Our goal was to fasten the starboard side antenna mount to the side of the fly bridge, run all the wires and add connectors where necessary. That was all outside work, not something we could do in the "toasty" salon. We managed to get the antenna mount on before we left on Saturday.
As we drilled the mounting holes in the sides of the fly bridge we were reminded how inexpensive fiberglass resin and gelcoat must have been back in 1980. Silverton laid up quite a sturdy bridge, it seems. It took us a while to drill through it.
Those triangular antenna mounts aren't very attractive but they do serve consolidate the VHF, FM and GPS antennas. We made them at home over several weeks out of 3/4" plywood, glued and screwed together and then fiberglassed inside and out and finished with five coats of paint. They are bolted to the bridge using resin-impregnated backing blocks also made out of 3/4" plywood. My goal was to be able to stand on the top of the mount and I did, before I added the antennas.
On Sunday, we made an attempt to run and terminate the cables and wires under the steering console but they were so stiff from the cold that we couldn't do much with them. We also tried to solder on two PL-259 connectors but our soldering gun wouldn't quite heat the connectors enough to get a good solder joint. Sunday was also the day we wanted to mount the air horn and compressor but we never got that far before the cold got the better of us.
At this point, we need to finish up on the fly bridge and get going on the storage area in the bilge between the engines. The air horn won't be easy to mount since we have to run tubing between the compressor up under the front of the bridge and the horn on the outside of the bridge and make the installation as neat as possible. Once that's done and we have done at least one long air horn blast, we're off to the bilge!
No comments:
Post a Comment