floor repairs

[beradtke]

ok all time has come for me to make the descision on how to fix my floor . the boat has 2 soft spots in the floor. #1 is by the anchor locker and fish box, runs the hole length of the front casting platform area by the anchor box. # 2 is right behind the the fuel tank hatch area just bows a lil when i stand on it. my thought are the the areas are servicable from out side with out removing the cap or cutting the hole floor out. so should i just patch them or cut it out and start new . this is the original floor in the boat i belive. any thoughts or tips appricated

[reelclassic]

I have pretty much the exact same soft spots that you desceibed... I plan on doing the whole floor so I know its done right and no problems/patch work later. would like to see pics as the work is being done I plan on starting mine hopefully in January!

[beradtke]

yeah mine is less then half of a piece of plywood to replace in the soft spots so i dont see the need (or have enough money/time ) to rip the hole cap off of it. i was thinking about this?just cutting the top half of the floor up and recoring the ,center and putting the old half of the floor back down and awgripping it. am i crazy or wouold this work??

[reelclassic]

Hmmm...Thats a ? for the pro's....And I am definitly not a pro!!!

[Blue197320]

well if i am not mistaken you can cut the soft wood down to the bottom of the liner as big as u need to remove. then u can dig all the old wood out. then just replace like that. put the new wood in coated with resin and a layer of cloth under it then do the same thing on the top. build it up to the same layer as the surrounding floor and fair and paint. thats what i did in a section in my floor. it worked out for me. was very easy actually.

[beradtke]

now that right there was what i wanted to here. so just cut the top layer with a angle grinder, dig out old wood,put in new resin covered wood and put old floor down over it. do you have any pictures of it when you did it to you boat? just would like to see how it went so i can figuer how challenging this is going to be.

[Blue197320]

hey
i looked in my photobucket for pics of that floor repair. im sorry i dont have any. but i can tell u that it only took me about 2 days after work to do it start to finish. the piece i cut out was a funny shape so i took a few pieces of plywood and puzzed it together on top of the wet cloth i put down. then i poured resin in to fill the gaps around the puzzle pieces. then i put a few more layers of cloth on top of the wet resin and let it soak the resin up. it was close to the original height so i didnt need to add much filler. then i sanded and primed it. i still need to paint the whole floor in my boat but its gonna need to to be ripped up in a year or two so im not going to finish it yet. but u can do it. trust me. anything else just ask.

[bigeasy1]

I had a couple soft spots in the deck of my Tsunami under the pedestall seats.I had to recore them,and it's a fairly easy fix.

I cut the top layer of glass off,using a circular saw,set to about a 1/4"depth.
I then removed the piece of deck,which in my case was about 24 x 36 inches on each area.That now exposed the core,which was plywood directly where the seats mounted,and balsa core on the rest.

Again with the saw set to a shallow depth,i cut thru the core,(it was 3/8"),just to but not thru the bottom piece of glass.
I chiseled,scraped,and ground out the wet rotted core until i hit dry material.

After i prepped the bottom layer of glass,i laid up a piece of 1-1/2oz mat to it,and let it kick a bit,then took some 3/8" marine plywood,and bedded that into the mat,by applying a slightly thinned hull and deck putty to the faces of the mat and plywood.

I placed a whole bunch of 12lb downrigger weights on the plywood until the resin/putty cured.
When it was done i laid up a layer of mat on top of the repair.

At this point,i think i'm going to put a layer of mat over the whole deck,and mask off sections leaving a white border with areas of gray or tan non skid.

The bottom layer of glass was extremely thin and several holes where the seat bolts were drilled,went thru the glass into the stringer boxes.Also i found vacant holes drilled into the boxes,(maybe for the foam filler)and i think thats where some of the water saturated foam in my stringers came from.

Maybe these pictures will help.
The first one is after i had already cleaned up the area and put down a layer of mat,and the last is one layer of mat over the repair

[beradtke]

that you both for the advice i am going to start buying the supplies to tackle this job. my other question is did either of yall match what the original floor looked like with the grooves running in it. if so how did you do that????

[bigeasy1]

I thought about matching the original deck floor,but decided against it.
I guess it could be done but it's way way more tedious work then i'm interested in doing.
My use for this boat is strictly fishing,i want it to look nice when it's done,but i'm not interested in having it be the equivilent of a concours classic car.
As i said in my post,i'm going to lay up mat on the whole deck,and mask off areas and do them in a gray or tan non skid,with a white border edge.