August 27th, 2005:

This is the boat as we received it. As you can see, the gel-coat is pretty bad. There is little point in restoring/rewaxing it, though, as it has many chips and dings which need fixing up. The hull will have to be repainted to bring it back to anything close to it's original appearance and shine.

The windshield is broken on the driver's side and needs to be replaced, but there are no parts available so it will be a fabrication job.

A small portion of floor in the aft is contaminated with fuel and partially disintegrated so that section will be replaced. The transom needs some fixing and reinforcing.

This is from a Chrysler brochure from 1969. It shows what the boat would have originally looked like, back in the day.

(Thanks to Dave from www.hurrikain.com/thechryslercrew for sharing the original ads)

Here are some other angles, although they are from a 1970 brochure. The hull was basically unchanged so this gives you an idea of the boat all the way around originally.

(Thanks to Dave from www.hurrikain.com/thechryslercrew for sharing the original ads)

The top photo is the original seating which our boat came with, although the bottom seating was also an option. We plan to make the front seats into swivels like the optional seating, and build some corner bench-style seats in the rear.

(Thanks to Dave from www.hurrikain.com/thechryslercrew for sharing the original ads)

This "Artists Concept" roughly shows what we hope the boat will look like after refinishing. The interior design is not shown here yet, but this is supposedly the colour of our epoxy paint and the accessories we hope to add on the hull.

(Added October 4th, 2005)

Here is a shot of the engine and part of the stern. This was taken BEFORE I found out the transom had a bad soft spot a few minutes later the same day. The engine does not run... in the first 2 weeks we owned it I ran every diagnostic I could figure out and determined the CD Unit was bad. It is a part that costs between $300 and $450 Canadian, so we were saving our pennies for it when the transom problem made it a moot point - at least, for a while.

A closer look at the port side looking forward. This is probably the part of the boat in the BEST shape of all. We'll try and spruce up the old logos and add some of our own little touches, but largely the style will remain intact even if the colour does not.

August 28th, 2005:

We started out late this afternoon to try and lift off the top of the boat to access the transom and start digging out the old wood. I was so tired by the time it got dark I went in the house for a rest and forgot to take pictures. So, these were taken in the dark.

As you can see we removed the windshield (lots of hard work by the wife to get the nuts off the bolts).

What a sad looking pile of seats. These weren't secured in the boat so it was pretty easy to take them out - we just picked them up and threw them overboard. I have no idea if we will make much use of them or not, in the long run. Might have to stick with them in the short term until we can afford to make something better.

Wow, was there ever a heavy dew tonight - check out the moisture on the windshield. Well, half a windshield, no glass in the other half.

New use for old wicker furniture - hold the boat windshield.

It doesn't completely show yet but we are beginning to get a good look at the transom. The middle-starboard is the worst. We'll remove the whole centre all the way back to good wood and a bit beyond, leaving the outer shell of fiberglass intact and repairing any damage and holes.

Not much point in having a splashwell when it is cracked at the bottom. This was not noticed until we cleaned all the gunk out of the grooves. Good thing it's coming off, it will be easier to repair.

The back part of the deck can be lifted up but while we have the chance we are going to do some other stuff with the top deck and it will be easier to do off the boat, so we'll just take the whole thing off.

Most of these holes are going to need to be fixed up and filled/reglassed so that the strength in the lip of the deck is not lost.

Considering there were rivets into rivets, it's held up pretty well for 36 years.

With the windshield removed the steering wheel looks so exposed. Even with the broken panel in the windshield it looked like a boat before.

Pulled off the bow light and disconnected it. It needs some work, one lense is loose and someone has done a horrid repair job on it.

The rub rails removed and placed safely up against the house for now. Also, one crappy panel from the gunwale pocket area. That needs some serious re-covering!

Time to put her to bed with her blankets and tuck her back in. Why does this boat (and the job) look bigger with parts removed?

August 29th, 2005:

We erected our dining shelter to keep the rear end of the boat out of the elements. Here we put it up to make sure it would actually fit over the whole thing and leave some room to work as well. We hoped it would keep out the rain that was coming from Katrina's remnants, too.

The closer we get to a good look at this transom, the worse it gets. This is after a bit of picking and digging with a chisel and screwdriver to find the "hard edges".

Before I removed the panels from the side, I took one last shot of what it looked like since it will never be the same again.

The following images may be disturbing to some viewers.

Viewer discretion is advised.

