A Clear Improvement: Replacing window tracks

"Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve."

~Charles Caleb Colton

The new window tracks have been installed!  They look and function so much better:

The old window tracks.  Plastic, brittle, filled with gunk and cracked.

New window tracks.  Aluminum, strong, clean and smooth.

In this pic, you can see the difference in the old (left) and the new (right) window tracks:

             

We found the replacement window track through another boating blog.  Someone by the name of James was asking if anyone knew of a source for the track (it has 3 channels).  I sent him an email to see if he had been successful in finding the tracking.  He had been able to find something similar (but in aluminum)--through Marinette (www.marinettemarine.com/).  (Happily, I now have a new Facebook friend and King's Craft renovation ally, as he is renovating an older King's Craft, too!)

We contacted John Althouse with Marinette and he was very helpful (info@marinette.com).

The new track is aluminum rather than plastic, and has a very thin strip of film inside the track to help the window glide easily.  It all works like a charm.

The aluminum track is thinner than the original plastic track, as shown in this pic:

When we installed the first window, we realized this little difference in thickness made a big difference in how the window fit.  The window sat too low, and did not fit securely in the top track--we were afraid the window would bounce out.  

To solve this, we added a strip of 3/16" gasket under the bottom track.  This lifted everything up, and made the window much more secure--and I think it will help keep it watertight.  In our area, Ace Gasket & Manufacturing Co. was the place to go for this (513.271.6321).

In this pic, you can see the 3/16" gasket between the boat and the window track.

On another note, the lights and horns have arrived and I hope to install them this weekend.  I also hope to get all the wiring finished (one can hope), and get the boat ready for insulation.  

I'm in the process of getting estimates for insulation.  I have two, and they are not even close to each other....more on this in another post.

To be seen & heard (nav lights & horns)

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made."

~Robert N. Rose

My boat is missing most of her hardware.  When she was painted 5 or 6 years ago, they removed vents, lights, horns, antennas, davits, railings and all other hardware.  I loved putting the vents back on...after I cleaned and polished them so they looked shiny and new (http://goo.gl/P7wrg).  It was fun putting the railing back on the bridge, too (http://goo.gl/zcTnF).

Replacing the hardware is important right now, because I am trying to make sure she is water-tight.  Every piece of hardware that was removed is now represented by a hole in the boat.  Also, a boat does not look the same without the hardware--kind of like a person with no eyebrows.  It's time to replace the hardware.  After lots of consideration, I finally ordered the lights and horns.

Here are her new nav lights:

 The nav lights are stainless steel and LED.  http://www.attwoodmarine.com/store/product/3530

...her new spotlight:

I love the traditional look of this spotlight.  It is stainless steel, but not LED.  I could not find a spotlight that was stainless and LED.  But, it probably won't be used all that often, so the incandescent light should be fine.  http://goo.gl/csvG1

...her new anchor / masthead light:

I tried to find a stainless steel light like this, but didn't see one.  This one is LED, and has a stainless base, but the pole is aluminum.  Hopefully it will match all the stainless hardware.  http://www.attwoodmarine.com/store/product/7812

 

 And her new horns:

I tried to clean her original horns, but they are plastic and the horn part had turned green.  I spray painted them with a chrome-colored paint, but they still weren't shiny.  I was excited to find these at a reasonable price--and they are stainless, not plastic.  If you click on the link, you can hear what they sound like.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012ILZAS/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

Next on the list are the antennas.  I think I want one for the stereo, one for the VHF radio, one for the t.v., and if they make one to improve cell phone reception, I think I'll need that too!

A few more steps closer to the dream.  :)

Getting closer to Building (new marine fuel tanks)

"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you.  If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you.  Whatever good things we build end up building us."

~Jim Rohn

With the seemingly monumental task of getting the fuel tanks out happily behind us, the only thing that stands between now and finally building is getting the new tanks in.  Once the new tanks are in, we can get the insulation installed, put in a new floor, and then the framing begins.

Before putting the tanks in, I had to clean the hull of the boat.  Here's a fun before and after:

Before cleaning

After cleaning

And the new tanks have arrived!  Two hours before a meeting downtown, the delivery truck finally came:

The deliver guy left the tanks in this parking space for me.  I had two hours to get the tanks to the boat, get home, change and get to my meeting downtown.

They wouldn't fit down the docks wrapped, so step one was to unwrap and see what I was working with.  Actually, that was step two.  Step one was to call Gregg Tepe to see if he had any ideas for me.  Luckily, he was 20 minutes away, and he volunteered to come help me!

