Cockpit Mezzanine & Tuna Tube Winter Project

[harnett]

Thanks for the tips. I'll give that a try

[rustybucket]

Not really any pics to share but made some good progress this past weekend.

- Got the transom baitwells plumbed fillet'd and some more glass laid
- Got the handrail holes drilled/tapped and installed
- Got the triple stacker Frantz bypass oil filters installed on the engines
- Got the trannies hooked up to the oil change system
- Full service on engines
- Got the airbox drain checkvalves re-routed to a puke canister and checkvalves moved off the block for MUCH easier service accessiblity (no longer plumbed to the oil pan)

Did a seatrial to get my performance numbers with the new props and I'm still overpropped a little bit, I need about 150 more rpm's when loaded heavy.

This is a pretty cool little time lapse video of us working on the bait wells

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaHhgw9uMn8


The triple stacker frantz bypass oil filters really kinda shocked me. usually after about 10 hours of running I can start to feel the soot in the oil (oil feels a little gritty when rubbed between fingers). After about 20 hours of running the oil for the main engines still feels silky smooth and it's not nearly as black as it usually is. Hopefully the install of these bypass filters will help extend engine life some.

[rustybucket]

Long time no update! Work has kept me away from the boat the last couple months but got down last weekend. ALMOST finished with the baitwells/tuna tubes!! We probably have a day left of plumbing and finish work.

Overall super happy with how they turned out.

Excuse the mess! We were still working when I snapped the pics.

[rustybucket]

On the bright side, the weather was great, not as hot and nice to work in. Happy to be wrapping these projects up finally!!



Little more high build primer and sanding and she will be smooth as silk!

[rustybucket]

Just wanted to post some updates with some recent progress. Baitwells are final faired and look great. They are definitely ready for some paint. The plan is to haul out this fall after the mezzanine is finished and shoot the entire cockpit with paint (Imron).

Here are a few kinda crappy pics of the finished baitwells, everything is fair and smooth.

This is before final fairing, damn they look so good! Couldn't be happier with the results



Last coat of fairing compound and high build primer going on.


Sanded all down

[rustybucket]

So... the very FIRST project of this project trifecta (Mezzanine, Transom Baitwells and Bridge Extension) that we started on was the Mezzanine. We put the floor and forward walls up earlier this year and then moved to baitwells and bridge extension with plans of finishing the mezz last. Well the time has come to turn back to the mezzanine and give it some love!!

Divider wall and front walls bonded in



The forward box will be bait freezer, the port side of it will be covered by a tackle center, the starboard side will be the lid, basically the lid will be as wide as the salon door.

The aft box will be drinks and will have a full width lid.

[rustybucket]

Now most sane people would just glass in these boxes and call them coolers/fishboxes.... but naaaaahhhh.... gonna try to take this to the next level.

Copper coils were bent and installed into each box in every place we could fit one.


This will allow us to run thermostat controlled refrigeration to each box and control the temps of each independently.


Soldering in all the coils with Stay Brite 8 Silver bearing solder. Allows you to make the connections without the extreme heat needed for brazing.

[rustybucket]

This is the portion of this project where we venture over into the experimental world of marine refrigeration.

So the process of using coils embedded in fiberglass has been around for a long time, nothing new there. Several top tier Sportfish manufacturers do it very similarly to what you've seen above. But...

There is an inherent issue of low thermal conductivity of fiberglass resin. The low thermal conductivity of the resin leads to hot spots, cold spots, and guaranteed frozen spots. In a perfect world you have copper chiller plates, but in a saltwater environment that's not feasible. I could have purchased pre-made stainless steel chiller plates and just glass them in, but wasn't exactly excited about having the stainless show up in the boxes. Plus the cost of stainless chiller plates can be quite shocking.

So, basically what we have attempted to create is an integral resin based chiller plate system with higher thermal conductivity than straight fiberglass resin. It will never be as efficient as the stainless or metal based freezer plates, but hopefully will be more efficient than straight fiberglass.

Step 1 was to laminate 2 layers of 1.5oz matt to 2 layers of copper screen.
- The resin used in this layup was mixed with ATH (Alumina Trihydrate) which is hydrated aluminum powder which increases the thermal conductivity of fiberglass by 3-4 times (based on how much you can use). So basically we added the powder until the resin was almost too thick to do the layup and then used it to laminate the 1.5oz to the copper screens.



We then took those sheets and cut to size to create an inner wall. The inner walls were then bonded to the coils with copious amounts of ATH infused/thickened resin.

The panels were then tightly clamped/wedged to the neatly arranged coils


We discovered that 5 gal buckets make fantastic clamping force dispersal units lol

[rustybucket]

The 'false walls' (which turned out to be amazingly rigid and solid) were then filleted/radiused and glassed in with some biax. Then we added coosa tops to really tie everything together and create a nice clean look. All of this will be covered with 2 more layers of 1.5oz mat.



I'm a dork, I know it, but I'm more geeked about this than pretty much anything with this project. On the port side of the fishbox it's sized perfectly to hold 2 5 gal buckets (yes yeti will fit too). This will be our new bait brining or chunk holding area. I'm soooo excited about this lol.



The rear lid of the fishbox was bonded in for this pic!





Once all the caps were added there was no visible signs of coils or refrigeration anywhere. Going to be a very clean piece!

Everything seen will get two more layers of 1.5oz mat. Inside of all the boxes will be gelcoated.

[rustybucket]

Awesome to see everything starting to come together (and an end lol). When we started these projects in Jan I told everybody we would be fishing by April, good thing I didn't tell them which April I was talking about!

Test fitting the fishbox lid. Perfect fit, like a glove.



Freezer and drinkbox drains (1.5" drains) and panel location for fresh water, raw water and dock water on port side.


Fishbox drain (which is a whopping 3" - shouldn't have to worry about scales stopping this one up!) and the panel location for shorepower, and fresh and raw water on starboard side.


Next up on the list is the mezzanine bench and the tackle storage center for port side.