Project Martini - Arctic 28 - Page 3

Limey Linda · 28 March 2008, 21:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by martini

They couldn't figure it out and eventually pulled it out of the water and found bullet holes in the hull!!

Checked mine and couldn't find any

That is good news. I can provide bullet holes if you need them

Today, I pulled the bilge pump out, which did not work. The wire connection just fell apart, so no surprise. Removed the bottom cover , turned the impeller and it was free. Connected it direct across the battery and it ran fine. I am amazed as it was full of gunk and 12 years old. Rule 1500, not auto, I think I will get another and connect in parallel elec. and hose. I am going to refit the bilge so I can get 2 pumps in and the depth sounder tranducer. A friend gave me a good tip on mounting the transducer. Cover the transduce with cling film and apply a perimeter "rope" of epoxy putty to the bilge. Press transducer into putty and allow to cure. Remove transducer and cling film and set the transducer into the pocket created with a heavy coat of silicoln. if it fails you can get it out but it is secure.

martini · 29 March 2008, 19:35

Another productive day in the shop:

pic 1 - craned the fuel tanks out
pic 2 - look a bit scabby in the pic but they are actually in great condition, a quick clean with passivating fluid and they can go back in.
pic 3 - new 12mm marine ply gets cut and dry fitted.
pic 4 - action shot, trimming down flush and routing a radius on the edge.
pic 5 - 3 hours later - job done

thanks to Rob from the joinery shop next door and Matt for giving us a hand

martini · 16 April 2008, 21:27

Not much of visual interest has been going on the last couple of weeks, just little bits and bobs that you don't think about til they need to be done, oh and spending hours on the pc and the phone trying to get other people to pull their finger out! And why is it so damn hard to get 316 woodscrews that dont have a slotted head?? Found some now, can highly recommend Inox, very cheap and extremely friendly and helpful.

Things should really start happening soon, in the next week or so my engines should arrive and so should my nice shiny new Neptune console from Parker Ribs

I was going to use the original seats for now but they're none too comfy and Andre's such a nice bloke I decided to order new seats to match. A pair of single jockeys for the driver/navigator and a pair of doubles behind

Fuel tanks are cleaned up now and look great (no pics at the mo), I've just welded in a 1.25" BSP half socket in the top of both, these will take the optimax compatible sender units from Wema. I bought the new stainless model with no moving parts, they seem to be the business and only £45 each. Again I can highly recommend Stuart at Wema, very helpful and knew exactly what I needed, these senders are made to measure and only take a few days to produce.

The main job left to do on the tanks is move the filler necks to coincide with the console and seats. This is a pain as I can't do anything until they arrive and I've got 400 litres of juice to get rid of as well

Should make me popular among my friends

God knows how I'm going to make the tanks safe for welding, don't really wan't to fill them with water. Any ideas? At college we were taught to steam clean them but the tanks are so big and so heavily baffled I dont think this will get rid of all the vapour.

martini · 17 April 2008, 17:44

Pic 1 - tanks nice and clean after a dose of acid

Pic 2 - access plate showing the new half socket welded in ready to take the new senders

Just had to order another pair of stainless/rubber bonded seals for them. Apparantly if you want a 1.25" dia seal you have to ask for 1" (bsp)

martini · 25 April 2008, 22:28

Today was a good day, these bad boys turned up finally!! Took 2 months from end of auction but they look fantastic, no corrosion anywhere. If they run as good as they look then I will be a happy man!

Tim M · 25 April 2008, 22:44

Those look very sexy. I assume you got them off ebay.com? Was it all quite straight forward getting them over here?

martini · 25 April 2008, 23:16

I bought them from a company called ARG Marine based in Florida. They have a shop on eBay which is how I found them. They seem to have a lot of larger size pairs, definately worth a look. Judging by their feedback they are very experienced in shipping outboards all over the world.

