Very Slow and Not So Steady

I have been swamped at work for the last couple of weeks on a project and have not had any time to work on the boat. I have not lost focus, just had it diverted. I am very happy to be coming up on a 3 day weekend and intend to spend the lion's share of my time catching up on the missed opportunities of the past weeks. I did play with some different wood stains to get an idea of what I like for the interior. I do that that nailed down. This weekend I intend to post some photos of my upcoming progress. I hope to get the core under the seatee on the port side complete and perhaps rework the windows since the port side is leaking pretty heavily whenever it rains. I'll post pictures.

Under the cockpit

When I was reading Andrew's blog, I noticed on the comments someone mentioned checking out the plywood under the seatees in the cockpit. Well I took the advice on my own boat and got into another day of tearing more out. In short I cut under the seats and pulled out the pulvarized mess that used to be the core.

I used a pnumatic cutoff tool to cut the skin of fiberglass which worked great! A lot less dust than using the grinder. I picked it up at Harbor Freight for something like $8.00 and it paid for itself this weekend. I sanded the backside of the fiberglass skin clean and used it as a pattern to mark the 3/4" plywood that I went back with. It appears that original was only 3/8" plywood and not a marine grade. Here is what it looked like when I finished scraping before belt sanding the surface.

I bonded the cleaned skin to the new 3/4" core, I took it up into the boat and applied the adhesive to it inside the boat. I then crawled into the berth and had my wife hand me up the board , while I was lying on my back, so I could manuver it into place. I then braced the underside to allow it to cure. This was one of the harder processes so far, mainly because the tight quarters that I had to work in.

Sometime this week I wil try to go back and tape and glass the new core in around the edges. I did put a new bottom into the cockpit storage compartments and glassed them in as part of this who opeartion today. In the end it came out pretty well and I was satisfied with the progress. It is now braced pretty well. I will probably not be able to get back to it until Wednesday evening.

I did make my mind up that the best way for me at this point to continue is to simply focus on one small section of the boat at a time. My plan is to complete that section before moving onto the next. That will help me to center my focus and hopefully help in my timing to keep things moving. So I am going to try to complete the starboard quarter berth and then move onto the port side quarter berth.

I have been trying to be good and use safety equipment whenever I am working on the boat. I have a full face respirator which I purchased specifically for this project. I wear coveralls and use latex gloves. However with all my efforts to try to be safe I did suffer my first minor accident on the boat. When I was putting one of the braces in, It popped out under pressure like a projectile and and wacked me in the forehead. It really hurt! It even drew blood. I was just thankful that it did not hit me in the eye. I had just taken of the protective face mask when it happened. It ought to look really nice going into the office tomorrw. If anything it did serve as a good reminder to me of the importance of working safely, especially in such tight quarters. I am just going to leave the mask on from now on as long as I'm in the boat working on a project.

I know the progress is slow but it really is for the most part steady. I hope to tackle the port side side of the boat this coming weekend if time permits and if I get the starboard quarter berth complete.

Big Strides with Good Help

I must admit that there are a lot of things that I am enjoying about working on this boat, but one of the things that I was not anticipating was the great moments that I am being able to spend with my oldest daughter. Today after church we came home and went to work on Slow and Steady. We pulled the wheel and reseated it with a fresh new layer of 5200. You can see wheel and pedestal in the pictures. We also pulled the cockpit drains and did the same thing. We then worked our way below and cut two interior bulkhead that will support the cockpit. Nothing is tabbed in yet, just getting everything cut to fit.

I used poster board again to create a pattern for a bulkhead to run the length of the boat under the companion way. However, I realized that I had cutoffs from two pieces of 3/4" plywood that would work, so I decided to split it down the middle, instead of having an entire piece. I hope this is not a mistake, but my intent is to reinforce the seam anyway, so I don't think it will be an issue.

Having the "roughed in" version of the bulkhead pieces cut from the pattern, I then proceeded to crawl up in the quarter berth and had Emily close me in. I would mark the cuts that needed to be made on the back of the board and Emily made the cuts with the sabre saw, which she was completely stoked about! Overall it worked great, but it did take a while. However the end result was a nicely fitted bulkhead, with just enough room to tab it well, but not so tight that it would make a hard spot in the hull.


