Rear  lover hull,packard heat excanger outlets(stbd and center engine),engine room and lazarette bilge bailer outlets

close up

Planking finished,hull sanded to shape,adding details.

Lower hull primed(grain sealer),chine guard added,keel shoe in progress,towing eye added,struts/shafts fitted for the camera.

General view,cutouts in outer planking for flush mounted hull fittings.

Stern area,note PT185-PT196 lazarette bailer location.

Bow detail,I could not bend the keel shoe without leaving substantial dents in the brass sheet,so I had to fill them with epoxy putty.The towing eye plate also suffered from an attempt to add screw detail,so it was also filled.

Planking the hull:

Gluing basswood planks to the hull bottom.

Removing port side planking applied at the wrong angle(45°) and refitting planks at the correct angle(62°) .Damage to underlying planking apparent.That was due to incorrect information published on a PT boat website.

New master for deck deadlights with screw head detail,engine heat excanger inlet/outlet scoop and bilge bailer outlet scoop.

Construction of the main prop shaft struts;

Cutting out the fin from 3mm steel stock.

Turning the mounting shaft  to 3mm diameter.

Mounting shaft threaded M3

All the parts,plus aluminium former for the base plate

Assembly jig for spot welding.

Spot welded,brazed,filed to shape and primed.Nice,accurate and rock solid.

The hull halves are  finally ready to be joined...

Final test fitting,chart house floor in place. 

Galley longitudinal bulkhead,ready for installation.

Hull epoxied together.

Hull and details.

The two half hulls were put together for the first time for checking the fit and to mark the frame and bulkhead position on the port side also.Fitting of the two sides was not bad except the deck at stern wich has a mismatch of a couple of millimeters, but that will be taken care of during final hull assembily.

First impression  of how the finished hull will look. Note double starbord turret position mark: I found with astonishment out that 446 3/4" and 464 3/4" are actually different measurements; in spite of containing exactly the same figures.

And one from the side.Those boats had really great lines.

Meanwhile I'm working  on the outer hull details, may I introduce you the toilet salt water intake grill.

And the auxiliary generator exhaust port.

From the side.

Last but not least the battery vent scoop.

From below, off focus.

July 5 2015 update

Update,update: galley interior completed, partial deck fitted on starbord side, frame & bulkheads lines drawn on deck for contour shaping and simmetry with port side.

The sloppy paint job is on areas that won't be seen trough  the deck hatch.Weathering is also on the heavy side because of the shady environment.

Sadly not much of the interior will be visible...