It was a great weekend....

[nofearengineer]

It was a good weekend, and I didn't even catch any bass.

Actually, I caught a huge bluegill, and a dink crappie, while watching my fishing buddy Mark catch a couple nice fat bass out of the local pond.




The bluegill I caught was a ten-incher, but I didn't get a photo due to:

a) he was bad hooked and spent too much time trying to not kill him
b) you guys would laugh if I posted a pic of a bluegill

The funny thing was, when I was trying to unhook him, the minnow I had on was still on the hook, so I just slid it up on the line to get it out of the way. Behind that minow, I found the minnow this guy had just stolen from me about 5 minutes earlier...and it was still alive....amazing. I pulled that one out of his mouth to get to the hook, and finally disengaged it, and wouldn't you know it, a third minnow pops out of this bluegill. Talk about a greedy little S.O.B.

After the fun of fishing a couple of hours in shorts (it hit 52....not really shorts weather, but hell, I did it on principle alone), I headed over to my buddy Jacob's house to finish the uprights for my rod locker dividers. Jacob is a great Architect, but may be an even more amazing woodworker. He builds and sells all kind of guitars, completely hand-built in his shop. So it was nothing for him to help me build my dividers, which I had drawn up in CAD that morning. We glued them on to some plywood and cut them out.



Jacob totally put the finesse on my design, and rolled over all the edges on the holes. I got them home, and test-fit them. Not bad at all! A few minor little trims left to do, and they will be perfect. I discovered while drawing them up, I could leave a large opening on the bottom of the rear divider, which will allow me to still put some odd-sized items in the bottom of the locker if I need to.




I'm still working on the cushioning for the rear holes, but the golf club tubes I have fit the front holes perfectly. I still need to get the tubing for the three spinning rod holes (the large holes)

I put a couple rods in to test the workability....



Looks great. It's one thing to draw the holes what looks like the right distance apart on paper, and another thing entirely to see they do indeed give just enough room to keep reels from smacking into each other, yet not waste too much space. I can now hold 7 casting rods and 3 spinning rods (big coincidence...that's exactly the number I take fishing with me ) in the locker, with no hassles at all.

I just need some foam inserts to put in the back holes to keep from scratching up my split grips and to more snugly hold the butts. M initial plan of using weather-stripping was terrible...it doesn't stick well enough...and it's just not dense enough. Oh well, something else to obsess over until I solve it.

After I had taken my rod lockers as far as I could, I focused on getting my new electronics installed. I took the backing plates I made at Jacobs's place, used them as bolt hole templates, and nervously drilled the first hole in my baby. A gut wrenching hour later, I had everything drilled, and started bolting everything into place. It was very satisfying to see my vision come to life.

The world looks pretty good through my eyes right now.



I also got my Smartcraft MercMonitor (the green face gauge) and the battery charger monitor (little football shaped thing) installed.

Looking under the console, you can see the 1" plywood backing plate I made for the RAM mount. It is partially hidden by the spaghetti mess that is the back of my dash right now, but you can see the huge steel nuts and bolts holding it all together. It is built like a tank.



I still need to run all of the cabling from the console to the back of the boat. I managed to get a fish tape through the back corner of the boat, but had to hang it up for the night due to company. A project for next weekend. If I'm lucky, I should be able to finish everything up then.

Let's hope my next weekend is even more fun.

[MallenManson]

Congrats on the project bryce. Oh yeah, and the bluegill. Momma's boy.....

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Blood, sweat, tears, and side imaging, you gotta love it. That cut out would have cost you a pretty penny, you have good friends hahahahaha.

[bcklash]

That looks good Bryce---well done. Oh that blue gill I must a mommas boy to, because takine an ulralight outfit and some night crawlers anchor in some cove and relax. It's alot of fun.

[MallenManson]

Originally Posted by bcklash

That looks good Bryce---well done. Oh that blue gill I must a mommas boy to, because takine an ulralight outfit and some night crawlers anchor in some cove and relax. It's alot of fun.

Don't get all worked up now, I'm only playin. Truth be told, Id be doin my best Ike impersonation right now if I could catch a bluegill

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by Bubba_Bruiser

Blood, sweat, tears, and side imaging, you gotta love it. That cut out would have cost you a pretty penny, you have good friends hahahahaha.

Well, it was not completely free....I did have to donate a 12-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager to the "Keep Jacob Harper Partially Inebriated on the Weekend" fund.

[bcklash]

LOL--I'm not worked up. I thought it was funny.

[MallenManson]

Originally Posted by nofearengineer

Well, it was not completely free....I did have to donate a 12-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager to the "Keep Jacob Harper Partially Inebriated on the Weekend" fund.

God bless the barter system!

[woody]

Wow! It looks great, Bryce. I'm glad to hear that you had a great weekend too.

Have I met your fishing buddy-Mark, yet? I know that you introduced me to a friend of yours last summer out on Patoka; for the life of me though, I can't remember his name.

