1976 22-2 rebuild, factory inboard to outboard conversion

[theFunsmith]

 I will be running lights under the gunnels all around, but I will not be using a trolling motor up front. The only thing on the bow will be the anchor cradle (one of the west-coast flares) and line and float storage. We do a lot of river fishing at anchor, and very little flats style trolling. Unless somebody knows of a reason not to, my current plan is to mount anchor and nav lights overhead on the T-top, it will keep wire runs short and clean.

I have lots of those staring hours built up too. Neighbors think I am all locked up at times.

[RickK]

I would run a 1" pipe up front and at least leave a pull line in it for a future choice. Are you going to leave the area above your casting deck open to the ???  This is the crucial time to think the "possible" - YOU may not need a trolling motor up front but the next owner may want this and if you plan ahead for that, it's a "sales plus".

[theFunsmith]

Good call on the future rigging tube. You never know what may come up later. I am going to close in the tip of the bow from the front of the casting deck up to the original cap profile, and make an access from the top for line and float storage.

[theFunsmith]

Well the hatch mold didn't quite work as planned. My relief angle wasn't quite enough, and I didn't wax the plug well enough. I had to destroy the mold to remove the plug. lesson learned the hard way. That is what happens when you try to rush something.

On the brighter side, I got the casting deck stretched. I put a good taper on the existing glass and then screwed melamine to the casting deck as a form. While the deck was mocked up in the boat, I had drawn a guide line on the deck using a piece of 2x4 for a spacer to the hull, then when it was all laid up, I used the guide lines to mark cut lines offset at 3.5" (width of the 2x4). She looks good, I think its gonna work.

[RickK]

Looks good!

[mshugg]

That’ll do the job.

[theFunsmith]

The last couple days were action packed around here. Had some help getting the casting deck in and out a bunch of times, finally got her fit just about perfectly, and got her stuck down. Feels really solid under foot, and it is a beautiful thing to see the inside of the hull start to take shape. Going to hit it hard again tomorrow and see if we can do anything else worth posting pictures of. 

[Marcel4t]

That looks awesome, makes me feel like a slacker in my progress lately.  Those front storage areas are all open together?  You have a lot of space under there for sure

[theFunsmith]

Don't feel like a slacker. I am 15 months in at this point. I left it wide open in the boxes for the ease of access to the fish box plumbing, and the option to store larger items if necessary. I plan on putting a stretchy net in the middle for a divider when its all buttoned up, but I wanted to leave plenty of room for servicing the box drain, hose clamps, etc should the need ever arise. There is nothing more frustrating than needing to fix something you can't get to.

[RickK]

Congrats, looks great!  Big milestone accomplished.

[theFunsmith]

Thank you Rick, and thank you to the rest of the crew too who pointed me in the right direction on that step. It came out looking much better than my original plan ever could have.

[mshugg]

Looks great!  I bet it stiffened up the forward hull too.

[theFunsmith]

Thank you, it certainly stiffened it up. I didn't get a whole lot of photo worthy stuff done yesterday. but the electrical tube is run to the bow, and the triangle piece is ready to install to close in what will be the bottom of the forward-most storage compartment.

On a smaller note, on a sleepless night this weekend, I had an "ah-ha!" moment and designed a super simple flush-fit compression latch installation tool. I am going to hit the lathe this afternoon and try to turn out the prototype. It should make for a very simple and sound installation of latches, flush to the top of an existing hatch with absolutely minimal work. I don't know if this is a marketable thing, but it sure will be useful in making the hatches up front look and work correctly.

[theFunsmith]

Here it is. The result of my "Ah-ha!" moment. I present to the forum my flush latch install tool.











This was just a quick and dirty proof-of-concept try on some mdf, but I like the results.

[theFunsmith]

Here is a couple progress shots to show how the plate was attached to the plug: