What Did You Do To Your Boat This Week?

Building gunwales:
 
Finished installing a 1 kw Garmin thru-hull transducer. It was quite a process, and not for the faint of heart considering you need to bore a large hole - 3 & 7/8 inch. Then comes the repairing the hole with gell coat, sanding preparing the curved hull to create the flattest spot possible. Repair, gell coat, repeat.

Here's pics of the before work and gell coat repair/prep, and pics of the finished install.
 

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Finished installing a 1 kw Garmin thru-hull transducer. It was quite a process, and not for the faint of heart considering you need to bore a large hole - 3 & 7/8 inch. Then comes the repairing the hole with gell coat, sanding preparing the curved hull to create the flattest spot possible. Repair, gell coat, repeat.

Here's pics of the before work and gell coat repair/prep, and pics of the finished install.
What exactly is that white material? Is this a multi step process or just one material used?
 
What exactly is that white material? Is this a multi step process or just one material used?
Great question...I will break down the process to explain.

There's a bit of a process to prepare the surface for mounting the transducer after coring the hole. Once the hole is cored, I sanded the inner and outer hull to create a flatter surface to mount the transducer. The challenge for my hull is in the mounting location the hull slightly curves to form the dead rise - therefore needed to create a flatter surface for mounting.

Following that, next was to repair the inner and outer hull gell coat with multiple coats. I also applied gell coat to the fiberglass (1 inch thick) where I drilled the core to ensure there was a water tight seal to prevent any delamination should there be any leaks.

After dry-fitting to ensure everything was lined up (its a 2 person job) we used 3M fast cure "permanent" 5200 sealant. Highly recommended you do not use removable products like sika flex. Another tricky bit - You will need to either build your own 4 1/4 inch wrench to crank down the mounting nut, or purchase one (actually 2 - one to hold the transducer, larger to turn the mounting nut.

So the white stuff is gell coat on the hull and 5200 sealant applied to the transducer.
 
Moved onto bottom paint - not my most favorite job jar thing to do but she done. Onward and upward, next up is working on replacing the Pro-Troll that packed it in after a few rainy days. Hoping the new one they kindly sent as a warranty replacement doesn't have same water resistance issues. I'm going to build a flip up/down rain cover this time around.
 

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