Commander 147

[Commander 147]

The Florida heat and humidity were not as oppressive yesterday so I got some things done.

The first picture is a template I had made previously for the fiberglass bulkhead I wanted to stiffen up the keel with. The bulkhead was 2-1/2" wide at the bottom and 6" wide at the top. It was 18" tall. The bulkhead was made from 6 layers of 1708 biax and after it kicked I used my pattern to mark the size and cut it out on the bandsaw.

The second picture is the bulkhead installed with just the fillets.

The third picture is after I tabbed it in. The dark line down the center is a refferance line I drew on the bulkhed with a dry marker to help me line up the biax tabbing when I was putting it in. I left about 1 inch under the bulkhead so water can travel back and forth under it.

The forth picture is what the aft end of the ballast looked like after I had cut the fiberglass out that enclosed the foam the factory installed. You can see at the point where I stopped cutting out old glass that there is about 1-1/2" of foam between the glass and the lead ballast. I had to transision down from there to the top of the lead so I made a pattern of the area and marked and cut out the biax to the shape I needed. then I wet out a portion of the biax in the area where it needed to make that transision and let it cure on the bench. Then when I installed the glass in the boat this created a ramp down from the higher level to the top of the lead.

You can see the glass installed in the fifth picture. Following Ebb's advice I left the very end of the lead ballast open so any water getting into the keel forward of that point would have an escape route to the bilge.