Here are my two new fuel tanks and a holding tank (the smaller one on top):

We took them one at a time, and had them on the boat in about 20 minutes.  They are aluminum, so they weren't all that heavy.  The one in the cart is the holding tank.  My boat has never had a holding tank (for black water)...but it will now.  (Oh, and I made it to my meeting in plenty of time).

 

Now we just have to install them.  Installation is as scary to me as removal was monumental.

And, we will be replacing the galvanized steel fuel fill pipes (red arrows are pointing to the pipe) with Fuel Gauge hose:

I'm excited to get the fuel tanks installed (and nervous about the process of installing them).  

Enough about fuel tanks!  Other exciting news...my stereo wires have been run!  

I'm working with a company called Sounds Excellent.  They have been very dependable, very fast, and very reasonably priced.  I highly recommend them if you are looking for someone to do audio, security alarms, camera systems, home theaters, etc.  You can email the owner, Wayne Buckalew at soundsexc@yahoo.com or call at 513.655.6829.

They are installing 2 speakers on the back deck, 2 on the front deck, 2 on the bridge, 2 in the stateroom and 2 in the salon.  I will be able to adjust the volume of each pair separately.  Very excited to have this in place!

I also drew up the plans for overhead lighting in the boat:

The yellow squares are ceiling lights and the white squares are sconces

And here are the light fixtures we are using:

These are the stainless can lights (yellow squares) that will be mounted flush with the ceiling

These are the sconces (white squares) that will be hanging on the wall

I am really hoping that a lot happens in the next two weeks.  There is nothing getting in the way now, so the pace of work should pick up (please....).  Building this boat is building my knowledge of the boat...and my patience!

Removing Fuel Tanks.

"Be larger than your task."

~Orison Swett Marden

I remember the first time someone suggested I consider getting new fuel tanks for the boat.  It was my surveyor, and I trust his opinion on things.  But I wanted to believe he was wrong about this.  I wrote the statement in my pre-survey inspection notes, and then tried my hardest to forget about it.

But, each time I reviewed those notes to be sure we were doing all the things that needed to be done (and doing them right), that statement was still there.  Finally I did a little research.  If you need to know more about fuel tanks, here is a good resource, and a good place to start:  http://newboatbuilders.com/docs/PY_JAN09_51-54_FUEL_TANKS.pdf.

I learned that fuel tanks typically last 10-20 years.  My boat was 40 years old.  Since I could no longer deny that rebuilding the interior of a boat with 40 year-old fuel tanks was not a good idea (since I may have to tear out the new interior in just a few years to replace them), I decided my only hope was to discover that the tanks were not original.  I found some convincing evidence (which you can typically do if you want to badly enough).  

Then I found these labels on the tanks:

These labels that are on the current fuel tanks (made by Tempo, who went out of business in 2001) have the following information:

Model #: FT-91-1379-1

Fuel Type: Gasoline

Capacity: 91 gallon

Test P.S.I: 4

Test date: 5/21/71

Designed for: 10 G's

MATL. & MIN. THK.: 14 GA. (.071) ALUMINIZED STL

With a test date of 5/21/71, I now knew that the tanks were 40 years old.  It was time to work on replacing them.

This was no small job.  First, I tried to purchase pre-made fuel tanks.  There are no 55' x 44' x 9' fuel tanks factory made out there.  So, I would have to have them built for me.  Finding someone to build them proved a little challenging, and to get them out we would have to cut through the aluminum stringers of the boat--they were down in the hull under the stringers in the stateroom:

I asked for estimates from several places:

• The Iron Shop in Brookville, Indiana.
• After over a month of trying to get the quote, they did come out and look at my boat.  Final quote: $4,200.00 (this included installation).
• Gould Metal Works in Covington, KY.
• Spoke with them several times.  They did not seem to have a lot of experience in building marine fuel tanks.  They never gave me an estimate.
• Luther's Marine Fabrication in Bristol, RI (http://www.lutherswelding.com/).
• This is one of the two companies that Pluckebaum recommended.
• $1,440.00 each (with 2 baffles)
• Speedy Tanks (Atlantic Coastal Welding) in Bayville, NJ (http://www.speedytanks.com).
• This is the other company that Pluckebaum recommended.
• $878.00 each (with 4 baffles)
• The tanks would be finished in a week, with 2 day shipping!  They are Speedy!!

I chose to work with Speedy Tanks, and they have been GREAT to work with!  They build just about anything you could need for a boat.  They are also building a holding tank for me.
 
Now that I had tanks being made, I needed to get the old tanks out.  The person I am buying the boat from told me that the tanks were empty (good news, since the engines had not been started in about 6 years).  We decided to check (no assumptions).  We removed the sending unit (this is the device that registers the fuel level), and put a stick in the tank.  When we removed the stick, there was about 4 inches of fuel in the tank (in a 9 inch high tank--close to 1/2 tank, or 40-45 gallons).  When we tested the other tank, the same was true.  This meant we would have to remove about 80-90 gallons of old fuel before we could remove the tanks!

