Ok I have been posting on the cabin sole and the heat and vacuum drying but there has been work on some other areas too. First I want to thank Bill for all the work he has done outlining the electrical systems on these boats. I got all my new parts together, studied his outline (weirdly I prefer using his hand sketched schematic over the fancy one) and the images that he and Alex have posted and then got all tied up in a knot and thought maybe I should find a professional for this part of the project. Then my local J30 buddy Doug kind of walked me through it again and the next thing I knew I started tearing stuff up. When I first started I was kind of thinking of doing each little bit separately, then as I looked at the rats nest that was behind my panel I just started cutting it away.
What also made this part of the project make sense to me was looking at what I would call the modular way that Alex organized his setup. Mine is not going to be anywhere near as sophisticated as that, but the very process of laying the blocks out in an organized fashion started making this all make more sense to me. So with Bill's sketch in hand I chopped out a much larger opening for the panel. I decided that this panel would be attached with 6 screws and have leads long enough that the panel can be laid on the chart table while you access the terminal blocks and the bus. I put in more terminal blocks than what I actually need right now and I put a surface mounted fuse block on the front of the panel. I didn't want to have to look for any critical fuses buried behind the panel, but likely some fuses will still be there. I also left more room on this panel for any future work. This panel is made from some resawn bubinga and is about 1/4" thick, so it matches the cabin sole.
These blocks and busses are on their own plywood block and could be removed if that was ever needed. I have also built another block for the battery area and it will have the shunt, terminal blocks and a bus bar as well. I also used some left over polycarbonate to make a cover for the long bus bar behind the panel. So the electrical work is well underway.
Another project that popped up was removing the mast step cleaning and repainting it and then dealing with the broken bolt. With some adult supervision from Chris Tate I drilled and tapped a new hole and positioned the base back into place. An interesting effect of the new bolt hole position is that it is unlikely that the base will move backward ever again unless it shears this new bolt.
Then it was mentioned that I should lead the electric bilge to the sink drain and that made great sense to me, so another detour was made. I added a vent up under the sink and then had some serious fun trying to match a hose line that would fit the vent and the special sink drain. I found that a rubber water hose did the trick for me because it could be stretched to fit the sink drain. Making this change dramatically shortens that bilge line, so at least in theory it should be easier for the bilge pump to work closer to its max efficiency.
I have also managed to remove the old hatches and get them sent to a new home. The same is going to happen to the folding prop. So lots going on, much. much more needs to be done. We are looking forward to better weather so we can take a look at the topsides and sort out all of the projects there too.
Again thanks for all the help and information that this site and group of people have provided. The Adventure Continues.