Boat Forum / Building / March 2006

Any pictures or ideas out there for a homemade autopilot for a medium
weight 23' sailboat? This has wheel steering. I'm thinking of when
there's no wind and you want to maintain a course for a few minutes to
hand sail or tidy up.

I'm building a 36ft aluminum Van de Stadt and I'm not sure how far down the
hull I need to spray my insulation. Should I go just to the waterline, or is
it better to spray almost to the bilges?
Thanks

Its almost warm enough to consider working on my old boat again, and so I
have a few questions.
My boat is near 16ft, and fiberglass from the 70's (Sunray).
It has a severely faded green colored bottom (like pea soup green) given the

I'm trying to come up with an ideal prop pitch.  My dealer is of No
help.  And I have no tach.  It's a 20hp Honda with 9.25" dia prop on a
16' planing dory.  My original prop was 9" pitch which pushed the boat
about 17mph.  So I went to an 8" pitch which pushes it 22mph (speed by

Ahoy, I have a roll of the deluxe, aysb, oil spec, 600v etc covered
14awg 2 conductor marine type whaaaaaaarrrh.
It would be so much easier, cleaner, cheaper etc to string this under
the floorboards than around the cabin roof, through bulkheads etc. I'm

I have a Four WInns 17.5' 4.3L SX 1996.  I recently took the boat for a
spin around the lake in anticipation of spring.  When I got back I
noticed white foamy liquid coming out of a slot in the side of the
stern drive.  Upon further review, gear oil has water in it.... My

Looking for a used winch stand assembly for a waverunner trailer.  Any
help would be great.

I've got some old Lexan that still has the protective paper on it and last
weekend used a piece for a science project with my daughter.
The project, a simple solar oven, would have taken us about 1.5 hours to
build, but when I broke out a piece of the Lexan, I had the worst time

I own a 32' fishing boat.
The superstructure is 3/16th aluminum. I want to saw out the port wheelhouse
wall as I convert the boat into a family cruiser.
I intend to use a carbide tipped blade made for aluminum on a  7 1/4" skill

Anybody know what they are?  I'm making spars for a sailing pram and
the plans - very poor plans - mention "deck clips" on the
gaff/yard/sprit/whatever you want to call it to secure the halyard to
the spar.

I had been left a 15 foot speedboat when my uncle passed away that i decided
to clean up and repair, but i knew nothing about it at all when i started to
make repairs and get her ready to go back onto the water, anyway after many
weekends of rubbing down, painting and cleaning in ...

Anybody seen this rare book?  I'd sure like to get a copy ...if you've got
one gathering dust, then would you be willing to part with it?
Thanks,
Brian

We're at the point of doing our awnings, whether made or bought.
We're challenged currently with how to design ours to actually cover
the boat with backstays, topping lifts and the like in the way.
Shade tree claims to have successrully dealt with these issues...

I have a large supply of carbon fiber/Nomex honeycomb core aircraft
panels that will be turned into furniture aboard my catamaran.
I'm considering ways of finishing the external seams to minimize the
amount of fairing I will have to do.  I'm going to be making up some

Anyone in this group had any experience bending SS tubing?  I can do
basic welding of SS but am fuzzy on bending procedures.  A couple of
tricks I have heard involve packing the tubing with sand and
construcing a wooden die to form the tubing.