1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Man I'm tired of the demo work. I want it to be over with, so I can start to get tired of the grinding work.

It's been slow, because it's Florida. It's either raining horizontally, or it's 94 degrees with 94% humidity. On the weekends, I've been grabbing an hour or so in the morning before it gets hot, and the rest of the week, I've picked an hour right at sundown until it gets dark.

But! Got just about every bit of wood out of the boat at this point. Stringers gone, bulkheads gone, tank supports were rotted out, they're gone. Battery shelf, it's all gone.

Demo chaos, but one stringer gone. I pulled up the glass over the port tank support, and it's rotted to pieces:

Here are the stringers. They look burned, but that's rot. They weren't plywood either, but fir or something similar. I know it's a joke running around, but they really did look like old broken up pallet wood. They also didn't seem to be one long stringer, but one piece from transom to tank, then up against a bulkhead, then another alongside the tank to the next bulkhead, then another piece to the front of the boat. Three pieces, butted against bulkheads in between:

The motor mount seemed to be one chunk of wood carved to fit in the bilge. Maybe a 4x4?

Making progress:

Getting there:

Facing aft. The right side glass on one of the mounting plywood panels pulled up, and that plywood is gone, too, so I have more transom work to do.

I have to pull off that mounting plywood (it's just poly hull underneath, it's isolated from the rest of the transom). I have to tear off the rest of the shelf around the outdrive part of the transom. And that's it. There remains one bit of isolated plywood on the stern where the dive ladder mounts, and it'll probably be the only bit of original wood left on the boat (I've taken several samples, and oddly, it's all good). I've considered replacing it anyway, but it's in an easy to get to area, isolated from the rest of the boat's structure, so I'm leaving it for now for historical value.

It's a very odd thing, this shell of a boat. My trailer has bunkers supporting virtually the whole length of the boat, but there's this flex now. Without the engine, the outdrive, the deck, the stringers, the bulkheads.... I can go to the corner of the stern and actually lift my 19 foot boat off one of the bunkers.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

An eventful last few days. Well, a lot of it was uneventful because of horizontal rain again, but I did get out again a few days and started dealing with the tabbed-in leftovers after the macro-demo.

Though, man the cicadas lately. They're loud and all over the place. Sounds like an alien invasion. They're dropping all over the place, including the boat:

But, back to the boat. I could have got out the grinder and shaved or sanded or ground down the tabbed bits, but I noticed they were actually delaminating from the hull. I don't know if it was just bad design or bad prep or just the mechanical bond failing, but I could pry up a little bit of a corner with a prybar, then basically rip each piece off the hull.

Then, I ran into a problem....

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I hit wood in what I thought was just hull material:

It was right over what (I learned) is a strake (I thought the term was chine, but Yacht Dr. educated me in my thread over here:
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=433377)

So, as the thread mentions, I debated what to do about the naked wood. The wonderful iBoaters let me know this wasn't a completely unexpected development, though I'm not exactly sure why the glass pulled up over this side and not the other. I'm guessing there was probably a bubble over the wood underneath and a thin spot which came up when I was pulling off the tabbed glass. I had a little bit of worry -- should I really be pulling this stuff up, or should I be grinding it off instead? I was trying to save a bit of time (it takes 10-15 seconds to pull off a foot, as opposed to 10-15 minutes or more grinding it off), but I finally decided if it was really pulling off the hull this easily, then I should just keep going for it. If I pulled off this bit over the strake support with my bare hands, then it probably would have ground off just as easily with my grinder and I'd be in the same position.

My main worry was the exposed wood. Every bit of wood in this boat had rot in it, now I just opened some more. It was dry and seemed solid, but we've had all that sideways rain, so what's the next step? Try to pull out the wood and fill it with Peanut Butter or similar? Or just glass over it?

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

With the rains lately, and the fact that the wood was dry, I decided just to glass over it with 6 oz for now. I'm 99% sure I'm just going to continue glassing it in, but at least it's waterproof now and if I change my mind, I bought myself some time.

