Footwell

Howard's idea of a footwell has generated a lot of interest. I thought I'd take a quick post to describe mine and the decisions I made.

I think Howard was the first to mention the footwell as a drainage well. That made sense to me that it would be at the lowest point of the boat. Most people say that bailers in the aft transom wells do not work. 

In the below picture, you can see the open hatch at the aft of the boat. There are no wells behind it because I didn't bother with them. You can also see the two empty spots at the bottom of the foot well. 

Footwell looking aft.

Close up of the footwell looking fore.

The cutouts for the bailer wells were pre-made when I reversed the tail of the sole and laid that down inside the already doubled portion of the hull. 

Now I have space for bailers in the lowest spot of the boat. Unfortunately, Sergei says that a mini bailer that low in the water does not work. I'm considering buying the larger bailers. If anyone has opinions on what might work, please let me know.

The height of the hatches matches the sole fillers

You can also see in the above pictures that the height of the hatch covers is very similar to the height of the 6mm plywood pieces. This is by design. I can lay down on the entire floor without any untoward bumps underneath me. Sleeping in a bag with a thin camping pad and my two yoga seat pads is very comfortable. No lumps at all.

I didn't get any pictures, but I cut two pieces of plywood and glued them together so I'd have side runner channels (pictures before painting in this post). Before I painted, I cut that piece in half. It stores in the cabin and I can pull it out for sleeping or if I want to run without a footwell for some reason.

Painted under seat wells, electrical for motor

Last Friday, I painted under the seat wells. I had to buy a new pint of RustOleum White Satin 7791. I think it's the same as the White gloss 7792. I like the satin better, but it's hard to tell the difference in the light and I think it will be impossible to tell the difference in the dark under the seats.

I used white of course because it should make it easier to see under there.

Although, thinking about it now, I have purchased a waterproof LED light strip. Maybe I should wire those up under the seats. The port side would be easy, I'd just have to run some 18awg marine wire that I have and rig up a switch. The starboard side has the centerboard trunk and would require drilling a hole through B4, running the wire under the starboard front hatch, then drilling another hole to run the wires back into the seat well.

I'll consider that this weekend. 

I decided to buy a connector for the motor so that I could easily remove the motor from the rear of the boat. West Marine sells a more expensive version of MinnKota's connector. I bought one of those and installed it in the aft transom.

MKR-18 socket.
Notice also that I trimmed the planks.

It looks nice and will be easy to connect and disconnect the motor when needed. I'll have to find a way to lock the motor so that no one steals it. I think a brass padlock will work.

The motor and the connector.

I didn't get any pictures, but I did wire the motor to the plug. I still need to heat shrink it to finalize it, but it will definitely work.

I also ran the wire under the seats and decided how the connector will look. In the picture below, the small steel ring is the through hole for the motor wire and you can se the back of the socket.

Wiring pieces. I still need to epoxy it all together.

Here is another shot with the wire through the hole.

Wire needs to be stripped and connected later

This weekend, I plan to drill a hole for the motor remote control and drill all the holes for the cable clam connector. I think that will go just fore of B5. I will velcro mount the controller under the decking. 

Once those decisions are made, I can finalize the under seat wiring and start epoxy coating the bottom of the seats in preparation for gluing them down. I'm excited for that step.

That frees up some other jobs, such as gluing the motor doubler and drilling the holes for the motor rails.

It also means I can start on the deck.

A final note: Beware drill bits from Harbor Freight. I needed a 1 1/8" drill bit for the socket, so I picked up a set of 4 spade bits. They were all horribly bent. I was able to drill my holes, but a lot of shaking happened. Unacceptable. I'm going to take them back when I get a chance.

It's been cold; I've been busy

It's been cold and I've been busy, so I haven't gotten too much done lately.

I was able to glue in the eyelets. I decided to put 6 on each side of the seat wells. They should work well for bungie tie downs.

Gluing the eyelets to B5

In the above shot, they are clamped to B5 with just glue. That is looking fore. They are on the same location on B6. The bottom 2 can be used with a bungie net, the top one will be use for the hammock.

Fillet them.

