I’m pretty excited about the progress on the first pontoon. We’ve done two rounds of pressure testing, and fixed all the holes, and it was able to hold air pressure for several days without any noticeable drop in pressure. (Keeping in mind that the pressure goes down with the temperature at night and up again during the day.)

As before, we filled up the pontoon with 0.3 bar of air pressure (relative to atmospheric pressure) and then went around every seam with a spray bottle of slightly soapy water.

On the left, the air compressor is pressurizing the pontoon. Middle is the gauge. Right is the inspection hole for maintenance after deployment.

We found two small leaks which the welder was able to fix easily, and now it holds pressure.

So we went ahead and painted it and it should be ready to float!

Well, you might notice in the pictures one last little thing.We need to drill the holes in the four attachment tabs on the corners. But I am waiting until they finish the jig for this. I think they misunderstood me about the jig previously. I want to make sure that every pontoon is drilled with exactly the same hole spacing so they can be interchanged. Or more importantly, so that we can have a template to build a replacement pontoon and know for sure that it will fit if we have to switch one out for maintenance.

Here is a wider view of the pontoon construction area. They are putting the finishing touches on the paint…

You can see the two sliding rails on the ground near the center of the pontoon. These will be moved to left and right sides of the pontoon so we can slide the pontoon down into the water.

And then we will only have to make 4 more…