It has been a productive few weeks since my last update. To start with, we ordered and received a new windshield from Taylor made. It looks great and is very similar to the old one in style. However it is a little shorter and the curve for the bow is not as pronounced as the last one.
After hours and hours of trying to figure out what would be the best looking and easiest way to get the profile of the boat to meet up with the profile of the windshield, we decided to make an adapter/riser out of wood. We got a lumber yard to laminate 2 sugar maple boards into a 3-1/2in X 5-1/2in X 7 foot plank. The next step was to figure out a way to cut all the curves, accurately. We had a very anemic 1/4HP, bench-top bandsaw but there is no way it could do what we wanted. I hit craigslist and found a guy selling "wood saw" about an hour down the road, the picture was bad but I could tell it was a good sized band saw. That weekend my dad and I took his truck and trailer to the guy. It turns out it was an old industrial meat saw that was converted years ago for wood cutting (new table and blade) it weighed about 4-600 pounds and took a forklift to load on our trailer. THE man we purchased it from cleans out commercial foreclosures and was a very nice guy, we met at his shop and there was another saw that cought my eye by our new saw: it was a VERY large horizontal bandsaw (7X11" capacity) , jokingly I asked how much it was and if it ran (it did) and he says we could take BOTH saws for $250! ;D So the forklift was fired up again and onto our trailer it went. We didn't
need the horizontal saw but... So we get the saws home, the wood saw got casters, a new and longer guide bar (not in the picture), new blade, brushes, and bearings. We rigged up a 220 extension cord so we can run it in the driveway (only have 220 in the basement) The saw ran amazingly, and will be getting a full resto in the future.
Back to the boat... we marked up the cuts for the board that were needed, I cut them up on the bandsaw, and they were fitted to the boat. The two tail pieces were done today, and are getting the first coat of finish now.
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