The weather here is supposed to get cold again for awhile, so I'm not sure what I'll do next. I believe I am ready to prime and paint inside the wells, which means I can get the seat tops glued down sometime soon, then I start on the deck.

Eyelet construction

Simeon had a great idea to install attachment points inside the seats. My first thought was stainless steel hooks, but they have a tendency to poke holes in dry bags.

I remembered a trick I developed when I built my kayak. I wanted loops on the topside of the kayak for bungees. I cut a slit in the wood and then put the loop through the slit. This is almost exactly the same.

First, I found some 3/4" nylon webbing. The important bit is that it is nylon and will melt.
Then I cut some 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" squares from 4.2mm plywood.

6) 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" squares and black nylon webbing

Add a line through the middle.

Drill some holes to make slots. I used 5/32" bit.

5/32" bit drilling the slot

Then I used a file to clean the slot.

I had a file that was just the right thickness to clean it out.

6 squares with a slot.

Now comes the fun part. You need to make loops out of the nylon strapping. I do it with a butane torch and a pliers.

Melt the nylon.

After you melt the nylon, you need to flatten the end. I pressed it against the anvil of my vise.

Press against the vise anvil

This makes a nice flat area.

Flattened it.

Now you can slip that through the slot.

A nice loop for attachments.

But I wasn't very happy. It stood too proud of the surface.

Proud of the surface.

But that's easy to fix with a forstner bit. (I didn't get a picture of the actual drilling.)

Chow out the bottom with a forstner.

Initially, I made 6 of them. But that isn't enough, so I made another batch of 6. Now I need to figure out where to place the 12 of them.

I know 2 of them will go on the inner ends of B4 & B5 under each hatch. I'm going to hang toy hammocks there. I'll pick up some stainless S hooks later.

The next step is to epoxy coat the pieces. Then can put the loops through and then glue them inside the hull where I want them. They should be low profile and easy to attach bungee nets without getting in the way.

Seat wells have new cleats

A comment from Simeon on my last posting prompted me to glue in some cleats against the hull to make sure the tops were well secured and didn't sag when people stood on them.

This is generally pretty easy. I just cut the cleats and mark them against the hull. Then I coat the backsides with unthickened epoxy. After they are all done, then I thicken up the rest of the epoxy and use it like a glue against the hull. I also pin the cleat to the hull with two nails. The 1" stainless nails are just perfect to go through the cleat and into the 9mm plywood without bursting out the back.

Two cleats behind the hatch cutout.

This looks lopsided, but it's straight. It's for the rear circular hatches.

I am starting to run out of yellow cedar and I will need more for various places in the top. I'l have to pick up some more and rip it to the right 20mm x 30mm size.

As long as I had the epoxy mixed up, I coated the centerboard cover. My trick in the previous posting worked pretty well, but there were some gaps that I wanted to fill. The tape hammock didn't work perfectly. It was easy to fill the gaps with thickened epoxy.

Long shot of the centerboard cap.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this weekend's accomplishments. I need to do some sanding to give the epoxy some tooth, then I can prime the seat well and then paint them. After that, I'm ready to glue on the seat tops.

Before I glue on the seat tops, I need to make sure there is nothing else I want to do inside there.

I considered adding 2 bilge pumps. I wanted to put the bilge pumps between B4 & B5 and then coil up a flexible hose and hang that on a hook under the seat. When there was water in the sump, I could open the hatch, throw the hose over the edge and flip a switch. I decided that running the wiring was going to be a real pain it'd be easier to buy a hand pump.

If anyone has any ideas about what to put under the seats, let me know.

Starting to look like a boat

Today the glue was dry on the fore sole. I cleaned it up a bit and then did the filleting. In the below shot you can see I did the fillets and I also cleaned up the puzzle joint.

Fillets done

Before that, I put down all the hatches where they are supposed to go and snapped some pictures. It is starting to look like a boat.

Long shot

The veranda

Veranda and the battery well

Veranda, battery well and seats.

This evening, I painted the exposed surfaces of the fore and aft sole. This will protect it from footprints and marred wood. I've already dropped a few tools and scarred up the wood a bit. The epoxy should protect that very well. I haven't decided yet if I'll do the second coat or if I'll wait awhile to glue on the sole doubler.