Getting them to UK was easy, all the paperwork etc is handled by them and they only charged me £500 to Felixtowe! UK to Channel Islands was whole different ball game however. Customs won't release them till VAT and import duty was paid which I didn't fancy, so I had to get a specialist freight company to collect and deliver them under something called a T1 bond. It's like a guarentee that they are being exported out of the UK. So it was £500 to get them 3000 miles across the atlantic and another £525 to get them 100 miles across the channel

Import duty was 4.2% at Jersey Customs, around £300, I guess you would probably pay a similar amount at HM Customs. Plus 17.5% VAT for you suckers!!

Limey Linda · 25 April 2008, 23:57

As you say they look great. ARG have a VG reputation over here and their sales volume is huge. They always sell less, props and controls and always test engines before sale. Are you going to have them run up before fitting to the boat? 500 quid shipping across the pond was a screaming deal.
Best of luck
T

martini · 26 April 2008, 08:41

As you say, they come without rigging so theres still a lot of money to be spent esp with smartcraft etc. I'm off to bolt them on now but it's only a dry fit, they will have to come off at some point as I've got fibreglass work still to do on the transom. When my console arrives I can then take measurements for control cable/ wiring harness lengths etc.

martini · 26 April 2008, 19:56

Sweeet!!

bogib · 26 April 2008, 22:42

Heck of a nice pairs

Bogi

martini · 29 April 2008, 19:58

As well as hang the motors last weekend I dry fitted the steering cylinder, its a Seastar Tournament cylinder. Fairly new out I believe, they are designed for big twins or triples in an offshore environment. The main difference is in the tie bar mounting, this is much beefier than the standard seastar mount.

Although these cylinders are only meant to be rigged one cylinder per motor I didn't want to gain more turns lock to lock, so a quick chat to Steve at Hypro Marine and he put together a kit to enable me to connect the far end of the Tournament tie bar straight to the port motor.

I also had my first proper go at fibreglassing on sunday, didnt turn out to bad I thought! The pic is of my forward, under deck storage. I put a floor in the space between 2 stringers and formed a partition to split it into two. The forward part will hold an anchor and warps while the other half will be for dry kit.

You may notice a hole for a deck plate leading into the next forward compartment. The idea is although this compartment will be full of closed cell foam, I'm going to chop it into smallish pieces. This will enable me to remove any amount of foam and replace it with lead ballast if boat requires it.

Jimbob · 01 May 2008, 12:08

Hi Martini

I really look forward to reading the progress report, looks like its coming along quite nicely

carnt wait to see the finished boat

Paul Beaurain · 08 May 2008, 14:03

Hi Martini
Great thread - thank you taking time to share your project with both pains and gains along the way. You will have one of the nicest of these great boats, I am sure, when completed.
re ballast - why not just up the amount of anchor chain. This can be done easier than lead in the next compartment. You do have big tidal range your way also...
Paul

martini · 08 May 2008, 17:52

Hi Paul
Thanks for the compliments, it's an advantage for me also to post my progress as I get feedback and tips from many other more knowledgable people on here.

The idea with the ballast is just keeping my options open. Theres every chance I wont need to do anything but once the deck goes down and glassed over then thats that!

martini · 09 May 2008, 18:32

New cast aluminium deck hatches arrived yesterday, quite expensive but quite sexy with it!

Most of the work for the samson post mounting and the forward storage lockers is now done. Put a grey flowcoat in the lockers today and bonded in an extra layer of ply to reinforce the samson post and to give me some extra thickness to screw the hatches into.

I think theres more on how I've tied in the samson post to the hull structure in an earlier post. Suffice to say it won't be pulling out if I'm ever being towed

I'm using the original black aluminium post at the mo but if I get bored at any point I may knock out a polished stainless one just for the bling factor!

Watch out for more pics soon, I get my new Parker console early next week!!

codprawn · 09 May 2008, 20:10

Where did you get those hatches from they look great.

Nasher · 09 May 2008, 20:19

She is looking so good.

Agreed the cast hatches look good, I'd also like to know where they came from.

Nasher

martini · 10 May 2008, 03:37

http://www.imsupplies.co.uk

I'm thinking about buying 2 more of the small ones for fuel tank access but then I will have spent serious money on hatches!

martini · 17 May 2008, 19:03

I would tell you how much I am in love with my shiny new console but I'm out for dinner and already late

Cheers Andre you're a star!!