Backing Plate Factory

I haven't been on an assembly line in a long time. This week I set up to epoxy coat each side of the backing plate parts I had made. The backing plates are two layers, one of plywood and another of tempered hardboard. The plywood is the strength, and the hardboard is the hard surface. We've all seen screwheads or washers bite into the soft surface of plywood, the hardboard will prevent this. There will be plenty of stress on the various deck hardware from wind gusts or while tacking. I was shocked at the lack of backing of the winches, padeyes, etc. There are plenty of signs of hard use on the boat, the hull especially, its amazing that no hardware was yanked out of the deck.

The backing plate parts are epoxied and now need to be laminated together. In the meantime, I finished epoxying [see a trend here] the spacers for my opening ports. The ports I ordered should come in this week. The backing plate project is my fill work. The Port Installation is going to be a large, yet tedious, project. Hopefully I can get it done in 3 or 4 weekends. I'll keep you posted.