I went ahead and ordered the 3⁄8″ fiberglass tube that Jay recommended and it should be here early next week. I also ordered some 6″ screw-in inspection hatches, midget cowel vents for the rear of the float, and 10×13″ access hatches. Am thinking about taking some of the many off-cuts of fiberglass cloth and making the backing plates for float pad-eye and deck eyes instead of using aluminum or purchasing a ready-made fiberglass tapping block. I’m thinking sandwich a bunch of offcuts together at different angles to stagger the fibers and put them under vacuum.
Got a quick response from Ian (as usual) even though my questions might have been silly. I wanted to get clarification on how to best seal the chainplates above deck level and how to properly construct the inside flanges for the beam bulkheads. I’ll post pictures and such when it actually happens.
As an aside, I think we’re going to go ahead and cut the float sides flush with the forward face of the bow bulkhead for a flat surface to attach the bow caps.
The plan (as of right now, at least) is the next time I work on it to have some deck shapes gluing together while making the bulkhead flanges. Am most likely going to infuse the decks since they are just bit flat panels, but I need to check and see if I have enough tubing and such left over for something that big. If I infuse, I’m also debating having the deck stiffeners in as well, but we’ll see how gutsy I feel if/when it actually happens.