Here's a decent pic before I started:

I ground it out with a flap disk and found that the one piece of wood I found was short, and had other chunks of wood fore and aft of the piece I uncovered:

I cleaned it out, dusted it off, then hit it with acetone and let it dry:

I cut off a piece of 6oz and test fit it a couple times

Then, wet out the wood and hull with 1:1 epoxy, placed the glass over it, and wet it out:

It was getting dark, so I don't have any more pics, but I poked the glass around a bit to get rid of the bubbles, and I'll check it again in the morning.

 

[proshadetree]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Looks good man

 

[Stampeder]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Peter:

It's coming along great and I"m learning a ton from your experiences prior to starting my work. Thanks so much. And thanks for all the pictures. Please keep them coming.

Looking forward to the cracking of the champagne bottle over the bow!!



dsorrell:

I"m interested in the two part foam you found. Can you send me the information on it please.

Thanks.
Glenn.

 

[RobbyA]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Peter,

Thanks for commenting in my resto thread, I didn't realize you had your own thread going. I have no clue how I missed it, I read the forums almost everyday. It seems you are a few steps ahead of me, which is a good thing. I can see what problems you are having and expect them on mine. I will be following this now. Thanks for the advise on the wire wheel. I am going to let it snow yellow in Texas in the 100* weather.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Thanks for the encouragement guys. And thanks for the stars!!! I think I may actually get through this thing!

------

Not much work done lately -- I was out of town last weekend, then out of town this weekend, though I had an hour of work on it this morning. But! I think I've finally turned the corner on the demo work.

The major tabbing is all up. There are a few places still with ridges, and a lot of chopped strand that is still sticking to the hull, but all of that will come off with a flap wheel. I turned to the transom and cleaned that up a lot

I think I'm ready to actually start building instead of ripping things apart. The transom will be a little tricky. A flatedge along the stern seems to show some flex in the hull material along the stern, but nothing that can't be cured by a series of tight clamps when the transom goes in. There are some low spots with just strand showing, which probably allowed water to get between the hull and transom in the first place. If I'm liberal enough with the epoxy when the transom goes in, these should be filled in just fine, too. I also found that the transom didn't go down all the way to the drain plug like I thought. The bottom inch or so where the transom met the bilge was glass, not wood, so I'll be duplicating that.

I'm pretty excited to start the transom, which I might start templating on some cardboard when I get back into town. I'm not as excited about the stringers, which seems like a lot more work on this boat to get right. But, once those are in, the worst is behind me and the progress should be a lot more visible. I can't wait.

 

[dsorrell]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Stampeder,
sorry to be late in replying to this thread. I hadn't checked in for a bit - as you could tell. I will post again tomorrow with the name and company of the pourable foam I used.

Petermarcus, I redid my foam mostly because I was only doing a section of floor between the seats back to the engine compartment (like a big T shape). I was digging out water-logged foam and wanted to replace it with space occupying closed cell foam. I certainly understand your thoughts about not wanting foam to aid in holding water against stringers, floor, etc.
I have some transom work I'll be doing at the end of boating season. Most of the wood appears to be good, but the 3:30 to 5:00 quadrant (looking from the engine compartment) is bad. I'm hoping to just repair that quadrant, without getting into the rest. I've heard of Seacast as a possibility.

 

[dsorrell]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I have information for the pourable foam I used in my boat floor repair.
Aero Marine Products Inc.
San Diego, CA
877-342-8860

This is a two part, closed cell foam. It did a great job for the purpose I used it for.

 

[sandersps]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

More Please, I am addicted to your thread. I have a 93 model of this boat and i am amazed at the way you have shown me all the inner workings and hidden spaces of this boat. I know your gonna have an awsome boat when your done. I cant wait to see it finished. That is a great hull and power plant combination, it does everything that i ask it to.

Oh, and thanks for diving into your boat with a grinder and sawblade to entertain me. LOL!

