It's sometimes amazing how you miss the obvious. When you're building a boat you try to figure everything out in advance so you get no surprises. Here's one that got by me.
I decided to drain the bilge pumps ( I will have two because the keel divides the bilge) into the motorwell. I thought putting them high on each side would be a good spot. To make it easier to attach the hose, I bought thru-hull fittings that have a right angle as shown here. You can't see it, but the attachment for the hose bends and faces forward.
The right angle on the hose attachment would let me run the hose along the wall and not create lots of hose mess. I measured the size of the fitting and drilled a 1 1/4" hole. So far so good.
Well, try to put the fitting with a 90 degree hose attachment through this hole just wasn't possible. The thickness of the stock and the size of the hole prevented bending the fitting into the hole.
There was no way this would work. If the wall was thin plywood it would have worked. It also might have worked if I have made a larger hole. I should have known this would cause a problem and worked it out ahead of time. What I would have done is drill a sample hole in some scrap to see what size hole I needed. Once you drill a large diameter hole it is difficult to enlarge it. You have to get it right the first time.
I took the easy way out. I bought two straight thru-hull fittings and will just deal with the extra hose.
No comments:
Post a Comment