The sun came out!

Checked on the boat this morning and everything looked good.  Not too many leaves blown in and the interior was nice and dry.  Dumped about 2 cups of water out of the dessicant/dehumidifier container.  Battery checks out good.

I'd planned to pull off the bbq mount to use as a new solar panel mount but I didn't have the right size allen wrench on the boat. Oops!  Locked things up and grabbed the solar panel on the way down. 

I've given a lot of thought to how I want to upgrade the mount for the solar panel.  The one I made a couple years ago is PVC pipe and pair of fishing rod holders.  It works ok but I have concerns about UV damage, it's in a bad location for the stern light and at wharves like the one in Friday Harbor where we nearly broke it.  Plus it just looks tacky.

A few weeks ago I bought a second Kuuma BBQ mount from Defender.  It was on sale and my thinking was that if it will hold the BBQ it should hold the solar panel fine too.   After I got done checking the boat I drove over to Home Depot where I picked up 5 3-foot aluminum "angle irons" for a mounting frame and some pop rivets. 

I decided to reuse the bolts I'd epoxied onto the solar panel for the pvc mount.  The bars were a couple inches too long so I cut two down and drilled holes to match the bolts.  First time I've used the bench press I bought from Dave and it worked great!  I cut the 3rd bar to fit across the ends of the two longer ones.  More holes, this time with the cordless drill, and I pop riveted a nice (fairly) rectangular frame together. 

Then it was time for some head scratching.  How do I attach the mount to the frame?  The L channel bars gave me a vertical surface since I used the horizontal one to bolt to the solar panel.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should have bought some U channel.  Guess I'll have to make my own. 

I cut the two remaining bars down to fit inside the frame the long way, located the center, then riveted the 2" salvage pieces I'd cut off earlier to the vertical side to create a U on one side of the frame and the two center bars.  I drilled a hole in each of the 2" tabs for the bolts and used the new BBQ mount to fine tune placement before riveting the long bars to the frame.  I put everything together and held it up by the mount.  Close, but there was more movement than I'd hoped for. 

The BBQ mount has 2 large thumb screws that I was using to mount it to the 2 center bars in the frame.  I'd installed the 3rd tab on the outside rail though, so I decided maybe a bolt there was what it needed.  I drilled a new hole in the BBQ mount (yay drill press and WD40!) and the frame, cut down a spare bolt from last year's re-bedding project to fit, and that did the job!  I think it looks pretty good and is going to look much nicer on the boat!

Looking forward to mounting this on the boat.  Should work great!