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Heh, thanks sandersps. Haven't worked on it all week due to work stuff, and I've been out of town the last two weekends.

But! This weekend I'll be home, and it's time for templating the transom. Maybe even building it. Glad to be building instead of destroying.

 

[bear_69cuda]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Good progress dude!

 

[proshadetree]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I built my transom and drilled holes for where the out drive bolted up. Glassed 2 sheets of 3/4 ply together. Wet the boat with resin then cloth then more resin and clamped it together. Waited about 1 hour and cut the hole with a saws-all. Ground it to look good and glassed around the hole. I thought this would be way easier than trying to line it up and bonding it. Good luck and I want pics/

 

[true blue 17133]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

was wondering if you could tell me how the seat pedastals were placed in there i too am redoing a 86 model but only pedastals are bad (unless i find out differnt after i remove them) do i have to remove carpet to see how they are join to the deck hate to because carpet is in great shape and floor no soft spots seats were rotton already rebuilt them and are being repost as i type and i have put in new 350 engine in it but i need to replace the pedastals for 1 side on each bad can u tell me hoe to remove these,,,thanks

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I didn't have pedestals, mine were seatboxes that were plywood and glass. The seats screwed directly into the boxes. They were back-to-back lounge seats.

If you have a 350 engine, then I'm guessing yours is a bigger boat. My engine is half that size.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

Got a flood of pics coming!

Today was transom building day. I started with a cardboard template of the transom.

My old transom was roughly 24x24", but there are some diagonals on the bottom, and a ridge of poly over the bilge drain that I'll build back up again:

I fit the cardboard into the old transom area until it was approximately the same shape and position.

I used the cardboard as a template for some B grade exterior 3/4" plywood and checked the fit

The good side would be out, so I'd have a level surface against the stern, and on the inside of the boat for the housing.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I cut another rough 3/4" ply square, then screwed the first piece of wood onto it with 1 1/4" screws.

Once they were screwed together, I cut out the bottom piece, shaving off a little of the top piece as I went so they would match.

Nice thickness. There'll be some cloth in the middle with some epoxy, then the stern thickness, then I can just lay up more cloth until it's 2 to 2 1/8" inches.

Fits well.

Time for the glass. I cut out a rough piece of 6oz. The knotty sides were both up so they would sandwich the 6 oz in between.

Prepping for mixing the epoxy.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

How much epoxy was the question? I hadn't done this in a while. It was naked plywood with 6oz cloth in between, so I did a pure guess and figured 24 oz of mixed epoxy.

So, 12 oz of resin

And 12 oz of hardener (this was 1:1 epoxy). I stirred it with some scrap wood until it was thoroughly mixed.

Then, spread it on one side until the wood soaked it in and there was still some resting on top

Put the cloth over it

And wet it down with more epoxy, making sure the cloth was all wet and the major bubbles were out.

I wasn't as worried about minor bubbles as the sides would be sandwiched together with a lot of weight, so I was pretty sure there would be good contact.

 

[petermarcus]

Re: 1994 Bayliner Capri 1950 Restoration

I wet out the other side:

Then used a ton of screws to make sure the edges were touching, and a few in the center as well

I put the whole thing on my garage floor with some scrap wood on top

Then parked my wife's Jeep over it for some weight.

From starting the cardboard cutout to parking the Jeep was just under 2 hours. I was a lucky that this boat doesn't have a stern-wide transom, just a center square of wood. Didn't need to remove the cap, and it'll be easier to put in. I just need to let this dry, cut off the extra cloth from the edges, then mark for drill holes and keyhole, cut those out, then prep the stern surface.

After screwing the wet pieces together, I was curious how much epoxy I had left over. 8oz, so I was off by about a third. And, letting it sit for 15 minutes or so in my 95 degree garage as I was piecing the transom together, when I did finally look at it, it was smoking like mad, so I tossed it in my driveway and dumped a cup of ice into it.

Feels good to be building.