Its time to beef up the 1″ fiberglass rods that were glassed through the deck. I am bringing the handrails up to USCG standards for a Certificate of Inspection and documentation. The new handrail height will be 39 1/2 inches above deck, with an aluminum handrail. Right now they are 36 inches with para cord as the lifelines. New lifelines will be 1/8″ dyneema on 4″ spacings. It should hold Mike Tyson and Andre the Giant!
This latest project is to fabricate some nice looking bases that will glass into place above and below decks. I finally found the perfect molds- these kiddy horns from amazon. the flanges were the exactly right size, and as a bonus I now have some new boat party paraphanelia!
Some notes: After waxing the molds, I thought that I would be able to use peel ply first to get a nice surface. Disaster. So I skipped the peel ply. It is very difficult to cut the fabric to fit the whole inside circumference without wrinkles in one go. In fact, it is much easier to insert widths of fabric about 2/3rds the diameter, and then overlap with another piece. Since I wanted the finished side to be on the outside of the coves, the horns were used as female molds. lighter fabric works best. I used 9 oz uni first then some scrap 20 oz triax, but the triax is very messy by the time you get it cut that small, wet it out and lay it in there with a tongue depressor. Biax tape would be better.
Once cured they popped right out. I rough trimmed the edges with some large tin snips. It’s easier to do that when they are still green. Next operation is to cut to correct height, so that the stanchions will fit (shown), then slip them over the existing stanchion rods, fill with structural bog and set them into place.
