Cockpit Mezzanine & Tuna Tube Winter Project

[34Hatt]

I vote for glass.

Looking good.

For the radius in the mold you can do it clay much easy for one off molds.

[riverrandy]

Not my checkbook, but I vote in the Glass. An now you get an extra hour of light in evenings to work on the project

[Play'N Hooky Too]

Although it would be cool to be able to see into the bait well, having glass might affect the survivability of your bait. I've been told that they get less stressed out if they are kept in a dark enclosure.

[rustybucket]

Although it would be cool to be able to see into the bait well, having glass might affect the survivability of your bait. I've been told that they get less stressed out if they are kept in a dark enclosure.

I've kinda thought about that, but most of our bait is pretty hardy. We use hardtails, cigar minnows, pinfish..etc. If I had a bait that was better in the dark I could always tape something over the window or get some black vinyl and cover the glass.

[shallowskiff]

Pretty good plans.

[rustybucket]

Got a good bit done this weekend on the port side baitwell. Mold was final faired, waxed and sprayed down with PVA (aqua net super strong hold hair spray).

We pre-cut all our core material and layup material before getting started. Used scored 1/2" nidacore on the radius and 1/2" coosa on the window frame


This is the first coat of gelcoat inside the mold





Once layup starts it's pretty hectic until done so I don't have many in-progress pics

[rustybucket]

2 layers of 1.5oz mat, core materials, then 2 more layers of 1.5oz.

[rustybucket]

We started layup around 9pm, finished around 1am. I stayed awake and babysat the mold until about 2:30am. The heat it generated was pretty intense so while we had a heater going in the tent, I had to add a fan in to help dissipate some of the heat in the thicker areas.

At about 8:30am the next morning we popped her out of the mold. Some of the bondo stuck to the part in some areas but nothing a little chipping/sanding didn't take care of. We will have to trim the part quite a bit to fit, so we left the below-deck bondo until after we trim/fit we will sand the rest clean.



Unfortunately I had to hit the road so we only had time to sit the part in the boat, everything lines right up and looks like it's going to fit perfectly with some trimming (was expected)





We were a little thin on gel coat in certain areas of our mold, which is fine, this part will be painted after install anyways. Overall, I'm VERY happy with the way the part turned out. Is going to look great installed


Will be back down this weekend to build the starboard side mold and possibly trim/install the port side part.

[oldboat]

absolutely beautiful!

[rustybucket]

Another very productive weekend on the project!! My brother came over from Houston to help out for the weekend. We were able to build the mold for the starboard corner baitwell and transom tuna tubes and get the part built!

The mold itself was quite a contraption lol. We built the top 2/3 of the mold in the boat, we then removed the mold and built the bottom portion on the table. approx 1/3 of the baitwell side will be below deck in the final install.





After the mold was built and faired we did 3 coats of johnsons paste wax, then 3 coats of PVA (aqua net super strong hair spray)

Here are a few pics after the gelcoat was laid.