I purchased a couple sheets of this BS 1088. Was it a mistake? I guess we will see what the builders over at Bateau have to say.

1/10/10 - Update: The wood was taken back to Wood World of Dallas. It was not the Okoume I was wanting but still would have worked out fine on the boat. Since I want to stick with Okoume I plan to order from Bateau. Wood World was helpful and credited back all my money. I then picked up a couple Jet clamps for the build. They have quite a nice selection and I wanted to give them some business for being so helpful.

The progress on the push pole platform is coming along quite nicely. Here are some of the pictures below. The top is made marine plywood and the rim that supports the top and creates an ascetic boarder around the platform is also made up of three layers of marine plywood. All layers go different directions to give strength and rigidity.

To determine the height of the boarder I followed my father’s advice of using the 2/3rds rule, 2/3 thirds wood revealing 1/3 aluminum. Since he is a very accomplished architect I figured he would know best. The first picture is of the mock up I made to determine the thickness of the boarder. The following pictures show the progress of the top and the boarder and the last picture shows the router table I will use with a template bit to cut the boarder flush with the top (template bit not shown). I plan for that to be my next post and it will show the new bit I picked up at Woodcraft for routing the template. Oh yeah… and pray I get to feeling better. I have the flu. It is going around here in Texas. My little boy has it too. Thankfully my wife does not.

I purchased two Duralast Gold batteries for my Excursion almost 3 years ago. The engine had a sluggish start so I went up to AutoZone and they tested the batteries.

As suspected, one went bad. They looked up the purchase in their system and fortunately for me there was a few months left on their warranty.

The manager said replace them both. Based off his experience once one went bad the other was soon to follow. One of the employees even installed them while I went with my wife to eat Italian food across the street. I tipped him twenty bucks for the hard work and the great customer service.