Keith Richards Shepard's pie. Great on Wednesdays in late April when it it SNOWING!!
I can't get anything done until Friday because of the weather. They say 60 on the weekend but that could be 60 below.

This is the current set up on the O'day.
I rebuilt the drink holder then cut off the two pods which sit on both sides.
You can see at the top there is a flat plate with an arm projecting off to the right in this view. That is also gone.

The arm has the Autopilot in it. The bracket at the top supports a Map reader.

This is the replacement under construction. The autopilot goes in the large hole and the new Depth/ speed instrument goes in the smaller hole. It is made of 1/8 th aluminum.

All the cables have been pulled from the binnacle except for the compass light. This tube will be painted and a bracket will hold it securely. A flex hose will come off this up to the new instrument box. I will twist the wires and then wrap them in copper wire which twists around the bundle. the purpose is to knock down the electromagnetic flux created by live wires.
They run near the compass and I want to avoid interference.

 What O'day for a snow storm!















Well spring is staying away! I can't do any wax work and it is really cold by the river side. I was down there today and two boats are in. No one is working on their boats. I stripped off some teak rails and sanded and then refinished them with the heater on in my garage. I took the binnacle apart several weeks ago. I finished cutting the two instrument pods away and machined the piece ready for paint. I built the aluminum box that will mount at the top of the binnacle. It will have cut outs for the autopilot and the depth/log instrument. The GPS chart will hover over it. A few more hours on the mill and it is ready for paint. All the wiring is pulled out of the center tube of the binnacle. No longer will my wiring sit precariously close to the greasy chain that wants to mangle it in some medieval manner. I have aluminum tube with threaded ends to carry the wires up to the box.