1989 Saltare - My god Spock, what have I done???

[jet]

Thats my idea, except I like the flat floating biminis. Just slide it in and clamp it or slide it out and leave it at home. That will come later.

[haugy]

Upholterer is taking longer than expected (suprise?) & running out of things to do while waiting. Finished the other locker trim, completed the sub, & prewired a tower speaker harness and connector. Pulled out this old yucky yellowsih orangish bimini that came with the boat.
Good news is that it's a stainless frame and hardware. Bad news is it's dangerous for my mind to have such idle time. Now I've got a crazy idea for reusing the tubing and some of the
hardware to make a folding, supportless, bimini that attaches directly to the tower. Gonna strip it down tonight & get clamps and special hinges on the way...

If you're any good with tools, which obviously you are, you should be able to make a pretty sweet bimini. I'll be looking forward to this, even though I hate you because now my boat needs a major overhaul to keep up with the awesomeness.

[sybrmike]

Yeah I like the flat floaters too, but frequently trailer some distances & a fixed top probably wouldn't hold up or store for travel too well. Thought about removing the fabric & leaving the frame on for trailering, but never seen a good looking canvas that wasn't a pita to install/remove. Plus, I've got the wife & two teenage daughters so I can already hear it - "I'm too hot, I want shade. Now I want to tan. Now I'm sunburned, put the top up. No wait now I want..." Like the rest of this project - great ideas are easy, but it's the execution that's the tricky part for me...

Aaahh yes, young Haugy-son. The zen circle is complete when the student becomes the master (I think this is where I snatch the pebbles from your hand) . Just kidding, your old Mariah has been a great inspiration for me along the way. Besides, I know better than to challenge the Haugmeister - you'd probably bring a turbine v-drive to a DD fight. Btw - I'm still jealous of how sexy that ND swoop is on your Salt.

[sybrmike]

Stopped by for an update on the interior. Looks like it's gonna drag into next week, but here's a sneak peak.

interior bow.jpg interior stern.jpg

I'm happy with the color selection (the gray closely matches the hull) and the design I came up with seems to be flowing well. The materials are great - heavy weight, stain resistant, marine vinyl, 2" high density foam base with 1" medium density foam top (cushy on the tushy, yet firm). The seams are all triple stitched & it should all hold up for a long time. The workmanship is only average in getting all the seams straight and lined up, but for the price I can't complain too much. Plus part of the fault may lie in that I changed the whole layout with all new custom panels, so no patterns. He's an old retired guy & his wife has had 3 surgeries while working on the boat, so it's taking longer than quoted. I'm sure he's taking a bath on the costs (quoted what I figured for materials alone), but still very accomodating when he's had to rework some pieces. Getting to the point where I just want it back!

[TitanTn]

I really like the pattern, and a great choice on colors. I think it's hard to find a great quality upholstery guy. Even professional shops seem to struggle to get seams perfectly straight, or no puckers in places. Although I think most small puckers will flatten out with a decent amount of sun exposure.

[Okie Boarder]

Looking good man! We may redo interior in a few years and I'm liking your lounge seat idea...might incorporate that into the design.

[ruby23m]

Diddo with the lounge seat, I was thinking of doing the exact same thing as its somewhat wasted space behind the captains chair.

[jet]

And I will 3rd that. Details and pictures please?? My nose is being stuffed with so much electronics that Im not going to have any dry storage left so I need that Malibu XTI storage over there for xtra stuff when other people bring there luggage to go out with us for 4-5 hrs. lol. Silly Wally's.

[sybrmike]

I must have caught your cold, jet - my nose is now stuffy too. Had to R&R the grill cover off the sub to get it slid down between the helm and seat base. Not much room left port-to-stbd, but still plenty of leg room. So now the stereo's done except for tower speakers and tuning (haven't mounted the tower yet, but I did run the wires to the thru hull connector). Interior lights are done (more on that later), and teak storage/trim is installed (except for doghouse - last piece getting vinyl).

helm full.jpg

interior5.jpg

[sybrmike]

Interior is almost done! My guy needs to recover one piece, add backing material to the bottom seat cushions and a few tweaks.

Bow shot - added the original teak trim inserts on the new StarBoard bow locker. I need to go back and add locating blocks to the bottom of the seat cushions so they don't shift around and the lines stay straight.

interior2.jpg

From the rear - still need to add a pull tab on the ski locker lid, cut the vinyl & mount the doghouse locker trim, and add soundproofing and hinges to the doghouse. Finally got to sit down in the rear chaise with the engine cover in place - gonna be the seat everybody fights for.

interior3.jpg

And a few more of the rear layout. I painted myself into a corner with the armrests - made them long enough to cover some existing holes from the old interior, but now the port one captures the chaise seat bottom so the chaise backrest has to be lifted up in order to remove the chaise bottom. Otherwise, I'm real happy with how it turned out.

interior 1.jpg interior4.jpg

I should have it back tomorrow, so hope to wrap it all up this weekend - tower, tower speakers, & make the hinged supports for the rear seat bottoms for when they're up in "sundeck/full rear ballast" mode. Oh yeah, and finish the ballast - just need to add valves and quick connects to the ends of all the hoses. Once the tower's up, I'll get to work on my folding/floating bimini idea...