It has begun!

[proshadetree]

Re: It has begun!

Stringers are not an exact science. You want to have them level and contoured to the floor, thats about it. When you glass your new floor in it should meet close to where your old one was. Unless you want to raise or lower the floor. Look at opps thread he had a unique way of making his. They are as many ways to make them right as they are people doing them. Great thing is if they are a little high grind them down,a little low add some mat and resin.

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

I have been doing some upholstery work over the winter. I have almost everything done. I am working on the lounge seats. Boy are they a pain in the rear. I also adopted a 1 year old German shepard mix from a local shelter recently. I had all the lounge seat foam outside on the deck table and the new dog took upon himself to shred one of the pieces of foam. It is for on of the bolster sides. Does anyone know where I can go to replace this piece of foam?

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Boy oh boy, it has been awhile since I posted on here.:facepalm:

I have finally started to put her back together. I spoke to Gentleman at Bayliner a few months ago and told him what I was doing and got some advice from him. I had a 47" piece of my starboard stringer that was questionable to say the least. I have cut it out ground down the area and married a new piece to it. I bedded it with short strand fiberglass putty. (I call it kitty hair) Then Took 2 12" pieces of 3/4 Ply about 4 inches high and kitty haired them to the joint and bolted the whole thing together with 4 bolts.

After that I glassed both sides about 2 inches out and 3 inches up the stringer and then glassed the whole thing over. It feels really solid.

I am really close to the point of foam and I think I have decided to go with the pink Home Depot foam, simply because it is much less expensive.

We all know what comes after foam. The deck!!

Does anyone know if there is some product out there that can be used on the ply to seal it from moisture other than resin? Also do you have to glass and mat the whole top of the deck or can I just seal it with something and glass the joints and edges? Fiberglass is getting spendy!!

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Can anyone tell me how I can tell if I did my stringer tab in and lay up right. I am asking this because I used a finishing resin and although I cleaned the surfaces well with acetone before doing any glass work I am not totally sure I cleaned it between applications. I did the tabbing. Then the next day I did a full wrap. Would I know right away if it will hold or would it take awhile? Any input? Thanks.

 

[oops!]

Re: It has begun!

hi bud.......we need pics....

but !!!........finishing resin????
that sounds like waxed resin to me....and if you waited between layers.....its done wrong bud....no resin will stick to waxed resin....wax is a release agent used in the mold. so nothing sticks to it...that means the last layer is just sitting on top of the previous layer...any stress on that part...and it will seperate.

good old poly resin is only 125 for 5 gals....so its cheap...

if you are buying that carp at walmart....(bondo fiberglass kit) scrap that idea and lets get you some resin at a good price !

for doing the deck.......it needs to be fiberglassed ....that is the sole of the boat and a major structural piece.....gotta be tabbed in at least with glass

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Okay, after reading oops! reply I went out and took pictures. I will hopefully be able to upload them.

After the pics were taken I busted out the grinder again and started grinding off the "resin condom". The first layer or tab layer seems to be good and is adhered well but the second layer did not adhere so well in most spots, not to mention the bubbles. How does one avoid these bubbles any way? Looks like it's back to grinding for me for a time.:facepalm:

I originally used poly resin from Home Depot and some 3M fiberglass mat. That mat seems to sort of fall apart though. Maybe I am using to much resin. Thoughts? I am wondering which is stronger. Cloth of mat? The cloth would be 3M as well. There is a guy on CL that has some 180z. Biax 0-90 for sale at something like 5 dollars a square yard. Thoughts on this?

The poly resin for 125 bucks, is that from US Composites? Shipping, must be expensive? Does it seem feasable that I could do my boat, a 17 foot cuddy, with 5 gallons?

As far as the deck is concerned. I realize I will have to bed it to the hull and stringers and then glass it to the hull where the two meet, as well as any joint between two pieces of decking. Assuming I can't put it down in one piece. But my question referred more to, if I had to glass the whole deck for waterproofing. Or can I just seal it with some polyurathane? I suppose if I had 5 gallons of glass it wouldn't be a big deal to glass the whole thing.