Anyways, compliments on your rig!


-Mark

[MallenManson]

Originally Posted by bcklash

LOL--I'm not worked up. I thought it was funny.

Haha, I know you're not. You're too easy goin to get worked up much.
Actually, since I can't fish for bass till 4/24, I'm gonna fill the time from Ice Off till then, tryin to make the master angler list with gills and crappie.
Them gills do tend to put up some kinda fight on light gear. Luckily, the lilly pads won't be up at that point!

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by woody

Wow! It looks great, Bryce. I'm glad to hear that you had a great weekend too.

Have I met your fishing buddy-Mark, yet? I know that you introduced me to a friend of yours last summer out on Patoka; for the life of me though, I can't remember his name.

Anyways, compliments on your rig!


-Mark

Thanks for the compliments, Mark. Not quite as fast (okay, not even close ), or as well-fit as a certain Skeeter in Indy, but it gets better every season!

I'm not sure who you met last time. I think it was Jeremy, our newest Electrical Engineer at the firm. I've fished with two Mikes, and two Marks (you're one of them, obviously) in the last year, so I can hardly remember who was with me when.

[woody]

The name Mike sounds familiar. I do remember you saying that he was or is a clergyman.


-Mark

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by woody

The name Mike sounds familiar. I do remember you saying that he was or is a clergyman.


-Mark

Yes, that would definitely be Mike. Great guy. Caught a bunch of nice fish that day too....brings back good memories.

[BassinNC]

Looks awesome, congrats on a good day of fishing.

[keithdog]

Hey Bryce, what a productive weekend. Your projects look great. Always a good thing to have talented friends around when you need them! And I'd love to have a dozen of those 10 inch bluegills for the frying pan!!!

[MIbasser]

Looks great! Have you thought about putting boat carpet on the rear rack?

[BigBassin144]

Bryce, everything is looking great. I really love the rod holders, can't wait to see them with the tubes in. That is a great idea. I'd love to do something like that on our boat, but we'd only be able to fit like 4 rods in there, lol.


BB

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by MIbasser

Looks great! Have you thought about putting boat carpet on the rear rack?

Thanks!

I have a couple of ideas for covering the wood. My first one was to use Plasti-dip spray on rubber. I'm not sure it would do the job though, as I would still have to put something in the holes to snug up the rod handles (maybe that foam tubing they put on bicycle handlebars?). The other bad thing about it is, it only comes in black, red, blue, yellow, clear or white. No gray.

I think boat carpeting would be very cool, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to cut the holes neatly. I think a very thin carpet, more like cloth would make that easier, but then once again I am back to the problem of snugging up the rod handles. The thin cloth would work excellently on the front tube holder though, as the cuts to make the holes would be hidden by the tube flanges. Not so with the large spinning rod tubes, which I will have to cut flat out of some kind of thin-walled plastic.

So, after explaining my thought process, I think I might just go for some gray marine-grade paint, and use the handlebar grips as grommets for the holes. At the moment, my most pressing issue is getting the L-brackets screwed into the bottom of the deck frame to attach these to.
I want to put them behind the wood, so it's going to be tricky to get them in the right place. Hopefully, all you will see is the two truss screws going through into the L-bracket. I think with some very careful measuring and marking, I can get them in the right place.

[BigBassin144]

I think the carpet is a great idea. check out a couple local flooring places for free or very cheap remnants. Try to find a thicker carpet. Then I'd lay the carpet face down with the rod holder on top of it. then with a market, mark and X across the hole on the back of the carpet.

Then (with a very shard utility knife) cut along the lines of your X, and maybe a little bit past them. then you should be able to bend the points pack into the hole, and staple them to the back. This may not work with the smaller holes though, so just get some small free carpet scraps to test first.

BB

[nofearengineer]

It took a lot of looking around, but I found some very thin PVC pipe (called SDR35 PVC, if anyone ever wants to do anything like this). I have to order it special, but for a 20' section of 2.5" it will cost me $25. Not too bad, plus I'vll have some extra for future projects. I got lucky with the 2.5", it is 2.875 OD, which gives me basically 1/16" around the tube inside the 3" hole I drilled. I figure whatever I cover the holder in will fill this gap pretty snugly. A couple of dabs of epoxy on the backside should keep it together.

[Bender]

Make sure not to use long screws when going into the bottom! A guy I know did that when installing a hot foot, expensive repair was needed after they came out the bottom.

Also for the insert protection maybe you could find a good variety of sizes of foam pipe insulation at the hardware store or pool noodles.

[nofearengineer]

Haha, yeah, I was very surprised when I found that the forward part of my rod lockers were the boat bottom. Nothing but carpet and 1/8" of aluminum between wet and dry.

That is why I'm not going to fasten them anywhere but at the top. I'm going to use an L-bracket and bolt them into the 2x2 aluminum frame at the top (you can just see it in the photos). So they will sort of "hang" from the top, but they will be rigid.