This is the sending unit we removed to test fuel level

 Four inches of fuel in both tanks!  

My brother loaned us a small hand pump to pump the fuel out of the tanks.  We had three 5-gallon gas tanks to pump the fuel into.  We had 2 55-gallon drums to dump the fuel in (my friend and colleague, John Beckemyer gave me a drum, and Bruce brought me the 2nd one).  I discovered that Hamilton County has a Hazardous Waste Disposal program.  They would take the fuel for free--I just had to show proof of residency (http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/

pubsrv/pages/-4167-/), and leave the container with them.

First, we had to remove the aluminum straps that hold them in place, and the stringers.

This is Glenn Tepe using a grinder to cut through the welds on the stringers.

This is Melanie helping me get access to the bolt on the aluminum strap that is holding the tank into place.

This is Don using the grinder to cut through the weld of the aluminum stringers on the second tank.

I took a turn with the grinder on the aluminum strap.

The last bolt was difficult to reach.  I had to climb under the floor to get to it!

I was careful to label each piece of aluminum so that it would be easy for the welder to put it all back together once the new tanks are installed:

Now we had removed everything holding the tanks down (I chose to remove the stringers from opposite ends of the two tanks because I thought it might help maintain structural integrity of the boat):

 Now it was time to get the fuel out.  My brother loaned me a small hand pump.  We gave it a shot:

Gregg and Jeff (my nephew) start with the fuel removal

Captain Geoff took a turn, too.

 While this pump is perfect for small jobs, getting 80 gallons out of these fuel tanks would have taken a very long time.  After lots of searching on the Internet and brainstorming, Captain Geoff had the idea of using the larger pump he has for his dinghy.  We had to rig a smaller tube because it would not fit into the gas can.  Duct tape to the rescue:

This pump worked much better.

And...the first tank came out:

After several more hours of pumping fuel from the other tank.  We were almost ready to remove it.  Captain Geoff went back to his secret stash of all-things-nautical, and brought some wood plugs so that we could plug the open pipe so that no fuel would spill out when we lifted the tank:

And, out it came:

This is Carlos, Wilmer and Jeff, lifting the steel tank out of the boat.

Gregg says, "get it outta here!"

And, away it goes.

I can't tell you how good it feels to have those fuel tanks out of the boat.  This seemed so overwhelming when I first realized it needed to be done.  But with help and hard work, they are out.

We expect the new fuel tanks and the holding tank to arrive this week.  Before installing them, we need to power-wash the hull of the boat.  

Removing these tanks represents the last bit of removing or tearing out.  From here, it is all building up.  This is a turning point--and it is the positive turn that I needed.  This renovation is a large task--but I can be larger.

caulking, taping, window tracks and lots of little things

"Details create the big picture."

~Sanford I. Weill

In preparation of insulation, we had a few details to address:  finishing the window tracks, removing all the old screws, caulking everything, and taping off the aluminum beams throughout the boat.  This is the kind of work that most people don't even notice, but it is essential.  It is also tedious and time-consuming.  I am glad I had some help!

Removing old screws...

Taping off the aluminum beams...

This is my friend, Nancy, and I was really glad she was willing to help with this tedious work!

Removing more old screws (and whistling while we work)!

There were little Styrofoam balls left from the old insulation that we had to remove before taping.

Yellow stripes!  I love the angles and curves created by the GoPro camera!

After hours of caulking, I realized a few things: I do not like caulking, 5200 is thick and sticky and difficult to use, there must be a better caulk gun (something electric?).

Since I am going to be caulking and recaulking my boat on a yearly basis, I decided that splurging on an electric caulk gun was a good idea.  I purchased this one by Ryobi from Home Depot:

This was the only electric caulk gun I found for less than $199.00.  Of course, it does not come with a battery or charger, and once you add those, the cost is around $140.00.  But, if you have other Ryobi power tools, the same battery will work for this.  I did not have any other Ryobil tools, but I was lucky to find a Ryobi mutli tool set that was on clearance for just a bit more than 2 batteries and a charger would cost (and it included 2 batteries and a charger).  They also have a starter kit that has a circular saw, drill, 2 batteries and charger for $99.00 (just the batteries and a charger are $90.00), so I recommend getting a kit rather than buying the batteries separately. 

I have found that it is well worth it!  I recommend this caulk gun!

If you come aboard my boat right now, you may not immediately recognize all the work that has been done, but with help from friends, we are slowly building the big picture.