The "hard way" often ends up being the easiest way. If you need access and a few rivets are holding you back, time to get out the drill. I end up spending way too much time working around something in hopes it will save me time, but that never ends up being the case. Maybe lube up the rubber trim for a few days so when you are ready to pull it out, there's no cracking and things slide out like butter?
I agree with that.
I'm fairly sure that the rubber is 100% done already. I pulled on it with a fingernail and it tore.
The moulding kind of looks like the bottom left with less pronounced ears. I'll be able to find a replacement somewhere.
Found some great cardboard for the CAD work, shipping pallet type thingie from IKEA, its actually three layers thick and cuts better with a saw than a razor blade
When I was looking for ways to do the transom I had an old boat guy tell me that he'd go about 18" up forward of the stern, cut the cap and then fiberglass it back in afterwards. He must've been high as berkeley. So easy to drill out the rivets and wedge the cap up enough to get my CAD done.
If it would stop dadgum raining I would go out there and cut it out of the actual wood and have this ready to glass in this weekend.
And the dogs helped.
Glad you didn't have to cut the cap. I imagine it would have been tough to blend.
There's also an aluminum runner on the inside, its hard to see because it was painted, I don't know how they would have dealt with that.
I want to put the hubs back on and put wheels back on, but I need to clean them and to do that I have to put something new into my ultrasonic cleaner before I do. Not sure what I want to try next.
I also determined that the original paint color was yellow. I think I like the red better
In reply to Mr_Asa :
Agree on red. Classic color, yellow reminds me of cheap lawn furniture.
I could see it if it were done right, a kind of buttercup color, not a banana color if that makes sense? There's also some sort of tangerine-ish color under the aluminum trim. I could possibly get behind that, but not with a blue motor, not with family in Tallahassee.
Dad and I were talking about colors for boats and we came to a similar conclusion that certain colors that work for cars just don't work for boats. Red is good, blue is good, a light blue-green would work, but a lime green or a dark green wouldn't, black wouldn't. Always an exception, of course, but for a classic boat there are some colors that just don't do it.