 All right, I've got an actual scale drawing of what I'm working on here. I've got the front half of this pontoon made. That's right here. It's looking good. I need to do some touch-ups, a bit of sanding and stuff, you know, trim this. I sanded this edge all on the inside because I had to rough it up because that's what's going to connect to the other, the back half. Now the back half, all right. Whoa, I may be in store for a storm again. Man, this July has been crazy with storms, which is why I've only been able to make, you know, fiberglass stuff like once every week or two when we get a sunny day. This is supposed to be done soon though. Supposedly end of July will be the end of the storms. All right, so the front half of the pontoon actually comes up here. I'm going to cut that off and have it slope down just because I like that and this is kind of dead weight up here. That's all I really need to do the front, other than smooth it out. Now the back, the back I had to draw this picture for to plan out before I do it because it's a little more complicated. All right, simple things. First, I want to make a flat back, like a vertical back to the mold, maybe with a piece of sheet metal in there or something so that I can attach a rudder to it and the rudder will be attached vertically, so it'll swing back and forth easily because if it's attached like that, you know, as it moves, it'll go up and out of the water. I want to attach vertically. Now the other thing is I have these two tubes where the propeller shafts go through. Now these tubes are one piece with the hull, so I need to make them, I need to make them with the hull. I mean the obvious way to do it would be to just make the hull, then drill some holes and then fiberglass these in. The problem there is that the fiberglass will only be attached on the inside and this will have most of its pressure pushing up. And you know, if I hit a bunch of bumps or something, like this fiberglass may eventually start peeling up and leaking in there. So I want to make sure this is all like one solid piece with fiberglass going through everything and super strong. There's not enough space in the mold to just put these two tubes in there and then put the fiberglass in for the hull, especially in this little section down here. I'm not going to be able to get the fiberglass in there very well. So I was thinking about it and I think I have a plan. I'm going to, without the pipes or anything, first I'm going to make a section at the bottom of this pontoon, just like just maybe one layer of fiberglass down here. Then I'm going to take that out, fiberglass the tubes to it and it'll just be a shallow piece, not very tall. So I'll be able to get in all the cracks and everything and get the pipes attached to that really well. Then I'm going to have that assembly aside. And then when I go to actually make this piece, I'll put the first layer of fiberglass in there and then I'll take that assembly with the pipes, stick it in there, so it'll be inside the outside layer and then I'll have two more layers of fiberglass to put in there and I'll have to fit those around the pipes. That way this section that's attached with the pipes will be sandwiched between the outer layer and the inner layer and it should make sure it doesn't get damaged, even if it takes a lot of beating. I have to get this all planned out before I make it because with fiberglass, once you mix the resin, you're kind of on a time limit before the resin hardens so you can't stop and think about it, you just gotta get it all done. So this is going to be a three-step process. First make that little bottom piece, which is going to be easy, then attach the tubes and then put it all together with the whole the whole hull. And when I do that last part, I'll have the front half in the mold so this piece will just run right into it. Oh wow, I guess the rain just started. Okay, I did manage to get a piece of sheet metal in here before the rain started, which is I'll show it later when it's not pouring out. All right, let's close this. Okay, so no fiberglass work today then. I guess I'll take a moment to explain some of my design features here. So this part of the boat up here in the front will have a cover on it, like a roof. And then this part will all be open so people can sit here, obviously the driver, and then passengers or junk. And then I'll have a little door here to put dry stuff, like people's bags or whatever. This crosshatch area that goes all the way along the bottom and then up here. I'm thinking of, you know, putting a wall or like a floor in here and a wall there and, you know, a floor along here. And then all under that, putting styrofoam and bottles, just flotation material. And one cool thing about doing that back here, so this will be a sealed chamber with the motor and the batteries. And this will be significantly above the water line. Like the water line will be down here somewhere. So I could conceivably put holes in the side of this and I'd have to, you know, make covers so waves don't splash into it. But that way if any water, you know, got up this tube somehow, it would come and just fall right back out. I don't know, though. I think I might just want to keep it sealed in there. And I'll just have to check in there once in a while to make sure there's no water. Or I could actually have it have a hole up here. So if any water got in this, it would run out to my butt. And then I would instantly know there's water in there, which should never happen. But, you know, if there was water in there, it would get on my butt and then I would know right away that I have some kind of possible issue. So the motor to the propeller here is just going to be direct drive. Shaft directly connected to the motor. Now this shaft, I'm going to have to gear it up so the propeller is spinning significantly faster than my feet are going. And there's a bunch of different ways to do that. I'm thinking I'm going to go with the simplest way, which would be to have one big gear driven by the pedals going to one small gear that drives all this. Now the big gear is going to have to be like 25 centimeters across, like almost a foot across. And then the small gear would be like three centimeters across, maybe a little more than that. And they'd be beveled gears, so this one would be facing this way and this one would be facing that way to get the 90-degree action. And I'm thinking I can make those out of this big chunk of plastic over here on my milling machine and my lathe. I think that'll be a nice thing to break those machines in with, you know, a little bit complicated, but not super difficult. One thing I've not yet figured out is deploying and retracting the propeller if that's even going to happen. Yeah. Like, do I make a propeller that goes in there and has a little pin so I have to reach into the water and attach it? And it, you know, it could be on there most of the time, but then if I want to take the boat out and put it on the shore, I don't want my propeller getting smushed. Another idea would be to put a fin coming down here. So if I pull the boat the weight could be on the fin, not on the propellers. That would actually be a pretty simple way to do it. The ground would be there, not hitting the propeller. Another thing I could do is, so this is going to have two side pon tunes, like one here and one on the other side. And they're going to be like hinged on their arms so they can swing forward or back. And the original idea was just so I could make the boat skinnier. But now I'm also thinking if I hinge them at an angle, then as they go, as they swing forward, they'd go up and as they go back, they, or as, yes, they go back, they'd swing down. And I could put them in such a way that when they come down, they go below the level of the propellers. So they'd swing back and down right beside the propellers and protect them. And, you know, the cool thing about this would be, you know, most of the time they'd be out here, but I could make little adjustments in the height. So, say I'm parked and I want good stability and I want these deep in the water, but then I start driving and, you know, I'm on flat water, everything's cool, and I want to get a little faster. I could swing these forward and get them up a little bit more out of the water, reduce the drag, and go a little faster. All right, we'd just be a nice way to adjust the height of those as I'm going, and I would just have to hope I never want them down in the middle. All right, so step one, you've got one layer of fiberglass in that bottom area. The one pipe goes about there, the other pipe goes somewhere around there. Your name is donkey, you're a turkey. I also got this lined up with the mold really well, so I don't want to touch anything. Don't touch this, Laura. And this little stick here and this piece of concrete hold the pontoon out to be even with the mold. That's solid. Now what pipes do I put into this thing?