My (not so) new RIB

[Neil Harvey]

Originally Posted by Ian M

One of the design features unique to Ospreys are the transom boxes (well I have not seen them on any other make of RIB, maybe someone knows better?).

The Shakespeare 720 has them, see Stevetheboats build thread.
Freat for storing the battery and oil tank, leaving the seat bases and console free.

[Biggles]

Originally Posted by Neil Harvey

The Shakespeare 720 has them, see Stevetheboats build thread.
Freat for storing the battery and oil tank, leaving the seat bases and console free.

Handy bit of kit. Everyboat should have them.

[Ian M]

As I started out by saying in these last four posts, what I am trying to do is bring people up to date with where I am, not least to answer some of the questions that have come my way.
I now have a compete set of upholstery, (that jumbled pile does not do it justice) and all of the stainless steel that I need for now, although there is a little bit more needed later on. I also have all the instrumentation. That last has proved to be a little of a problem, as I had decided that I wanted Lowrance units (love the displays – and it is what I have had before), and I wanted separate chartplotter and echo sounder (fish finder or whatever you want to call it). According to my sources imports were made in time for the London boat show this year, but they did not anticipate the take up, and the Lowrance units that I am after have been effectively sold out in the UK since then. Was not too much of a problem for me, as I was still working away at other things, but just as things were getting a little tight, a X510 and 5200 appeared on my doorstep. As I already have a Icom 421 to fit, I now have all the instrumentation that I need. Just hope that it all works; need to cut some holes for it now. The third picture is me deciding where some of it should go
Batteries were a little bit of a problem, but a trip to Merlin Marine in Poole was helpful, one of many pointers picked up from RIBnet. Infact, whilst on the topic of RIBnet, I can honestly say that if it had not been for RIBnet, and one of its contributors in particular, I would not have had this summer of hard graft!!! You know who you are
Merlin pointed me towards Lifeline AGM batteries, as being the latest and greatest, which particularly for the starter battery, give an incredibly small package. The ‘house’ battery is larger, but no more so than others I have seen. The house brick will be added to keep the boat from taking off
The aim is to get both of these, the oil tank, the fuel filter/separator, and the battery changeover switches all housed within the console, whilst leaving room for the cable entry ducts and the fuel lines from the filler neck on the front of the console. Anyone got a shoe horn, the extra large size?
Work on the hull as such has been limited. I have cut out ready for the inspection hatches and cable entry glands to go in the transom boxes, and removed those ‘U’ bolts. The only other work of note that I have completed is to remove the gelcoat from one of the faces inside the lower console. What a horrible job, gelcoat and tiny bits of fibreglass getting all over you. I still have to clean off the remaining three sides, as you can see in the final picture.
With one of our bedrooms acting as a storage room containing steering gear, fuel lines, instruments, stainless steel bits, throttle control, switches, etc it is all there ready for me to put together, just need my 8 year old and 12 year old to go and play with their mates
I am continuing to apply fibreglass to the console upper, I am really adding weight to that thing, I can hardly pick it up now, and some judicously placed epoxy.
I live in awe of those guys on here who have built similar boats in next to no time, don't know how they have done it. Guess I am just one of lifes plodders. Still, if I had to miss a seasons boating, I could not think of a better season in living memory to miss.
So guys and gals, I'll keep plodding along, and hopefully will be on the water before the year is out.
The sharp eyed ones may have noticed that there are two screen surrounds in the picture of the stainless, the left hand most one is the standard Outhill item provided with the CF19 console and others in their range. It is surplus to requrements, so should anyone need one, all I want is the postage.

[Ian M]

It's been some time, but I will try to pick up where I left off.
The last post showed one side of the inside of the lower console having had the flowcoat well and truly abraided, if not removed. I went on to give the other three sides the same treatment. The reason was that I wanted to ensure that the console is pretty bomb proof when I have finished. A couple of reasons for this; I like to over engineer things, in my line of work I do not get to indulge this perverse streak in my nature very often , and secondly it is possible that some of my diving mates will want the odd trip and I want to make sure that there is nothing in the boat that will not withstand the attentions of some big lads in diving gear.
The Outhill console comes in two sections, an upper and a lower. The lower has two compartments, as can be seen in one of the photos. The upper section sits on the rearmost of the lower compartments, held in place by hinges on the rear face and bolts through the forward edge of the upper console into the lower sections.
To beef up the lower console to support the increased weight of the upper console, I decided to fit 18mm marine ply bulkheads to the forward and rear faces of the lower rear compartment. Firmly attached to these I have mounted what I can only call 'flanges' (well see for yourself ), and these will mate with similar 'flanges' in the upper console, with bolts going through both to fix the upper and lower console sections.
The first picture shows the forward bulkhead, the second the rear bulkhead. There are then a couple of shots of stages of completion of the forward bulkhead.
The last shot jumps ahead a bit in time to show both bulkheads in place having been bonded into the console. There is also 3 layers of 600 csm matting on the inside of each of the sides of the lower console, and as a final touch I bonded in strengthening uprights which you can see braced in place whilst the resin goes off.
That strange bit sticking up that is to mount the fuel filter, raised so that I will be able to see it through the hatches in the sides of the upper console.
I'll add more soon, but for now I am off to bed. Goodnight