I used the Abranet sanding disks on a random orbital sander to clean up the puzzle joints and sanded right through a ply or 2, so I put on micro balloons to smooth it out. It still has a ton on strength there, so I'm not worried about it.

Painted surface. You can see I added some micro balloons over the puzzle joints

And a long shot back. More micro balloons over the oval fills.

Tomorrow will be a busy day at work, so I'm not sure what I'll accomplish. I also need to stop at WestMarine for some more filleting mix and some 610 tubes.

I think the next thing I'd like to do is to get some doubler plates created for the motor mounts. That will be complicated to get correct and I may not be able to mount them until after I glue the seats down.

Aft sole glued and electrical mount points drilled and filled

I wanted to work on the boat all day today, but the day job interfered.

This evening, I glued the aft sole down. I sanded down the cleats, painted the edges of the sole and the cleats with epoxy, then put a bead of 610 on the cleats. Then I laid the sole down and put water buckets on for weight.

I have sole.

I also did some more layout of the electrical components and marked up my drill spots for the screws. I want to drill oversize holes in the wood and drive the screws into wood flour epoxy mix rather than into wood.

The first thing to do is to lay it all out and mark. When that was done, I drilled the holes. Some went though and some just went in a little ways depending on the screws I will use.

Moving the components out of the way.

Here are the holes, left to right:

• single through hole for the motor power cable
• 4 holes for big screws to mount the motor controller
• one large hole for the cabled remote
• 2 small screws for the 60a circuit breaker (towards the bottom)
• 2 screws for the bus bar

In the picture below, there is tape over the filled holes. I fill them with a disposable syringe to make sure the wood-flour thickened epoxy goes all the way back. There is scotch tape over the front and back for smooth edges.

Holes drilled.

As long as I was playing with cable, I mounted some nylon cable clips. In the picture below, the jacketed cable is clipped to the cleat above. Once the hatch goes on, this will be well protected.

cable tied up.

I also tied the cable below the hatch.

running under the hatches.

And then up the cabin interior.

That cable runs to the switch panel. Before it goes to the switch panel, I'm going to add a small bus bar just like the one in the battery well. 

In the shot below, I've drilled the holes, but not through the mast box. I have small screws that do not go through the 9mm plywood.

The cable will terminate at the bus bar, then jump to the switch panel

Here's a close up shot of the tape over the filled holes:

The top one looks like it has a bubble. It won't matter.

Since I had some wood flour epoxy mixed up, I filleted the plate under the port seats that I used as a doubler. I didn't get a picture of that. I't will need to be sanded and coated, but I can worry about that later.

Electrical and priming the aft sole well

Since i have the battery well primed and painted, I can start to install the electrical. I have been crimping connections in my idle time, but haven't really completely prepared for this.

Tonight, I mocked up the install. I put in the battery case and mounted most of the components with double sided sticky tape. Most importantly, I verified that I can get the battery in and out of the well through the hatch.

Everything  in a mess. It won't be when it is all in place.

The battery sits at the back of the compartment in it's case. The strap goes over the case to hold it in place. The white jacketed wire with the grommet stuck on it is the 10AWG wire that goes up to the switches on the front of B3.

The battery connections

The battery has a terminal lug 75A fuse that cost a pretty penny at West Marine. I hope it doesn't blow because it's not a cheap replacement. You can also see the red/black pair that is the battery charger connection. The dipole connection is just out of the frame. It's the one that looks like a flat trailer connector with 2 opposing bullet connectors. I'll modify my charger to remove the clamps and add the mating connector.

Mains switch, bus bar and motor controller

There is a red 300A switch that is the mains switch. A positive/negative bus bar comes off the switch.  The bottom 2 leads are from the battery -- the negative goes straight to the battery, the positive goes through the switch.

The green wires are positive leads that connect to the white jacketed pair that go up to the switch panel.

The motor controller

Here is the motor controller. It's rather heavy, so I want it mounted low. I'm going to have to drill 2 holes for the wire that goes to the motor and the wired remote control. Those will go into the port seat and will then have to route back. That means the motor will be mounted on the port side of the transom.

