Spring Project(s) 74 20SF

[SeaPlusPlus]

Thanks for that post. So from that if I got:

2qts White
2qts Sea Foam
1 Gallon Spray Converter
1-2 qt reducer

For a total of 2+ Gallon material, that should be enough to spray inside and out with enough coats?

[strick]

You will probably have some white left over. Remember that you mix equal parts paint with converter then reduce 25%...so 2 quarts of paint will yield more then a gallon of spray able material.

Duratec was mentioned in that old post...it's Ok to use duratec except I would not use it below the water line as you will want an epoxy barrier coat on first before painting. Duratec does make a vinylester primer and that would be Ok to use on the bottom.

What I'm doing on my 25 if duratec on the top cap and insides of the boat and 545 on the outer hull sides and bottom. Hope this helps.

strick

[SeaPlusPlus]

Thanks for the replies, I'll run with this and post back how it turns out.

I forgot to mention that I found and snagged 1 Gallon 545 Primer + 1 Gallon 545 Converter for $105 total at a discount boat shop here locally. So got the primer covered.

[SeaPlusPlus]

Unfortunately I spoke to soon about the SeaCraft gods and weather cause this weekend sucks, rain through Monday, temps are good though, I think spring is finally here.

But when you can't work on the SeaCraft you can spend money on the SeaCraft right? Got an order of 2 qts Sea Foam, 2 qts Matterhorn White, 1 Gallon Converter, 2 qts reducer, 1 qt 545 Primer reducer with my local supply. $376 + tax. Pick it up monday.

Hoping better weather comes soon.

[SeaPlusPlus]

Had a change of plans this weekend. The weather turned out decent on Saturday, light rain on and off, so was able to get out on the boat and look around and inspect some things.

It's been nagging in the back of my mind that I needed to replace the deck. Unscrewing the console and leaning post brought up some nasty wood with it, other screws just spun in place losing all grip. A 36 year old floor was bound to have some rot, but I honestly could only find 2 soft spots, both of which were very small, everywhere else felt solid.

Inspecting some of the console screw holes in the deck got the best of me Saturday, and I decided that it would be stupid of me to not replace it now, instead of in a year having to rip everything back up, cut out the floor, and repaint the deck. If the weather was nice Sunday, I'd once again take the saw to my baby and cut up the deck.

The floor was marked about 2" from the gutters/hatches/obstacles and the circle saw came out with a blade depth of 1/4".



Got nervous while cutting at the amount of good dry wood the was coming out of the cut, fearing that I was cutting up a mostly solid deck vs doing spot repairs.



Getting some of it up though I found lots of wet and rotten wood.



LOTS of wet and rotten wood.



Here is what the bottom of the glass looked like once it came up.



Removing the top layer of glass was easy for the rotted parts, but for the very small areas were the wood was good it was a pain to get it to delaminate. Once the pieces were out, a chisel was used to remove all the coring still stuck down, most of which could be just picked up in whole 5" pieces of plywood. Shop-vac and broom used to clean up most of the little stuff.





The floor still needs some chiseling around the edges to clean it up, and then needs to be lightly sanded. I plan on putting down a thin layer of glass to toughen up the bottom layer of glass where needed. On top of that will go 3/8" marine ply coring encapsulated in resin, and then the decking that I cut out glued back down on top of that.

I was amazed at how much of the deck (about 80%) was rotten and how few soft spots I felt, had no idea it was this bad. Even though its depressing seeing no deck in her right now, I'm glad I did it, she needed it.

Also playing with the idea of getting some 6" x 12" x 1/4" thick stainless plates to fiberglass into the deck, which can be drilled and threaded later, to provide something for the t-top to be mounted to, rather than screwing it in, or cutting two holes in the deck on either side of the console to thru-bolt it. Thoughts?

[Old'sCool]

""Also playing with the idea of getting some 6" x 12" x 1/4" thick stainless plates to fiberglass into the deck, which can be drilled and threaded later, to provide something for the t-top to be mounted to, rather than screwing it in, or cutting two holes in the deck on either side of the console to thru-bolt it. Thoughts?""

I don't know why they're all not like that! That's my plan when mine gets ripped apart. I was thinking 3/8" or 1/2" glassed in then drill/tap fine threads.

[makade]

Looks like you're going to have one Sweet boat when your done!
I like how your leaving the bottom layer of glass intact, I have always wondered why that's not the standard technique, verses cutting it all out. The only reason I can think of taking it all out would be to re-foam the stringers or raise them? I would think your way should be easier then starting from scratch. Anyway keep up the good work, and keep the pictures coming!

[wtenglish]

You may want to consider a Garolite material similar to this instead of a metal product. It's basically a high strength epoxy material that is reinforced with fiberglass mat.

http://www.jjorly.com/g10_fr4_sheets_fabricator.htm

Don at Hermco told me about this but it's pretty expensive. While browsing the McMaster Carr catalog for work one day I found an alternate product which offers similar characteristics although it's not as strong but a lot cheaper. I'm talking 10,000 psi versus something like 40,000 psi for the garolite. I'll be using it for the backing in my deck.

[SeaPlusPlus]

Thanks for the replies guys, I sure hope she turns out as nice as I picture it in my head.

I think I'm going to go with 3/8" plate drilled and taped by S-S Marine, when they install my t-top. Took the console over to them yesterday and they marked the places where they wanted the center of the plates to be. I will be installing (4) 6" x 12" x 3/8" plate, which is probably overkill but it will spread the load across the floor more and give some error room for the location of the feet of the t-top.

Over the past few evenings after work I've been cleaning up the bottom layer of glass and removing all the wet wood from under the lip at the edges. After lots of chiseling, scraping, and shop-vacing the bottom was ready to work with.

Yesterday over lunch I picked up 2 sheets of 3/8" Marine Ply.



When I got off work I marked and cut the wood to fit the sections that I cut out. Test fitting:





After making sure everything fit the floor needed to be strengthened up. It was very weak in some places along the edges where it had de-laminated from the old coring, and also some places were the top layer of glass had been cut out, some of the bottom layer came with it, taking the bottom layer down to the roven. The weak areas were toughened up a bit with a layer of 6oz cloth and the entire deck was painted with a thin layer of epoxy to beef it up a bit.





In front of where the in deck livewell was the bottom layer of glass was very weak, it seemed that it was not laminated anymore at all near the back of the lip and you could flap it around. To resolve this we cut new coring strips to go under the lip and then cut a piece of 6oz cloth which was big enough to cover the entire area from the gas tank hatch to the live well. This was cut a little long (so it hung a little bit into the livewell. We covered the strips of coring with resin and then put them on top of the glass and then taped them under the lip so that the glass was forced back under the lip wrapped around the coring. This should laminate the bottom layer of glass back to the top lip again and strengthen this whole area up substantially.





Pick of the wetted out/glassed deck:



Didn't get any pictures of it but the longer sections of coring were glued together with a piece of 6oz cloth so that they can be installed as 1 piece. Making gluing down the coring a 3 piece installation, vs 5.

Also got some new toys yesterday for the console. Had a Lowrance HDS-5 that I flush mounted on the dash, found charter captin in NC selling his 1 year old HDS-5x for $350 ($549 new) on TheHullTruth after he upgraded to HDS-7's. Came with everything that came in the original box. Now I can do full chartplotter on the HDS-5 and full sonar on the HDS-5x flush mounted on the new dash.





Hunting down some 3/8" plate now, hoping to get the deck wrapped up this weekend.

[Beach]

Pretty schweeeet project...Nice electronics...gonna be a dash full for sure...ummm do you ever make up your bed?