OhWellcraft
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2007
- Messages
- 277
Hello to all out there,
I just finished my transom rebuild project, and wanted to start by giving a great many thanks to all here. Without this site and all of it's great contributers it never would have been possible. I am a carpenter by trade but didn't have the first clue about fiberglass and all that is involved with it. By carefully reading and understanding what people here had to say it turned out to be not all that difficult. I stumbled on to a easy trick while I was installing my drain tubes. I had three of them to do and used the same method on all three and it seemed to work perfect each time. I didn't have a flaring tool as no one around here had one big enough, so I had to improvise. After I had the tube measured and cut(3/16") longer than thickness of transom. Properly prep the hole(thinned epoxy resin) then 4200 on inside of hole and on tube. Insert tube and block tight(with bottle jack, or 2x4, etc) I then had two sizes of ball peen hammers, medium, and large. Start with the ball of the medium in the tube(it should almost fit in but not quite. Lightly tap with other and will start to flare equally,continue until the med is not flaring anymore. Then switch hammers (large ball in tube) and continue to lightly tap. Once the larger ball is bottmed out it will be flared out enough that you can use the flat side of the large hammer to tap it tight to the hull. wipe up the excess 4200 and you are finished. Each one took me about ten minutes total. I hope this might help someone like all who have helped me along the way. Thanks again...
I just finished my transom rebuild project, and wanted to start by giving a great many thanks to all here. Without this site and all of it's great contributers it never would have been possible. I am a carpenter by trade but didn't have the first clue about fiberglass and all that is involved with it. By carefully reading and understanding what people here had to say it turned out to be not all that difficult. I stumbled on to a easy trick while I was installing my drain tubes. I had three of them to do and used the same method on all three and it seemed to work perfect each time. I didn't have a flaring tool as no one around here had one big enough, so I had to improvise. After I had the tube measured and cut(3/16") longer than thickness of transom. Properly prep the hole(thinned epoxy resin) then 4200 on inside of hole and on tube. Insert tube and block tight(with bottle jack, or 2x4, etc) I then had two sizes of ball peen hammers, medium, and large. Start with the ball of the medium in the tube(it should almost fit in but not quite. Lightly tap with other and will start to flare equally,continue until the med is not flaring anymore. Then switch hammers (large ball in tube) and continue to lightly tap. Once the larger ball is bottmed out it will be flared out enough that you can use the flat side of the large hammer to tap it tight to the hull. wipe up the excess 4200 and you are finished. Each one took me about ten minutes total. I hope this might help someone like all who have helped me along the way. Thanks again...
