Transom Trim and Winter is here!

With Thanksgiving Holiday and work, I have been limited with working on the boat, but I have been continuing to move ahead. Over the last couple weeks, I have been focusing on the transom and filling the many holes with epoxy.

Last weekend I cut the trim for the transom and that took a few hours to set things up, make some test cuts and then cutting the actual pieces. The piece on the left goes on first and then the one on the right.

Below is where I did a dry fit of the first piece of trim, so it would become accustom to the curve. One thing I have learned is that when you are trying to do some type of bend and you are applying epoxy, the part will want to move or slip all over the place. I am not sure you can see it, but I decided to use some screws to hold it place.

I left the piece for the week and finally got time yesterday and today to start installing them. I installed the first piece of trim yesterday and things went pretty good. I used the screws and then a bunch of clamps to hold it in place. Nature decided to bring a nice winter storm late yesterday and today, so the temperatures dropped and we got a few inches of snow. I had bought these work lights and setup a 2X4 to hold the lamps so it would help the epoxy cure over night.

Winter has arrived! 

First piece of trim.

Work lights setup to help the epoxy cure.

This is the first piece of trim cured enough to install the 2nd piece. 

I installed the 2nd piece today and used the lights to help if cure. It went on ok, except for the end of the wood. I just put a screw into it. I tried the same thing on the other side, but split the wood. I still had enough epoxy in the cup to fix that! :-)

Some other work I did was to start filling all the cracks and holes from building the boat. I mixed up a couple small batches of epoxy and applied it with a putty knife.  You can see all the dark spots below. 

With Winter here, I am going to probably work on some bench projects. Unless I can get some warmer days, I am not sure I will be able to apply large areas of fiberglass. I may try to build some special brackets to hold the work lights.