxy on the cheeks and now needed to wash off the blush (waxy stuff that is left on the epoxy when it dries) so I can put another coat on. Remember how cold it was, well I'm not going to open up the garage and wash off the cheeks in the cold, no way I'm a whimp. What to do? I need warm water and a warm place to wash the blush off the cheeks. Deena (the afore mentioned wife) is not home and the kitchen has warm water and it's warm in the house. Problem solved!

 

Ohh look at the suds on those cheeks! Hey the rudder cheeks! Any way I barely got them both washed and dried and sitting by the back door when Deena walked in. Oh shoot! I didn't make a clean escape! While she set here stuff down I grabbed the cheeks and hauled buns out to the garage...all of about eight feet. OK I'm safe for now....

While in the kitchen grab a bunch of baggies. They make great organizers for holding small stuff, like bolts, etc. Just write what they go to on the bag and toss them on the shelf. That way you don't have to try and remember what this or that went to...just read!

This weekend I will head to to boat to install some of this stuff and remove the engine gauges. I want to see if I can reuse some of the gauges instead of having to buy new ones. New ones =$$$  Me = cheap!