[Ian M]

One of the aspects of the design of the console that I am quite keen on is to retain the use of the whole of the front compartment of the lower console as a locker for use when I actually get the thing on the water.
So this meant having to cram in a starter and 'house' battery, the engine oil tank and the the fuel filter/seperator into the lower compartment. I did cheat a little by raising the fuel filter/seperator so that the bowl would be visible through hatches I was to fit to the sides of the console. But two batteries and an oil tank had to fit somehow, along with all the cables, steering lines and fuel lines.
Whilst I am quite keen on the idea of battery boxes, I quickly came to the conclusion that there just is not enough room in the console to accomodate them. So, I am taking the battery manufacturer at their word when they say that the are guaranteed not to leak
I have made up a plate to go in the bottom of the console which has a tray for the 'house' battery and a mounting area for the oil tank. Evinrude are quite emphatic in their literature that the oil tank should be as low as possible in the boat; I just hope that the fuel system has more 'suck', as the fuel filter is a little higher
This tray has to clear both of the cable ducts in the lower console. To do this the starter battery sits in a seperate battery tray mounted over the port duct. This tray will be screwed down to the main battery tray which will itself be screwed to the lower console floor.
Hopefully the pictures will make all this a little clearer. The first is the space that I have to work with in the empty lower console and shows the two cable ducts and the fuel tank connections. The second shows the main battery tray glassed over but prior to gelcoating, (this is for the large 'house' battery/oil tank mounting) and the third shows the battery tray for the starter battery in place.
The fourth shows how the batteries will be held in place, the stainless steel studs going through the battery trays to clamp the batteries in place.
The last pic is one of my failures. As the floor of the console is not perfectly flat, I wanted to make the negative of it to go under the main battery tray. In this way with a little sealant I could be reasonably sure of making a water tight seal against the console floor. So I used a sheet of fablon which I was told the gelcoat would not stick to. Well if you look closely you can see that it has! Chalk that up to one up to experience

[Ian M]

So, I've got to the stage of nearly finishing the fit out of the major elements inside the lower console.
For reasons that will become obvious soon I can do no more on that at the moment.
The other area I have been attending to is the transom. Not that in itself there was anything inherently wrong with it, but I had to fit the 'A' frame.
As with most things on this (my) boat, I knew what I wanted to achieve and have been determined to achieve that, even if it has delayed my getting on the water.
I wanted the 'A' frame to mount to the front of the transom boxes, where Mike (who builds Ospreys) places reinforcement for this purpose, and to the rear of the transom, the ultimate strong point on the boat. However, the Osprey has a lip, almost like a spoiler on the top of the transom, which you can just make out in the first picture. This had to be cut away so that the rear most leg of the 'A' frame could sit against the stern. I used one of those saws that has a round blade and so can cut in all directions - not sure what they are called, I just know that it was work that had to be done carefully so the nervous tension was high!
A trial fit of the 'A' frame (no small task) confirmed that I had cut away sufficient material - see second pic.
I then put two layers of duct tape on the rear most leg of the 'A' frame where it passed through the area where the lip was, and covered this with a layer of fablon. I used plasticine to bung up the gaps and used gelcoat along with some judicious reinforcing to build up the lip again in the area of the 'A' frame rear legs. Once I had sufficient material in place I removed the 'A' frame and voila, it came away leaving the perfect cut out for the 'A' frame legs, with very little gelcoat sticking to the fablon. I thought this to be a fairly conclusive test that this method of using fablon as a 'non-stick' surface would work on a larger area, and this is one of the reasons I tried the same trick in the base of the lower console, but as you have seen, in the lower console it did not work
Having roughly built up the lip, I decided that I needed to tackle the rest of the surface area of the lip, in order to get a consistent finish. Big error
I eventually applied three layers of gelcoat by brush and set about rubbing the lip area down to get a good finish. After much work I went through the gelcoat to the underliying material. So I brush applied three more layers of gelcoat which in the cold weather was taking quite a number of days for each layer to go off, and started to rub down again. Guess what I went through to the underlying material again. So I started again brush applying the gelcoat, but with my sense of humour in tatters and guess what
This exercise had now taken many weeks, and I was close to my wits end. I have to admit that I even phoned around trying to find a professional that would take the work on, but could find no takers!
So finally I engaged brain . I thought that I was having no success because I was not applying sufficient depth of gelcoat. What I needed to do was build a mould into which I could apply the gelcoat. The mould I made up was very simple, just some sticky tape around the edges of the lips with the upper edge of the tape left standing proud of the surface of the lip by 4 or 5 mm. Into this I then poured two (or was it three ) layers of gelcoat and waited for it to go off. It worked After rubbing this down I ended up with an acceptable finish, after a little more 'filling in' around the edges. The success was very sweet, but I had spent virtually the whole of the winter getting the top of the transom to an acceptable finish I was well behind my self imposed schedule.
With the transom OK, although there is still a little finishing off to complete, my 12 year old son helped lift the 'A' frame into the boat. Would it fit??
It fitted perfectly The proof is in pictures three and four. The smile in picture five says it all for me.