Primed the aft hatch

Also tonight, I primed the aft hatch. I didn't get a picture, but I coated the bottom of the sole there one time. My plan is to glue that down later this week and cut the hatch later. I'll be hopping in and out of the boat for the foreseeable future and I don't want to come down hard on the sole and break it.

I should have thought about that for the other sole hatches, but they don't see as much foot traffic.

Sole hatches

Last evening, I decided that I wanted to double the battery well underside of the sole. I found a scrap piece that fit and glued it to the hatch. I do plan to put a doubler on the sole top as well, but this just ensures that I have good strength for an area that will likely see some foot traffic.

Extra strength on the sole

I also doubled a large part of the aftmost sole. This is on the bottom, I'll have to cut the hatch hole  through 2 layers of 9mm. And I'll add the sole doubler on top of that for a total of 27mm, which should be plenty strong.

Using a water bucket for weight to glue the underside sole doubler.

I'm getting to the point where I will want to glue those pieces down. It will still be quite awhile as I want to get the electrical done first.

Once I have those pieces glued down, I can take the existing sole doubler and cut around the hatches and lay that down. It should look nice.

I even ordered a tube of non-skid granules. I'll mix that into some epoxy and roll it onto just the doubler.

Back at the build

Today I got to spend some time in the garage working. I hadn't worked since Monday night and it was good to get back at it.

I wasn't very productive today, but I did get some sanding done. After I got that done, I primed the rudder.

Rudder primed

Since I had the primer opened, I primed the wells behind B3.

Wells primed

I also mixed up some epoxy and glued on some cleats in the very rear well between B7 & B8. I had to plane them down a bit to get them to fit, but they will be very nice to hold up the sole when it goes on.

I also used that epoxy to glue on some doublers on the battery well hatch. I didn't get a picture of that.

shiny wet epoxy

I also picked up a couple of electrical items today. I needed a bit of extra red #6 wire. Be sure to use marine wire if you do electrical. It is copper wire, but it has been tinned for extra corrosion resistance.

I started to crimp up my wiring today.

Tomorrow, I should be able to paint in the wells and the front enclosed cabin. I think I should be able to do a 3rd coat on the foot well and the rear wells also. Then next week I might find the time to prime those wells.

I think I'll have to mix up some fairing putty also to smooth out the ovals and a few areas in the veranda.

Sole cut

While I was wondering what to do next, I decided I could cut the sole.

Howard had talked about making a foot well between B5 & B6. Since Quincy is rather tall, I wanted to leave that open as a foot well. I even had what I consider a brilliant idea to create a drop down plate. That way you can have your foot well and have a solid sleeping platform for when you needed that.
I had deliberately not filleted in the area between B5 & B6 so that I could put down a hull doubler.

Today, I laid down the sole and took measurements for the cut.

Sole in place

Sole in place

I made the cut. I was a bit nervous here, if I had screwed up, I didn't have a similar piece and would have had to pick up another 4x8 sheet of 9mm.

But I did it correctly and everything looked great.

hull doubler is down, along with second doubler

I even took the tail end of the sole and cut it as a tripler that will lay down in between B5 & B6. (In the picture above, the tripler is raised because there are 2 screws in the doubler that I use as handles.) This will give me 2 locations to put in elvstrom bailers if I want. They should work well in that part of the hull. I'm not sure I'll do that, we'll see how much water I'll collect there.

I took the other large piece of marine plywood that I have and cut the final sole piece. This looks great to me. I no longer have those little spots for mini bailers.

sole is down, no bailer spots!

Also today, I cut out the hatch for above the battery well (nee water ballast well).

Tonight, I hope to go out and glue down the doubler and glue the hatch doublers as well.

I decided not to cut the sole for the aft hatch. It's likely that I'll walk over that quite a bit, so I'll cut it just before I glue it down. I do want to coat and sand the area under there as soon as possible now.

This week if I get some time, I will prime every thing that needs to be primed and maybe fillet in the sole doubler/tripler. I can also get the battery mounted and string the electrical.