August 30th, 2005:

After removing everything holding the top deck to the hull it still would not come off. The cause? A wayward previous owner had apparently tried to reinforce some minor dinging in the port rub rail area by smucking on some fiberglass cloth and resin. In the joint, 2-3 feet along the seam. It's only cloth and not mat, but where it is joining top to hull it is thin but solid. Grinding and cutting with a dremel tool would not separate it. There is no room for an angle grinder or anything else up under the section where the mess is. But, while picking away at it I discovered I could get a small section to peel away from the unblemished factory hull underneath. Whoever did this did not sand or anything, they just smeared it on over the old.

Since the "repair" was not properly bonded to the hull at all, that presented a couple of options. Lift the hull, and:

1) Hope it comes loose with a little tension applied via "wedging" the pieces apart slowly

or

2) Raise one side of the deck and get some kind of large, more powerful tool in there to grind it off

We braced everything, held our breath and applied pressure. Shortly, we heard a slight tearing and popping sound but examining the original boat pieces showed they weren't being harmed. Finally, with a series of soft pops the top of the hull was free sitting on the wood wedges.

Here we are taking a quick rest while changing positions to remove it from the top of the boat.

Once again, I am amazed at how large the boat actually is. With the top off it suddenly sinks in that this is MUCH bigger than my grandfather's boat that I drove as a kid. The inside dimensions of the passenger area are almost the same size as our daughter's bedroom in our old apartment.

After propping up and supporting the upper portion of the boat as best we could we finally get a good look at what we have ahead of us.

From the inside you can tell there is not much of anything that the factory did to protect this from moisture on the inside. It's just painted or very thin resin. I guess you aren't supposed to have water INSIDE the boat. I don't recall any open motorboat that DIDN'T have water inside at one point or another, though.

Port and Starboard sides look similar - that wood is old but not rotted at all. It also isn't really structural. The lower part is and you can see it is worse at the most important part.

This is after I worked on pulling out wet wood for a bit. I was too exhausted to do a lot so I just picked for 10-15 minutes until my arms said they were going to fall off.

Seriously. In an Eric Cartman voice they looked at me and the boat and said, "Screw you guys. I'm goin' HOME."

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This is the floor portion that was saturated with fuel. In order to better do this job I am just cutting out the whole rear floor as well and reglassing down to the keel. Oh, heavens help me, don't let everything under this be rotted to heck too once I lift it. So far, after prying off old glass, the supports (stringers?) under the sides seem solid.

Now, Katrina is coming. Luckily, it isn't even a tropical storm any more but we are supposed to get massive rainfall and moderate to high winds - so we are doing our best to tie everything down snugly and cover it all up so it doesn't end up Lake Boatmore.

September 1, 2005:

Katrina soaked things pretty well. It knocked down our tent, tore up tarps and made the inside of the boat really wet as a result. The winds weren't hurricane force by any means, but 70 km/h is still enough to make a mess. So we're on hold, a bit, for a day or two until things dry.

September 6, 2005:

This is the part of the floor I knew was bad, but it's worse. After grinding off a little fiberglass I did this with minimal pressure from a fingertip. The foam in this area (starboard aft) is like a sponge soaked in water. Whether its as wet as it is because of the hurricane rains or not, I don't know, but I doubt it. I don't know how much foam is wet... but it's going.

After grinding off the fiberglass, the whole starboard portion of floor is damp - or worse.

Right now I am trying really hard to NOT think about what mess COULD be under here.

Working my way all the way around with a grinder, I am going to lift the entire main section of floor. It is time to give serious thought to how to prevent these problems in future since I have to fix it now.

The port side is dry, and was MUCH harder to loosen than the starboard. The boat sits oddly on the trailer, canted to starboard, (due to the rollers being set up strange) so water has obviously been pooling on that side instead of flowing out the drain.

That will have to be fixed too, when the boat is off the trailer for painting. Luckily, it looks simple to adjust.

I pulled a chunk of foam from here, and it is dry and new looking. It shows signs that the floor has occasionally been left wet but the water obviously flowed away from here.

Time to button things up again for the night, tomorrow we'll see about pulling up the floor and see how bad the damage might be. It didn't take that long to get rid of the fiberglass holding down the floor, but I'm out of energy today.

September 7, 2005:

Got back at things today and managed to pry up the floor. In this photo, the starboard side is to the top, and the forward part to the left. As you can see the starboard side was very soft and did not come out cleanly, but the port side lifted out in one piece once we pried it off the foam. You can also see the holes where the foam was originally injected.