[Ian M]

The other area of the boat that I have been paying attention to is the upper console. This has been quite heavily re-inforced with 12 and 18mm marine ply in various areas and a minimum of 3 layers of 600 csm mat where ply re-inforcement was not possible, for instance on curved surfaces. The first pic shows one of the reinforcing side pieces having just been coated with G4 just before the outer layer of mat is applied. The second pic shows the console in a slightly more advanced state with the 'flanges' in place. In this shot they are only just temporarily fixed with bits of matting etc, but this really brought home to me how strong fibreglass is. All I had done was wet a few small pieces of matting stick them to the upper side of the flanges and to the inside face of the console. You can see them in the third pic. They were absolutely solid when dry; amazing strength! Sorry if I am teaching granny to suck eggs, but I found this quite an eye opener. With the final support bracketry in place I will have to remove these temporary fixings; I am not looking forward to that. I think that the other shots are self explanatory.

[Downhilldai]

When does the warranty on your outboard expire?

[bedajim]

Originally Posted by Ian M

I can honestly say that if it had not been for RIBnet, and one of its contributors in particular, I would not have had this summer of hard graft!!! You know who you are

so go on name them

And what else would you of done

When are you going to get it wet

[Ian M]

Originally Posted by Downhilldai

When does the warranty on your outboard expire?

Yes, that's a bummer. You are not the first to mention this! I fear that it is just a bitter pill that I am going to have to swallow

[Ian M]

Originally Posted by bedajim

so go on name them

I have not seen them on here recently, but it does not take a great deal of working out. James, I am sure that I told you who

Originally Posted by bedajim

And what else would you of done

When it is going well, I would do the same again. When it is not going so well I would have paid someone for a boat, the same as sane people do
Mind, to do it again Mrs M would take some persuading . Again and never were just some of the words she used

Originally Posted by bedajim

When are you going to get it wet

I have not quite finished the story yet. As will become clear, to a certain extent it is out of my hands

[bedajim]

Originally Posted by Ian M

Yes, that's a bummer. You are not the first to mention this! I fear that it is just a bitter pill that I am going to have to swallow

Hs it been PDI'd As mine started from then When I took it back to let the dealer plug it into his black box

[Ian M]

Originally Posted by bedajim

Hs it been PDI'd As mine started from then When I took it back to let the dealer plug it into his black box

I did wonder if that might be the case, but had not got round to asking the dealer yet, in which case yippeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Ian M]

Picture one shows the underside of my upper console with the flanges that I will bolt it down with in position on their temporary brackets. You might notice the bare earth and threadbare grass behind the console. That is where my hull etc used to live No, my boat has not been stolen , but has gone back to Eurocraft for some additional work that I have requested. The best guess is that it will be away for two more weeks. So I am continuing to work on the console and battery holders to get them ready for when the hull comes back.
I am now putting the permanent 'flange' mountings into the upper console. The second picture shows the two front outer mounting brackets 'in the buff', having just been epoxied together. The third picture shows the brackets after having been rubbed down ready for fixing into the console. When this is done they will be clad with fibreglass and gelcoat/flowcoat. They can be seen in position in picture four.
So In the meantime I will be working on the console upper section and the battery holders - hopefully completing them for when I get the hull back; we shall see
And that's it, that is where I am currently at; no boat, and still quite a bit to do. But, I'm getting there

[bedajim]

[Ian M]

Originally Posted by bedajim

Sorry James, Missed this attempt to stir me into action, I think I was in Italy at the time. I will try to do better

[Mollers]

So, how's it going? It must be coming on now.

3yrs in March, that has to be a Ribnet record.

[Bam Bam]

More pics mate, what a fantastic looking boat... there's plenty of fun to be had there. congrats!

[Ian M]

Blimey, I didn't realise how long it was since I did any of this Ribnet stuff So to follow on from what was ages ago; it is probably time for a little more honesty
One of the delays in getting the boat together was that it had to go back for a re-tube, yep new tubes had to be replaced. A line through the bow of the boat would have had me going around in circles It took a little time to convince Eurocraft that it needed doing, but eventually they re-tubed the boat. So the first pic is as it came back.
The second picture shows some detail of the mounting arrangement for the upper console, which I have changed from the original arrangement to something more substantial. These will have bolts going through them and through mating flanges in the lower console.
To gain access to the interior of the console I decided that I needed hatches in the sides of the console. Just screwed to the sides looked a little agricultural, and so I decided to inset them. This involved routing out the recess for the flanges.and putting a small return on the recess while I was about it. You can see the general idea in pictures 3, 4 and 5.

[Neil Harvey]

so what's going in the gap between the white of the hatch and the white gelcoat of the console??