The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

I'm making a little more progress on the boat, but not everything is going as I expected.

Sanding the transom.

First coat of varnish on the transom

First coat of varnish on the transom

More varnish on the seats (4th coat), and varnish on the battery mount & switch panel.

1st coat of paint on the bilge pump mount.

2nd coat of paint, pump base epoxied on, t-nut installed.

Completed bilge pump mount.

Completed bilge pump mount.

Bilge pump mount is held in position by one stainless-steel eye bolt.

A lock washer on the eye bolt keeps it in place.

So far, so good. But, now the "Ugly" part...

Back in April, when I attached the deck, I was rather disappointed with the fitting between the deck and the intermediate deck beam. Although the fitting disappointed me, I'd have to say that the deck has proven strong enough, nonetheless. I've climbed across it a couple of times while getting the boat back on the trailer.

Still, I wanted to fill the gap, just for my own peace of mind. For this purpose, I had bought a pair of empty caulking tubes. The plan was to put thickened epoxy into the tubes, then squeeze the epoxy into the gap as a filler, using my caulking gun.

How did it go?

I don't use the word "fiasco" lightly. However, that's the only way I can describe what happened. In spite of the fact that I snipped the end off of the nozzle to allow for flow of such a viscous mixture, the only place where epoxy went was out the back of the tube, and all over my caulking gun.

I don't think any epoxy even made it into the nozzle.

As you can see, the only place epoxy went was around the stopper, out the back of the caulking tube, and all over my caulking gun.

I can't imagine what caused this to happen. Granted, I did not check to see if the tubes had some kind of seal on the inside (what sense would that make?). I can say that I won't be trying this method again.

Maybe I should just leave the deck well enough alone. As I mentioned, it is strong enough. There's a saying in this neck of the woods: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."