Well I didn't go outside at all on Sunday. It was just too hot to think about jumping in that bunny suit and cutting away glass. So I ventured downstairs into my nicely air conditioned workshop and prepped a PVC sleeve for the bilge drain and a "split ruler" to position the drain.
I took a piece of 1" PVC pipe and turned the outside diameter down to 1.240" on the lathe and then relieved the inside diameter a bit before finally pocketing one end to 28mm to match my new drain plug.
Then a scrap of plywood and 2 lengths of 2x4 to make 2 legs to gauge the location inside and outside of the hull, and a couple scraps of ply to provide a starter guide for my 1.25" forstner bit to start perpendicular to the exterior of the transom.
Got home from work this afternoon, laid out the desired location, drilled the hole and mixed up a batch of mayonnaise consistency epoxy, coated both the hole and the sleeve and tapped it in just proud of the exterior and made sure there was a good lip of excess epoxy on the inside. That can cure up till tomorrow evening when I will sand away the excess to be nicely flush and contoured with the inside glass and proceed to power washing the whole thing without worries that there are any exposed edges for moisture to take advantage of.
Since I had the forstner bits out I grabbed the 1.375" and cleaned up the thru hull holes. I ordered the new stainless thru hulls yesterday even though they'll sit until I have patched all the gelcoat and wet sanded and buffed the hull.
I also took some time to grab a chisel and remove the drips of epoxy. I'm not sure if it's the highly honed edge I keep on my chisels or that the gelcoat was still waxed and never abraded (or a combination of all of the above) but the epoxy came off really cleanly from where I didn't want it.
