I'm Floored.

After a bit of consulting with my aesthetic director, she decided the best looking flooring option was additional battens added between the existing ones. A piece of plywood added over the battens was not attractive and not adding battens made it unclear to anyone that would get in the boat whether to step on a batten or on the hull plywood.

The 6 additional battens were cut and edges routered on the top side. Then with some pencil mark-ups on fitting to the floor, a stationary belt sander made quick work of getting them to fit to the floor. The creative use of clamps as spreaders and some other contraptions allowed the battens to be pushed tight to the floor while the thickened epoxy cured. I could only do 2 or 3 at a time due to limited number of clamps that could be made into spreaders. The floor looks a bit like flattened organ foot pedals without the black keys.

Throttle/Shift Controller Arrives - Finally!

Back in early July after advertising on the Antique Outboard Motor Club website that I needed a controller, I got a response from a guy in New Jersey that he had a Green Quicksilver manual two lever controller with cables that would be the right length for a Squirt and the appropriate vintage for my motor. He actually had it on a Squirt some years back. We agreed on a price, I sent a check and started waiting for the package to arrive. I made some follow-up calls to him and he said he was trying to track down the package with the post office. After several weeks and a few interim calls, I called ready to ask for a refund and he said the post office never did find it in their system but over the weekend a soggy box with all the addresses blurred arrived back at his shop. It was my wayward controller. He repackaged it and sent it UPS this time and gave me the tracking number. I tracked it on the UPS website right to my door and it only took 3 days.

It's all there and the cables hook up to the engine as it's supposed to. After playing around with various potential locations, it seems that the best location is between the carling and the shear just aft of the dash. If mounted low on the side it has to be on the floor for the levers to clear and it's not a comfortable place while seated in the boat. Inboard of the carling, the cables are exposed and its right where my knee wants to be. This means the decking will need a cutout for the levers to protrude through. Other Squirt builders have mounted it there and now I see why.

The cables have the necessary connectors for hook-up to the motor and are about 9' long. They may be a bit long but it all seems to work. He included an extra set of cables that are about 11' long just in case.

Hang on a Minute - I Gotta' Drain It

There comes a time when the pressure builds and you just gotta' do something that you have put off too long....like putting drain plugs in a boat. The thought of drilling big holes in the transom scared the heck out of me, but I couldn't put it off any longer. After contemplating and procrastinating, I reviewed the cross-section of the transom to determine the lowest point in the transom I could drill a perpendicular hole and not breach the plywood bottom planking. I also looked at photo's on this blog to see where I had located screws to hold on the bottom planking near the keel as I did not want to drill into one.

I then decided to bore a guide hole in a 2x6 and clamp it to the inside of the transom and another scrap board to the outside to prevent break-out when I drilled through. The first hole when well, and then I moved to the other side of the keel and located the hole and drilled another pilot hole in the 2x6 in the right location. The pictures show the second hole about to be drilled.

I tried to insert the drain sleeve into the hole from the outside, but it was too snug. I used a rotary drum sander to open it up slightly until the sleeve would ease in. Then I marked the sleeve with a Sharpie to leave it about 1/8" long. I removed the sleeve and a tubing cutter was used to cut it off. The sleeves were filed slightly around the outside to provide some fine scratches to ensure a good bite. Epoxy was mixed and coated the inside of the holes. Then some high density #404 filler added to thicken it up and smeared into the holes. The sleeves were inserted fully from the outside and I rigged up a bolt with large washers in each one to make sure they were held firmly in the hole while the epoxy cured.

The next day, I used a small ball peen hammer and slowly peened the brass sleeve over to provide a flange on the inside of the boat. The drain plugs fit in nicely and it's all good.

Hatching a Plan

At a car and boat show in Franklin, MI there was a "Curley Craft" wood boat with the type of hatch I am building on my boat. Incidently, "Curley Craft" boats were produced at Northwestern Boat Co. on 10 Mile at Evergreen. The place is still there selling boats, outboards etc. and providing marine services, but they no longer build boats.

A three sided frame was built and added into the space to create the hatch surround. The rear beam was doubled up to provide enough surface for the plywood decking.

Then I traced the curvature of the rear beam and made a single hatch assembly that will later be cut into two hatches after the decking plywood is installed.

The hatch is mounted into position using some shims, duct tape on top to prevent drips of epoxy from gluing them in) to equally space it in the hole. The plan is that once the decking is in place, holes will be drilled up from the bottom at the corners to define the margins and then sawcut out the hatch. The side margins will be cut first and the hinges installed (while its perfectly aligned) and then the remainder cut out. Then the hinges can be removed and the hatch cut into two pieces and finished out. Stainless steel banding will cover all the margins.