We now have a two piece bulkhead which I will biscuit join, epoxy and reinforce. I will cut the holes in once I have placed the surfaces in for the quarter berths. In the last picture, here, you can see the newly glassed floor core and the two halves of the bulkhead leaning in position. The wire running in the top right of the picture is just an extension cord.

After doing a lot of looking I have decided I will finish the interior with a mahogany veneer on the bulkheads and mahogany battens on the inside of the hull, but that is still forever away.

As happy as I am with the progress, I am equally, if not more, elated to be able to spend the time doing it with my daughter.

Bulkheads are going in

I was off work on Friday, but very sick at my stomach. In spite of this, however, I was able to atleast make patterns and get two of the bulkheads cut to fit. I purchased the wood needed for a few more. It is suppose to rain tomorrow so I may be able to get some other things done after church. I definitely want to find out if the windows are leaking, so tomorrow will be a good opportunity to check things out if it does rain.

I guess the most exciting part of the work on Friday was having both my wife and oldest daughter getting involved and showing some interest in what I am doing. That was very encouraging to me! My daughter helped me create the patterns for the bulkheads. She is helping tape the pattern for the starboard side in the photo to the right. I used a compass to trace the outline of the hull onto posterboard. I used duct tape to hold the pieces of posterboard into place and then taped them all together to form the pattern. It worked well, and the bulkheads fit perfectly snug to the wall. My wife helped me by helping me move the bulkheads up and down the ladder, taking the bulkheads in and out for minor cuts. She also straighted things up a bit, which always makes things go so much smoother. With the bulkheads cut, I plan on using West Marine Six10 epoxy to bond the bulkheads in. This is in addition to fiberglass tabbing them, this should serve to make them a permanent part of the structure of the boat. I'll post some pictures once I get to this.

Great Magazine and a big milestone!

I haven't had a chance to sit down and write on my progress, but the good news is that the core is finally in!!! I didn't get a chance to work on the boat at all during the weekend. I crewed in a regatta this weekend on a friend's boat and was tied up with family things for the remainder of the weekend. My wife and I did drop by West Marine in Dallas to look around and I found the coolest magazine that is right up my alley, Good Old Boat. It is full of great articles by folks who are as sentimental about saving an old boat as I am.

Anyway, I have taken the time needed over the past couple of nights and have been able to get to a huge milestone, finshing the core. With the core in, I am ready to begin looking toward the reinstallation of the new bulk heads. I am very excited about it!

Looking aft...

After getting the core in, there was one other minor detail. There was a hole in the deck where I am assuming the old OMC drew water into the water pump. It is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. I have other plans about powering which I will let you in on in a future post, so I am patching the hole. I had an old push broom handle that was just about the same diameter. So I cut a section off for a plug and used 7 minute epoxy to get it in place. I will glass over this when I do the rest of the core...

Here is a picture looking aft...

You can see I have removed everything up under the cockpit. I hope to start glassing over the core this weekend, if all goes well.

Rotten to the core

One of the things that had to be done was to rework the core. Since the boat had been underwater there was delamination in the core of the flooring. It felt like walking on jello. While my dad was down from Indiana we were able to jack the boat and perfectly center it on the trailer. We then cut the top fiberglass skin with a circular saw to the get to the core. It was soaked, rotting plywood that just crumbled in your hand. Yes, I said plywood. The original brochure that I have stated they used balsa in the manufacturing, but that is not what we found. There were two layers of 3/8" plywood in strips. Since it lasted 30 years that's what I'm going back with. Here is the first layer going down after the old was removed. We used contact cement to hold it to the countour of the outer skin.

Having the first layer down, we then went back in a cross-hatch pattern with the top layer. This was also glued down to the top of the first layer with contact cement.

There were three areas where this needed to be done, the rest of the core seemed to be in tact: down the entire port side as you see in the photo above, across the beam in front of the v-berth toward the bow and in the floor under to starboard quarter berth. I knocked out the final place in the quarter birth last Sunday afternoon. Here is a shot, fitting the first layer of beam section...

...yeah, I know. It looks bad! I'll fix the spot in the v-berth when I start back in with the bulkheads. Here was the area under the quarter berth with both layers...

The boat butcher had put in a couple of boards under the cockpit that were not actually supporting anything so I removed them. Almost ready for glass...