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The Tin Can Too
Its been resting on the floor of the shop most of the last year. I haven't
done anything with it for a while until a few days before the Yuma Pro Am BBQ. It was in the way so I loaded it back on the trailer and moved it so we could get to the tables and chairs. LOL. Seriously I finally did a little more work on it on Sunday. Cut a couple pieces of 3/4 plywood to act as load spreaders in the bow for trailering. I know 3/4 is overkill, but I don't want to have to open this thing up again ever. If you have seen some of my pictures you know the bow of this boat is built heavy since I cut out and rebuilt its pushed in and broken nose. My son and I fitted the pieces, and cut and fitted some backer plates out of aluminum scraps left over from other jobs. Originally Tracker had riveted through to do this, but I went with 1/4" stainless bolts and stainless nylocks on the inside. After we had it all fitted we pulled it apart and painted the ply with epoxy resin to waterproof. I even used a scrap of rag on a wire to paint the inside of the bolt holes. Yesterday after work I bolted it all together permanently with liberal use of Attwood 7200 fast curing marine sealant in all the holes, and under the bolt heads. I probably should have used 3M 5200, but it is all above the water line. Well, maybe not when fishing. I'll float test it before filling it with foam. I also pulled in some 4 conductor waterproof cable for the lights, sounder, and trim switch for the bow, but I think I'm going to pull it back out and put some plastic tube in for wire routing since I plan to pour the front full of closed cell flotation foam. Tracker had originally just laid wire in the v-grooves in the hull and poured cheap open cell foam over it, but I know my luck. If I take a short cut like that I'll have problems for sure. I also jerked out the inner bulk head aluminum sheets and removed the rest of the sheets of plant foam Tracker had used in the cockpit for flotation. I'll be hunting up some Styrofoam to replace it all very soon. To avoid squeaking I think I'll lay down a couple beads of construction adhesive between each set of ribs before I reassemble. The next step though now that I have the bow structurally sound and re-enforced is to break out my cable puller and see if I can pull the transom forward about 1/16 of an inch and re-weld/repair all of the cracks in Tracker's welds. Then design some over engineered reinforcement like I did with the bow. I actually have a plan for that. One of the braces I plan to add will also make a dandy place for a "legal" fuel filler neck and a tank vent. This boat never had a gas tank mounted in it. They used 6 gallon carry tanks. I'll be dropping in a 12-15 gallon plastic resin tank depending on what is available in a shape that will fit. 15 would give it enough range to fish all the areas I normally use a tin boat for. The Tin Can has a 12 gallon tank with about 10.7 useable and its just barely big enough. If I the run to my furthest favorite spots I come back on fumes. The Tin Can Too is slightly larger, and I'll be using the slightly less efficient Mercury on it. I thought about making a custom aluminum tank, but there is always that niggling doubt about a possible pinhole turning the boat into a floating fireball. I'll pass. I am after all only a self taught welder. Its been a learning process, which of course was the whole plan. I have learned a lot about boat construction and even more about welding aluminum. I've even learned a few tricks not in the books for fabricating "special" parts. I could have built a better boat from the ground up in less time than I have spent, but I'm not sure I would have learned as much. Or at least not the same stuff. Then again, that's part of the long term goal. To be able to layout and build an aluminum boat from scratch. I have some plans for that too... Too many plans. LOL. Bob La Londe www.YumaBassMan.com Director www.YumaProAm.com |
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