Untwisted

There are no pictures this week, but there was progress. Taking the advice of thehulltruth.com we stabilized the t-bird and shored up the supports in the bottom prior to moving forward with any other construction.
This took a little longer than we would have liked, but at least it is done now. We were able to block up the boat from the bottom and shim it level. This took the twist out of the hull and now we do not have that concerning flex in the hull while walking/working on the inside.
After that was done, we took the braces off of the transom plugs and inspected the bond....It looked great!
Next week I am off to Mexico for some QT with the wife...so no blog updates unless the bro can pressure test the gas tank.

Transom Plugged

Sunday we put the plugs in the transom.
Lessons Learned:
#1. Epoxy is extremely sticky, especially in the hairs on one's legs.
#2. Be sure you are ready for the epoxy when you tell your partner to "him me with another batch". This only happened to one batch of epoxy, it setup before we could use it.

LOL, aside from rushing my brother through the day's work, so that I could make a 2pm card game (that I missed anyways, sorry dude.) the day is hopefully going to be marked a success. The first additions to the 23.

Here are the pics of the work -
1st - coated the plywood with West Systems 105 Resin + 206 Hardener. - 1st coat was very thin (applied with a putty knife) and pressed into the boards. Sand. 2nd coat was pretty thick (applied with a brush). Heat lamp treatment to both coats for curing and wholla - you can see the gloss in the pic:

Next phase was to rough up the plugs with a wire brush and a sander - 80 grit paper. Action shot here of the bro, laying the grinder to the 1st plug:

We cut-to-fit some fiberglass matting and then took acetone, vaccuum, and tack clothe to the boards and the interior of the boat. Next, building. The order of application was:
-Straight Resin to the Hull
-Matting pressed in and air bubbles removed
-Epoxy + 404 filler (thick like mayo) this was applied with a knotched putty knife - to give it a groove
-1st plug put in
-Straight Resin to the plug
-Second matting pressed and air removed
-Epoxy + 404
-2nd plug put in
-Bolts, nuts, washers all dipped into form release and pushed through and cinched down with a speed wrench - good call pops on the speed wrench.
Inside shot of the plug:

Outside shot:

Transom Plug Cut and Ready

We were able to cut the transom plugs this weekend and do a "dry fit" to the back of the boat. After some more grinding we were able to fit both pieces in and bolt them through tightly.
The design is 2 plugs of 3/4" plywood that will be coated with epoxy and then epoxy'd to the back of the boat. We will let that setup, glass it in, and then add an additional piece of plywood across the entire back and glass it in.
It was a mini milestone for us to start putting a little something back into the t-bird this weekend.
Here is the pic of the first plug: