: I tell you after building the forms all night long in my sleep It sure was
: fun to read your response about the anchor and the butt casting. I almost
: fell off my chair. Thanks for the info and the laugh. Gee do you think I
: might be stressing a little too much! Ha Ha.
: Elliott

To make an anchor take a 2 or 3 liter soda bottle and cut off the neck. make about a 3 inch hole at the top, leaving a good amount of the rounded shoulder of the bottle. Mix 5 pounds or so of concrete and pour it into the bottle. Take a 3 foot length of chain or stainless steel wire cable. Shove a nail or a bolt into the end link of the chain, or tie the ends of the wire cable in a knot around a nail or a bolt, and bury these ends in the wet concrete, leaving a loop about 6 to 8 inches high protruding from the bottle. when the concrete hardens you will have a nice anchor that fits in your hatches, and is "plastic coated" so it won't chip or scratch your hull. Tie it onto a piece of cheap rope. I like clotheline. Should you get it fouled it is easy (and cheap) to cut it loose and make another.

make a box from 1x3 to 1x6 scraps, about 18 to 20 inches square. Set it on newspapers (at least 10 pages thick) on a reasonably flat surface, (a porch, deck, garage floor, lawn, etc.) and fill it with a firm mix of concrete. Mop up any water that runs so it doesnt stain your work place. An 80 pound bag makes about a 3 to 4 inch thick slab,in this size square, but you only need about 2 to 3 inches. lay a flat piece of plastic, or an unopened plastic garbage bag over the surface of the wet concrete. Sit gently on top of the plastic bag, wriggle around a little so you settle into the concrete about an inch. Stand up carefully nad let the concrete harden.

Once it is hard you can seal it with a couple coats of cheap paint and lay up the equivalent of 20 to 30 ounces of glass cloth and resin on it. That would be 4 or 5 layers of 6 ounce cloth.

lay up the cloth over two or three days. Put the first 1 or 2 layers of fabric directly on the concrete slab and peel it off once the resin is partially cured -- solid by still pretty flexible. Trim out the part that is the same shape as you, and apply the remaining layers of glass cloth underneath this seat. You can shape a square or rectangular box-like skirt around this whichfits the interior curvature of the bottom of your boat.

Mold in any kind of flanges or attachment points you wish. Flat areas on the bottom are good when using the self adhesive Velcro. You can just lay a sheet of plastic on the bottom of your cockpit, put in a couple pieces of piece of 1x or 2x stock to lift the seat off of the bottom a bit, set the gals seat cassting on these, and drape resin saturated glass cloth around the edges. When it hardens you lift the part out and clean it up with a sander. reinforce it with more glass cloth and resin on the inside.

With velcro, the hooks part goes on the mounting tabs for the seat and the velvet part goes on the boat. Then if you have to change seats, or paddle without one, you are not sitting on the harsher hooks. The velvet doesn't attract as much garbage, either.

Put one more coat of resin on the top. It is not necessary to completely fill the weave, but you can if you wish. two coats of resin should leave an textured finish that has some grip to it, and can be slightly sanded to give a matte finish. If you want, add some carbon black, copy machine toner, or graphite powder to your resin and you'll get a nice black color. for other colors look for the pigments for fiberglass resins which are available from resin suppliers.

If you check the archives you may find one or moe seats that were made this way.

Hope this helps.

PGJ

PS, the concrete cast makes an interesting birdbath.