Working on the hdpe for around the companionway, I wanted to bolt through the 3 layers with brass or stainless sex bolts but they were 4 to 5 dollars a piece! Ouch… Someone somewhere is laughing; all the way to the bank- it's not me though. I know they are, I can hear it as I type!

A cheaper alternative was to get stainless tee nuts from McFeely's, pry off the prongs and hammer them into a slightly undersized hole. I found an old auger bit to countersink them into the plastic, (a piloted counterbore is something like $40! Sorry Charlie, not on this run!) The bit did pucker the hole a little but a sharp wood chisel smoothed that right off.

The tee nuts had to be tapped into the hole, below you can see one of the backers just about finished.

Also had some great help over the weekend and we got a raised "scaffold" in the main cabin and I got just about all the rotten overhead chiseled out.

I'm not sure what the groves were for, squeeze out for epoxy, or to help the panel curve a bit more. Looks like crap to me.

Under the overhead ply was scribed a dyslexic "68" onto the fiberglass. Well, that's what year the title says. Still didn't find a hull nr. but things are progressing.