I Cant Take The Strain

[yachtsmanbill]

This piece was BLACK as heck. Back to stripping again! Tomorrow I cut the face board for radios etc, then start varnishing! ws

[yachtsmanbill]

Finally, since after the stupid holidays are over, I was blessed with a visit from Mad Max to help with finishing up the alignment job (at least for now on the hard).
We ended up making a set of shims all the way around... .125" in the back and .035" in the front. That brought us to within .002" on the vertical angularity and with a touch o' the jack on the sides, within .001" on the horizontal. A slight lift in the coupling of about 7/32" and they slid right together. Doped up the bolts and hammerdem' home!
Being new to a glass boat in the wintertime, just about everything was dripping with condensation. Is this normal?? I only have heat on when there. It was 58 today and about 95% relative humidity.
The rebuilt gear was empty on oil, so to prevent internal rusting (!) we filled it up with 40W Rotella. The entire system was drained and cleaned, and took 3 gallons to bring it up to 2" above full on the stick. Need to run the bad boy to prime everything and check it from there.
Everything went swell and took off for home only to have Black Beauty have a failed throttle position sensor on one of the heaviest traveled stretches of interstate in the world. Struggled to get 45 mph, got off at the next exit and was down to 20 before I stopped at Dunkin' for a cup (the world runs on Dunkin') and called AAA for a free tow home. FRIK !!! ws

[yachtsmanbill]

So while I awaited Max this a.m. I finished ruffing in the radio console... 44 wood plugs later it looks good.ws

[yachtsmanbill]

VOILA !!! ws

[yachtsmanbill]

Tools of the trade... ws

[John Dickson]

Ywillie:

Do you chisel those plugs off , dremel em off or sand em down?

[LSC4]

I need new props for a 1970 45 with 871 TIs. Any suggestions for prop sizes?

[yachtsmanbill]

Ywillie:

Do you chisel those plugs off , dremel em off or sand em down?

The plugs are 3/8 and I can usually get away with a sharp 1" chisel. Break off most of it and "shave" the rest and sand. Sometimes the plug is slightly angled and that needs to get sanded or it may break off below the surface and look not so good. When I put them in, I usually used a dab of glue, but you gotta clean it up with a wet rag or it dries and seals the grain right there and wont stain or varnish consistent with the rest of the piece. ws

[John Dickson]

The glue wipe off is good advice (as are all YW comments) Keep the pics flowing; really enjoying all the progress and commentary - You should convert your postings to a book - Dairy of Wild Willie the Yacht Restoring Madman. lol

[yachtsmanbill]

Thanks John... anyone else would call it a blog but since its beatin' me up I call it my FLOG. A little self flagellation never hurt anyone LOL !! ws