With the floor lifted you can see that the entire section under it is filled with foam - no stringers. So, we're going to have to be careful how we put it all together later.

This portion is absolutely soaked. When you squeeze this foam it just pours water. It had rotted the wood floor on top completely.

The forward floor is pretty solid except for some dampness around the edges. It is a separate piece of wood. For now, I am leaving it alone - I want to keep it in to help support the hull until there is more support in other areas, if we remove it at all.

Using shovels (among other things), we popped the foam out in chunks. Although the top portions were dry all along the port side and the top portion in the centre, the starboard side and along the keel was absolutely soaked. Some chunks of foam were so wet they were like lifting concrete blocks.

Although there are no wood stringers there are a few reinforcing pieces that are pretty wet - not rotten but well soaked. They'll probably need to be replaced.

Looking forward from the transom, you can see the remaining foam in the area of the front floor. A job for tomorrow, or better yet, another day after there is a transom in the boat to support at least one end.

A sad mixture of wet and dry foam. It's going to be fun to replace this!

Closing down for another day.

September 13, 2005:

After trying to rest for almost a week, I was not up to working on getting the transom out so it was time to work on stripping some other things off the deck of the boat. We stood the deck up and removed the steering and this incredible mess of wire.

I have no idea what the heck this PA speaker was for, there is nothing that was connected to it. So, off it came. I have no idea really what most of this wiring was for since a lot of it was not connected to anything properly. It was like someone did 35 years worth of "temp" jobs without ever making them permanent.

That's a lug connector - you know, the kind that attaches to a screw contact. Except, for some weird reason, instead of using a female spade like needed here, someone twisted the forklike "tines" onto the cigarette lighter socket they jammed in.

High quality work on this boat - all but a couple of original factory connections to the stern light were using the marine rated, highly technical and corrosion resistant "twist and electrical tape" method. Of course the tape is a sticky mess and it was pretty easy to dismantle.

Later I'll be making some kind of fuse panel and bus system for the wiring and properly heat shrinking or putting liquid sealant on the connections after they are soldered.

After moving the deck to the back of our yard and supporting it with wooden boxes and props, it was time to put the tools away for another time.

September 14, 2005:

Back to grinding. It has to be done to finish this so being tired can not be allowed to be a barrier. First I removed the glass holding up the "bulkheads" of the well for the bilge.

Then, all the glass around the sides of the transom is ground away to allow the transom to come out - eventually. Probably in bits and pieces.

Today on Duh! we cover how NOT to use a grinder. When removing resin and mat holding in parts inside the boat, STOP IF YOU SEE GELCOAT!

Yeah, I almost cut right through the hull. Luckily I am fixing all this area with new fiberglass work so it will be easy to repair.

As you can see from the light spot in a close look at this, I didn't make it all the way through but I sure came close.

It is definitely time to go get some rest and try again tomorrow.

September 15, 2005:

The top line in this shot is for a shallow cut with the circular saw. The bottom line is for a cut all the way to the external glass or as close as I dare to get. The idea is to make a "tooth" sort of arrangement to conserve these top pieces of good wood. If I don't use them by merging them with the new wood, I will have to buy another entire sheet of 3/4" plywood and frankly, I can't afford it. Properly resined with mat this should be just as strong and possibly stronger than it was originally.

You know, the saying is measure twice, cut once. For me it is usually measure 17 times, still end up sanding, grinding and filing after cutting.

Luckily a lot of the transom came out in a large piece. I made a cardboard template first, but I forgot to take a picture doing it. The original transom piece is going to work better anyway.

Between this and the cardboard rough shape it should not be too tough to make 2 layers of transom to fill the space vacated by this mess.

It turns out the transom was not full of rot, just a small area to starboard was rotting, or starting to. It was no wonder it didn't show much flex when pressure was applied. It was delaminated and a bit warped and definitely had a very high potential to come apart soon, and needed to be repaired, but the wood was not actually decaying for the most part. Ugly, messy, becoming structurally unsound - but not soft and rotten.

This is the view as though you were looking forward from the back. The right side of the picture is the starboard side of the transom - you know, that area where the water would pool from the boat sitting cockeyed on the trailer. You see where it was sitting soaking up water to the bottom right of the photo.

Only the outer shell of fiberglass remains in this area, but some grinding and repair needs to be done. There is a crack in the glass above the waterline, probably due both to swelling and contracting of the wood as it became damp and dried out and some stress of the motor pulling down when the wood was wet.

