It's a Family Affair

 A lot has happened in the last two weeks and I will try and distill it all down. Last week after I got all the foam out and the hull sanded down I discovered two wear points that needed immediate attention before I could move on to new stringers and foam. There was a spot under the drivers seat that had worn through a complete layer of fiberglass as well as the lower bow had worn to the point that daylight was showing through. The latter will take a significant gel coat repair on the outer hull in addition to the new glass on the interior.

This was a perfect opportunity for me to practice my glassing technique. I've read a ton on polyester vs epoxy vs vinyl ester fiberglass and all of their various quirks. I ultimately settled on polyester because, quite frankly, it costs a fraction of the other two. I was able to get a five gallon drum of polyester resin  for the price of one gallon of epoxy. However, polyester has many of its own drawbacks. It hardens quickly, requires a lot of prep sanding and cleaning with acetone, and is extremely sensitive to ambient temperature. The temperature and hardening time can be managed with the amount of catalyst used.

So when it came time to prep all my gear for my first two patches I tried to slow the hardening by adding very little catalyst. Problem was I added way too little. It's suppose to be a teaspoon per pint of resin but I only put in about an eighth of a teaspoon. Needless to say all I created was a giant mess. I slathered the fiberglass mat with my failed resin and waited all night for the big fat nothing to happen. So I had to pull it all up, scrub everything down with acetone and start over. The second attempt worked like a charm.

It was now time to get serious about replacing the stringers. This is where Mike and Dad came to the rescue. Mike purchased all the wood necessary for the whole project and Dad came out on Friday and helped me strip all the old interior panels and cut and shape the new main stringer

From there we dry fitted it and I resined the whole shebang to prime it for its fiberglass skin. Yesterday my awesome friend Ira came out and helped for a while. Since he is way handier with motors that I am, I put him on installing the new fuel pump and degreasing the shaft and rudder so they can be painted with a good coat of anti-fouling engine paint.

While he was working on the motor I began the process of laying in the new stringer. This is another example of my lack of experience bit me in the butt. When I was purchasing the resin I was sold a discount "structural putty" for the base and fillets. Word to the wise, don't buy discount anything with the word "structural" in it. The pint did not go very far and was extremely brittle when it hardened. So now I will have to sand it down and use the correct combination of resin and filler that my lazy butt wanted to avoid. Do it right because I do it twice.

Towards the end of the day Ira and I measured and cut the new deck pieces which will eventually go in after the stringers are replaced and the hull foamed.

Looks pretty damn good doesn't it?


Today I took all of the old ply that Dad and I recovered from the old panels and used them as templates for the new wood. It was messy and time consuming but what about this hasn't been?

After I finished with those I prepped and cut the new bow deck piece. This was particularly challenging because the underside needed to have a sanded bevel in order to fit into the very tight area under the bow seats. Fortunately last year when I was pulling up the old deck I saved this piece for just this moment so I had a template.

As a side note, I have noticed in several areas that dry rot looks a lot like burned wood.

Again, all the more reason why the boat needs this.

With some shoving and grunting I was able to dry fit the new bow piece

All in all, very good weekend. I will have to get the stringer problem under control and get the two side stringers replaced once I do. However as of right now we have all the wood cut and dry fitted which feels pretty damn good. Big thanks to Dad, Ira, and Mike for their labor and financial assistance, couldn't do it without you.