Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy
I woke up at 5:30 AM this morning...excited to get back out to the boat after my 2 week hiatus. Did a little reading on the forums here, took in a little surfing on Lowes and HF. Decided to run to the store in order to give the temp a chance to get a little higher than the 28 Degrees it was when I got up. Picked up a couple of new blades for the Oscilation Tool at HF also a couple more pairs of gloves and a new set of goggles. The pair I have leak and fog up too much. Decided to hit Lowes too. Had my mind set on a new suit and a dust collector. While looking at the vacs I saw they had a 12' hose. I thought it was the same diameter as the hose on the vac I bought, was only 1 1/2" not 2 1/2". So I spent about a half hour when I got back fabricating an adapter from all the spare parts that were included with the long hose. Didn't take too much thought, was able to make a coupler that looks like it came from the factory. Now I have a 16' hose for the new shopvac! This way I can leave it outside the boat and still reach every nook and cranny in the hull. Worked out very nicely.
It was like 1:30 PM before I got to get in the boat. Didn't think I would have enough time to get much done before dark. As you may recall, I had to get the bilge area de-balsafied and rip the transom wood out.
3/4 of the bilge area was a cake walk. The remaining 1/4 was a bear....
Down in the bottom, there was alot of this....looks to me like the resin was over cooked? There is alot of this on the starboard side from the foam redue that was done also...very hard and brittle.
Got the skin off the transom...as you can see the wood was very wet, to the point that water drained out of the bottom when I was making my cut with the OT. I never did found it, but I swear I saw a redworm in the transon when I knocked the rotten wood out.
There was a layer of CSM on the wood where it lays against the hull. Flapped like a piece of skin when I got the wet wood out. I would say it was that way when this screw hole was sealed with slicon, see how it spread out. These were the holes made for the fish finder, so doubt they were from the factory. I suppose the delamination happened after the transom got wet.
I really didn't think I was going to get this far today. Worked 5 hours in total, no breaks. But I got the transom wood out! Upper half was a real pain to get out. I hammered my chisel between the hull and that layer of CSM I thought was disconnected all the way up. Wrong - It was connected fine up higher. Let the chisel spread it, sounded like rice crispies when the fibers started snapping. Let it got for a while and kept moving the chisel around, but it finally came out in the one piece that was left.
You know what this means, right?
Time for some grinding.
To start, I am just going to knock all the high spots down where all my cuts were made. Once I get that done, I will start making templates for the stringers and the deck. Then I will get my wood and cut it out, dry fit it. I will not be doing my final grinding until I get my materials for doing the fiberglass. Then a rough/scuff ...followed by a good vacuum and acetone wash.
Then I will be ready to glass! Can't believe I am so close!