After a little tidying up you can see the impression of the old wood left in the resin of the original shell of the hull.

Lots more cleaning up to do with grinder and chisel but the worst part is out. Is it just me, or does it look like there is a section in the centre where the hull may never have been fully bonded to the wood of the transom? Its like a huge irregularly shaped void.

Packed things up for the day again.

September 18, 2005:

As just about everything else has gone, another change of plan has to be made. Although this side has a small top section of wood that is very solid, I found the starboard side was just too smooshie* in a patch to save. So, forget it - we probably are going to need to get another sheet of plywood anyway and just make one solid transom. On the plus side I won't have to try and build up thicknesses to match or do anything with these pieces now that they are out.

*Yes, I did use the highly technical term SMOOSHIE. If you are unsure of what smooshie is, go and buy a package of marshmallows at the store. Put 3 or 4 in your hand. Squeeze.

That's SMOOSHIE.

Too much rot was on the edge of this plywood (where you can see the damp spot) - this is the side the boat sits towards on the trailer that has been problematic all along. It seems the water wicked up one layer of the plywood's core and soaked it along the edge. Once the rot started it was creeping inward and upward. I'd hate to think what would happen if the area was stressed while underway - can you say torque the whole stern out of the boat?

This is actually the only ROTTEN section I found, the rest was simply delaminated and had the potential to go rotten. When I started to clean up the edge of this to make a place to bond the lower section to, I found I could just keep pulling wood away from it. Too much for me to trust CPES or anything else.

Being able to afford another sheet of plywood is a problem. I guess we eat more canned tuna this month.

So this is what is left. You can see some light areas where I sanded a little before deciding to pop off the last pieces of wood. Now the remaining crap has to be ground and sanded off, and the hull crack below the splashwell, as well as my grinding slip, and my latest screwup (where I poked a hole with a chisel in an above the waterline area on the stern) need to be repaired. Then, we can finally put a new transom in. After we build it.

Here the top deck sits just waiting to get back on the hull. It looks so sad just resting there. A lot of work to be done with it, but it is mostly sanding and filling holes in the dash and a little cleanup in under the splashwell to ensure a proper fit.

Sun's going down...

September 19, 2005:

Went back at trying to clean up in preparation for a transom. This stuff is not easy to remove. Grind, scrape, sand, grind...

Almost all of what needs to be ground on the port side is done. Needs some final work but it is almost ready.

I didn't have any strength left to finish this side today, but you can see the unfinished part for comparison.

Also did some grinding and work on the damaged hull areas - the large crack at left of splashwell area, a small crack to the right and up high where some doofus put the chisel through the hull.

Prep work done on the large crack to get ready for mat and filling. Still a little more to be done.

And here is the same for the small crack.

Cleaning up the area where I was careless with the chisel. This will henceforth be known as the doofus mark.

Did some final sanding and scraping work before it got dark. It is slow going with only the short periods of work I can put in.

September 21, 2005:

This project is being done on a seriously limited budget. Today we tried to get a second sheet of 3/4 inch plywood for the transom. We got a rude awakening: for some reason, the prices have gone up over 25% in the past 3 weeks! I don't know if it is fuel prices and delivery or what but basically it made absolutely sure that we WON'T be able to buy another sheet of plywood.

So, we set to work on laying out a double layered transom using only one 4x8 sheet.

Light lines, checking out fit on the single sheet and trying to align everything.

Just a note, for anyone wondering - I've heard all the pros and cons and back and forth - this is NOT "marine grade" plywood. It is not pressure treated. It is simply standard, regular plywood. Why not the super quality stuff? Because, in my view, this is a strengthening core. It is going to be covered in resin and mat with resin and mat in between layers. Marine grade has a lower level of "voids", supposedly increasing strength. I saw what came out of this and what was suitable for the factory and it was pretty standard plywood. The costs must be kept down and my choice is - not worry about "voids" in the plywood or just have a void the size of the whole transom. $200 PER SHEET of plywood would have quickly exceeded what we paid for the whole boat in the wood alone.

The wood is going to be treated with Penetrating Epoxy Sealer in all areas where edges can be exposed and along the water side, hence any pressure-treating is only going to get in the way of that. It doesn't need to look nice - it isn't a varnished deck - so paying three times as much or more for a piece without knots is just kooky!

One solid piece for one layer is possible. You can see it laid out here, with the cardboard splashwell template I made - this will make a solid backing layer to support the 3-piece second layer.

