Trailer center bunk started

After some research on the best trailer bunk material (lignum vitae, anyone?) I chose to use 1/2" thick strips of Douglas fir.   The plans call for the bunk to be 1.5" thick by 8" wide.   As usual I over-thought the details and ended up with the following plan; the varying widths of the strips are intended to keep the vertical gaps non-aligned:

(------layer of fiberglass-------)

  1"     1.5"      3"     1.5"     1"

(------layer of fiberglass-------)

.75"    1.5"   3.5"    1.5"   .75"

(------layer of fiberglass-------)

1.25" 1.25"     3"  1.25"  1.25"

(------layer of fiberglass-------)

If you add up the dimensions for each layer, you should come up with 8" for each one.  Let me tell you, it takes some effort to come up with this many details for what in the end is a simple board.  :)

Here is the center line of the boat marked out, with the beginning and end of the bunk also marked:

The "layup" - if you can call it that - was quite a chore.  Access to the top (bottom) of the boat was difficult from a ladder, and once things were underway I could no longer climb on top.   Because there were so many layers with so much bog to mix and apply, I was really racing the clock and thank goodness for the cold weather (in the 40's deg F) or I probably would not have made it.   This is after layer two is on, with bog, but before the glass layer is on:

Dealing with so many darn strips of wood was a real pain as well.    However overall I am glad I did it that way as the resultant bunk so far seems to have conformed very well to the hull bottom, both fore-aft as well as side-to-side.  

Almost done, notice my high-tech board clamping technique (duct tape):

You might be able to see in the above picture that I have a length of plastic taped to the hull below the wood strips.   This was to prevent epoxy\bog from getting on the hull (I still got some on it here and there), and also because I planned to vacuum bag the whole thing to the hull.   Turned out I didn't have any vacuum bag film, so I tried to use plastic sheeting, and also had to use duct tape to seal most of the plastic.   The vacuum attempt was a failure - never got above 5 lbs of pressure.  Ah well, I think I am ok anyway.

I did all of the above work before going to L.A. to get my trailer (see previous post).   Yesterday I took the bunk off of the boat - I am pleased so far, the bunk is very heavy and stiff.  

Here you can see the gentle bow the hull form gave it:

The end section after I trimmed the bunk to length (this is the bow end):

The ends looked ok as far as voids, but I had a hard time keeping some of the narrow strips from bowing sideways in the middle.   This has left me with several long gaps to fill with bog:

I know, not perfect but I think it will work.  

Next up is filling the gaps, cleaning up and glassing the edges (and the raw wood inner surface seen above), sealing everything with epoxy, and maybe even fairing\painting.    I will be stapling trailer carpet to it as the final step.

In other news:   I will be flipping the boat over for the last time tomorrow, and will hopefully be able to finish up the interior painting soon (with the help of my portable heater).    It has gotten too cold (darn it) to finish the exterior painting unless I get lucky with a warm day at the right time.    Still, making progress.