Forward bulkhead

[chriselk]

Well I see I did not make pictures of the stringer repair where it went into the transom. Will get some more when I get a moment. Here are two showing Richard glassing in the new nidacore (yellow foam) linking the transom to the old stringer we cut out to remove the transom. He glued together 5 pieces and shaped it with a surefoam file.

He actually did this before he did the pour foam on the stringers. You can see where he brought the glass around in the corners of the transom. The corners (sides) near the transom are pretty shaky, so we beefed them up some with 17 oz glass and epoxy.

[chriselk]

Took boat to be soda blasted by Alex Nitt in Morehead City. Will be a while till he gets to it.

[FAS]

great rebuild on the 23. amazing how much work does goes into a real redo....looks great and kudos to you guys..I know it ain't easy...

[chriselk]

Before and after soda blasting by Alex Nitt of Morehead City.
Looks better than it is. Soda blasting fine, just surface needs a lot of work.
Will have to flip hull to really get after it.

[chriselk]

We were able to put in the tank bed and some bulkheads.
We test fit the tank and its pretty close to what we wanted and planned for.

[chriselk]

Been a while. Rainy day posting here in NC


After soda blasting We noticed a few wet areas in the hull based on a moisture meter and we noticed what looked to be many gel coat blisters. We were told that the only sure was to get it dry was to remove the gel coat. Since we were going to bottom paint anyway, we removed the gel coat. It tore up the shop and a month later we still have the dust around.

Two pictures show the after sanding off the gel coat. It turns out we found several damaged areas that we might have missed had we not done it.

Within 2 weeks readings went from as high as 22 down to under 7. We divided the hull up into grids and wrote on the bottom so we could follow the moisture levels.

We will eventually flip, repair, glass/epoxy. Then Interlux barrier coats, topcoat (maybe) and then bottom paint.

[chriselk]

Honeycomb deck construction. Using advice from Bill at Lightning Yachts (who has been such a great help and source of advice) we made the deck from 1.5 inch Plascore and Coosa.

Shown is the bottom of the deck after two layers of 17 oz cloth. The Coosa shows where the hatches are going and or reinforcements for console/T Top and leaning post. We are going to put in SS T nuts to hold T top.

[chriselk]

Stern construction was using 3/4 H80 Divinycell. Before I cut the old transom, I made a story board to replicate the curve. That is what we used to cut the top of the coosa transom. In the first picture you can see the story board held up. Well to get the front of the transom right, we cut the ends off the storyboard and temporarily mounted it at the front of the foam. We screwed it down and voila, it was perfect. Sorry to say I did not think of that myself, but ingenious Richard did it. Very intuitive guy.

[FLexpat]

Nice work and a great idea.
Really glad you posted this - it makes me think I might be better off making a whole new stern cap for mine with all the redesigned wells/hatches built into it instead of cutting up my old one and cobbling it together.

Not sure if that will take more or less time but it would probably come out a lot nicer if I can pattern it well.

[flyingfrizzle]

Looking good Chris, Good thing you took that gel off. The barrier coat would of just sealed it in there where it couldn't escape. I done a hull bottom one time with 2000e and a urethane paint over it and fixed many blistered spots but missed one. About 3 months latter it showed up as a bubble in the paint and primer. Took a pin and popped it and it drained a small amount of water out then it had to be ground out and repaired. Lot of work now but glad to see you are getting it 100% right. It will be worth it in the end.