Carrying on with the thought of standard vs. other higher plywood grades: There are boats that have hulls made of balsa wood or foam core in the centre of fiberglass that are more than seaworthy. There are people who want "only the best" and they are welcome to buy high grade plywood to lay up fiberglass. To me, it makes no sense. When a hurricane comes it doesn't matter if you use economy 2x4s or premium 2x4s for your house - the maximum possible 5% - 10% increase in strength isn't going to matter if something hits you hard enough to break it. Something ELSE is going to give instead.

Here, I am working out how much space is available for the primary part of the second layer. I'll need to make 2 small pieces for the "wing" portions at the top edge, then glue it all together.

Continuing on the previous thought - this will be a multi-piece transom (4 to be exact). With the extra glass and reinforcing it will be stronger than the original transom - MUCH stronger. If I could afford epoxy instead of polyester resin, it could be even greater strength. However - the original transom was rated for 90 HP and I only have a 70 HP motor, and I have no intention of going over the hull's engine rating. Even if higher grade plywood gave me a 50% gain it would be pointless - nothing but overengineering for the intended purpose.

Once again - if I can't AFFORD the materials nothing gets done and we have no boat.

Here is a roller handle I got today for 25 cents at a thrift store. Why? Because I have been trying to get a fiberglass mat roller and I can't. I could have one special ordered but it would not be here for a week or more. I need to do the glass SOON. I can travel to the Toronto area (2 hours away) and get one, but that's not exactly economical ($40-50 in gas on top of $20 for the roller). I have to make do and improvise - I'm using washers to make the "fins".

Had to pack it in for the night and I was short of washers. I need to dig up more someplace tomorrow. I'll put a picture of my makeshift tool up when it is finished. And if you think that's crazy - you should see my other improvisations.

September 27, 2005:

We're seriously running out of time with good weather. Thursday the 22nd, Sunday the 25th AND Monday the 26th it poured rain all day, after being away Friday and Saturday for a wedding. Friday and Saturday - fantastic weather, of course.

I hope this will work - I put it together finally a day or two ago while it rained and rained. It is the best I can do for the cash & time we have. It should get the bubbles out from under the mat adequately - I hope.

The first layer of the transom which we marked out the other day before the rain is now being cut out. I used both a jigsaw for the curved sections and a circular saw for the straight line cuts.

I am a bit shaky with the jigsaw but managed to stick pretty close to the lines and make a good fit. You can see the 2 sets of lines - the first set was from the cardboard template. After sectioning the main straight cuts, we picked up the partially finished transom and test fit it in the boat, using the fiberglass hull as a new guide for marking out the splashwell section. Quite a bit of error, I am glad we double checked - forgot to take a picture of it while doing it, though.

After cutting out this area (you can see the small hole drilled for a start point in the upper right) I then used the circular saw to make the straight cuts.

Carefully conserving wood as best we can, we marked out the second layer of transom - we will have to add small pieces to the top but they will be sandwiched into the laminated transom and the tow eyes will be bolted through, so all will be solid.

Cutting out the splashwell section of the second layer.

The "smaller" of the 2 layers of transom pieces, finished cutting.

Laying out to test fit the 2 main pieces of the transom. They will be fine with some sanding.

We'll cut the last 2 small pieces & hopefully bond it all together tomorrow.

September 28, 2005:

These are seats we got out of a junkpile. They don't look like much at the moment and they need some repair but these will be the new front seats for the boat. They'll be getting some fiberglass work done on them while working on the other areas and then we'll be painting them with the same paint as we use on the hull. Although one is cracked and needs reinforcing they are pretty comfy and you can't beat the price - free!

The last of the grinding and sanding in progress on the inside of the hull in the stern.

I was hoping to just treat the wood strips along the hull and then reglass over them but when I started cleaing them up I found there was rot in a few places and they are still very wet. So, out they came. They were not in good shape as the next pic will attest.

These stringers or strakes or whatever they were are shot. They seemed OK stuck in place but upon playing around with the area I found they really were not doing anything any more, so it's time to replace them. Out they go. There isn't much on this boat I have found that I would put back as it was.

Placed the two pieces cut so far in to begin aligning and marking for any trimming and sanding that needs to be done. The fit is not perfect but it is pretty close. Marked out the bolt hole locations, drain holes and lined things up roughly before packing it in for the night.

