Oh absolutely. This is only the first layer, the edges will all get dressed once I have the two half inch plies bonded on.
For sure. I pulled out the wood block in there that backs up the trailer rings so there will be a bunch of work in those spaces as well and everything will be cleaned out...
Well after a few weeks visiting family I can finally get back to the boat. Walking around in the hull I can feel the fiberglass flexing as I remove the old stringers and tabbing so I want to start putting some structure back before I go too much further into the demo. And for my own sanity I...
Nah, still got lots of fun left. I've only just started ripping the bow seats apart, still have to pull out the wood strips buried in the chines, lots of grinding.... What I really need is a vacation where I can just work on this thing for a few straight days.
Well another scorching hot weekend so what's better than getting suited up and turning fiberglass into dust? The tent turns into a greenhouse when the sun hits so I put the garden hose on top on a mist setting. Keeping it wet helped massively.
The philosophy when this boat was build seems to...
I've been thinking about those. Some of the tabbing in my boat is just insanely thick, a good 3/8-1/2 inch in areas. I hate the idea of leaving it there because it's so poorly done, but at the same time remembering that it's survived 30+ years and will take me ages to remove. If I could find...
Agreed. They didn't even use clear boards, the spot where they keyed the ski locker bulkhead into the stringer went through a massive knot in the stringer and at first I was confused when a big chunk of round wood fell out. I'll be using 3/4 ply for the stringers when it goes back together.
I dissected a section of removed stringer for fun. It appears that solid boards were in style when this boat was made. My nose says it's some variety of cedar but I'm not a woodworker so that's just a guess. The glass was vaguely bonded on one face and not at all on the other.
Already on the way. My woodworking neighbour lent me his separator, I have a 20 ft hose arriving today and put a switched extension cord together over the weekend. So far I've been doing the boot on the hose dance and shooting the dust into and while that gets 90% there's still the really light...
Make those service cutouts as big as you can. My boat had a similar setup but the openings to service the engine were around 12x12 which I still found limiting for anything more than winterizing. You can never have enough access. As part of my rebuild I intend to almost completely remove the...
This week's update: More of the same. Life with a 2 year old means I only have a couple hours a week to spend on the boat when she's napping, and this Sunday was 45 degrees C with the humidex (~113 Freedom degrees) so no chance I was going to kill myself that badly. I did get the rest of the...
I mean what's not to like about putting on a tyvek suit, respirator, earmuffs, gloves and then spending an afternoon turning a boat into hazardous dust on a hot summer day?
I don't see too much need for tabs but it's worth keeping the option open. They might be challenging to install on my hull though - the stern has the two pods under the swim platform which limits the height for the trim actuators. Never really gave it much thought.
Another weekend of demo and cleaning. I've started grinding the old transom tabbing away and planning for the new wood core. The original wood only spanned between the stringers and was obviously good enough for 35 years but it seems underbuilt compared to other examples I've seen here, so I'm...
Ha, true enough. The staples used to hold the floor down might have accelerated things a little - as they rusted they acted as channels for moisture to wick down into the stringers - but you're right, once moisture gets that far there are bigger problems than what the staples are made of.