October 3rd, 2005:

Once again, weather was our enemy and caused a delay. We lost several days, actually - the 29th had awful weather. Friday the 30th was better out but we had to go pick up some materials such as stainless steel bolts and hardware we need for fitting things properly, and it was dark before we made it home. October 1st was a beautiful day but we had to make the planned road trip to pick up our paint on that day and it was 2 hours away. That added up to 4 hours of driving plus time spend picking stuff up - not much gets done on days like that.

On the 2nd of October, I was exhausted but I did a little preliminary aligning to save time on the 3rd. I didn't take any pics.

Finally, on the 3rd, I aligned the 2 pieces already cut, clamped and then screwed them together with short wood screws so the edges can be evened out, the two final bits can be cut to fit, and final fitting achieved.

Sanding and grinding to even out the edges of the two layers and cutting out the drain hole openings.

More marking, checking fit and aligning. You can see the top portions of the transom are still a little high because they are still hiding the top of the shoebox joint on the hull. More trimming!

Like I said - most people: measure twice, cut once. Me: Measure 17 times, cut, then trim and sand and grind and....

Cleaning up and grinding off some burrs and cleaning up some lines to trim the top edges.

As it got dark, I removed the rivets holding on the Chrysler logos and finally took them off the boat. It is one of those "We'll do it tomorrow" things but it can't wait any more.

This is a photo of the logos after they have been soaking in "Citrus Cleaner" for 24 hours. They sure aren't coming clean easy! They were originally white plastic, black lettering and red and blue "semi-circles". I have no idea how much we will be able to restore them but here's hoping they look half decent after cleaning and repainting. Good thing that's an indoor job where light and weather don't matter, 'cause it is time to pack it in again. The days are sure getting short!

October 4th, 2005:

Using the pieces already cut and temporarily fastened together, we traced out the shape needed for the two remaining transom pieces. Here they are cut and labelled for the respective sides of the transom.

Using C-Clamps, the fit is checked then the pieces were temporarily screwed to the rest of the transom wood.

Next, the edges were hand planed, sanded, filed and ground to make them all smooth fitting and even. We almost have a transom to put in the boat!

Before doing any fiberglass work, a final check is done. The accessory holes in the halves will ensure proper alignment between the layers when the screws are removed to put resin and mat in between the layers.

Everything seems to fit in place. Next step, cut mat and put in some resin and "glue" these halves together. Fix the hull damage, and glue that in the boat. Maybe some of this will even get done tomorrow.

I have a lot of anxiety about the fiberglass work. I have never worked with fiberglass on this scale before. I'm really worried about screwing it up. I also have concerns about fumes as I have chemical sensitivity problems. This is going to be the most anxiety-producing part of this job. Wish me luck!

I just added a concept picture back near the beginning of this project in case you did not see it - it is how we would like the boat to turn out.

October 5th, 2005:

It is time to do the fiberglass to join the transom halves. Apologies for minimal pictures here, but once our hands were in the fiberglass no one was touching the camera any more until we cleaned up. Also, this is stuff that needed to be done pretty quick.

First, a piece of mat is trimmed to fit. We actually did this in the house the night before, and then made the final trims here.

Using the hardware that will have to go into place when the transom is attached to the hull, we get everything pre-aligned and holes punched through the mat.

My homemade reuseable fiberglass pot, made from a dollar store springform pan and some paper plates. This was the most cost-effective and available solution I could work out.

The first batch of resin, mixed and ready to go...

Using one of my homemade disposable spreaders, the resin is spread on the wood.

The mat is patted down on the wet side and flipped from the dry side and the process is repeated.

Unfortunately, no pics were able to be taken of the rolling of the mat. After lots of resin was applied, I used my roller tool to press the mat into the resin and wet it well. Then, the other half of the transom was placed on top, aligning it using the bolt holes and hardware.

Here, I am putting small wood screws through the layers of the transom to ensure a good bond between the halves (well, actually the 4 parts).

After that, the transom was put aside to harden and cure. We hoped to get it in the boat after a few days.
As usual, Mother Nature had other plans.

Well, I guess that brings us to the end of the 2005 version of the project. Coming soon... or later... installments for 2006 will begin. After bonding the transom halves we never had another day above 10 Celcius. In November we had an early snow and that ended any hope of a mild few days to work on anything, so we packed everything up for a nap.

This winter has not been kind financially so several of the winter projects are still waiting to begin.

We will be back at putting the transom in the boat when the spring comes. It has been a strange winter, so who really knows when we will begin, but it will likely be April at the earliest. Updates will be made whenever we actually get something done.