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Just keeping it up top

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Bump

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: It has begun!

OK, From what I can see, It's not the BEST glassin job I've seen but it's not the worst either. What concerns me is the materials you've been using. The Lowe's, Home Depot, Wal-Mart stuff is CRAP!!! Your stringers and transom ARE the Main Structural Components of your boat and if they fail your HULL will fail and that's BAD!!!!! I'm just not sure what to say here!!!!! I know for sure that from now on you should buy your materials from here.

Company Information
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]Fiberglass Supply[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]11824 Water Tank Rd[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]Burlington, WA 98233[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]Telephone: (509) 493-3464 M-F 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]Fax#(360)757-8284 [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]e-mail: [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]fiberglass@gorge.net[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]Web Sight: [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]www.fiberglasssupply.com[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif]They are in YOUR state so shipping should be minimal. You should buy the laminating resin for boats and the 1.5oz Chopped Strand Mat and the 1708 Biaxial Cloth. You'll need a minimum of 5 gallons of resin and 10yds of mat and 10 yds of cloth. I'm not sure if all the work you have done will stay together or not. The wax in the resin makes it hard to tell. Personally I do NOT trust it at ALL. Just not sure what to tell you in how to proceed.[/FONT]

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Thanks woodonglass.

I have already started to grind off what I have already done. As well as look into other options for material. I will check out the info sent. Again thanks.

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Found a guy here locally that will sell me poly resin for 28.00 a gallon and the needed amount of hardner for 8 dollars. He owns a custom boat repair shop and says his resin is professional grade.

What do you guys think about the 18oz. Biax 0-90?

Pop quiz. What sucks worse than grinding your hull once? Doing it twice because you screwed up the first time...

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: It has begun!

Is it Laminating resin with NO WAX?? The Biax sounds ok. but you still need a lot of 1.5oz CSM

Check out these Drawings.

(Click the pics to enlarge)

Transoms




Decks/Soles


Stringers

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Nice pics. Wish I would have seen these earlier.

I bedded my stringer down with short strand fiberglass putty. I am thinking it is very similar to the "peanut butter" everyone refers to. I did not hold my stringer off the hull with dowels but the hull is sorta concaved anyway and the stringer did not really contact the hull much. Then I layed the short strand putty in real thick and coved the base of it where it met the hull and bottom of the stringer. I think this will be okay. Thoughts? I will use the pictures and follow them when tabbing in the stringer. Those pics sure bring to life all the verbage read in this forum.

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Doing some reading today and came across this. It's an article about leaving a gap between the stringer and the hull.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Boat-Repair-2123/Boat-stringer-2.htm

Let me know what you think..

 

[redfury]

Re: It has begun!

Every article I've read about boat resurrection mentioned bedding the stringers, the point being that you didn't want to have a hard point. I think the better way to put it is that you don't want it to be soft and flexible around a part of the boat that is designed to be rigid. Stringer material rarely conforms exactly to the hull bottom, so filling in those gaps with a material that is going to set up strong and firm like poly peanut butter or PL Premium is going to make up the difference.

That's the way I interpret the design of a wood cored stringer. Now, if you want to make a foam cored stringer, then it's not going to matter, because the fiberglass outside of the foam core is the actual strength in the stringer, not the foam. The foam could go bye-bye and the stringer would be fine, as it's only purpose was to be something to build the fiberglass stringer off of, without building a solid fiberglass stringer, thus saving weight, material and money. An I-beam is strong and more efficient than a block of anything of the same dimensions, probably more-so since it doesn't have to support it's own weight as badly.

I'm getting off subject, but the point is that the stringer is designed to be the strength under the weight of the floor, and I agree that you want to the boat to be rigid and strong, not flexible...engineers find the way to do it and minimize weight without sacrificing strength. The general consensus here seems to be " build 'er so you won't ever have to rebuild 'er ".

 

[Brenn]

Re: It has begun!

Im relatively new to iboats but im not new to fiberglass.Though most of my experience is in kit planes the same basics apply.First you will never get your layups to not have all of those bubbles if you dont first round off all of the joints your laying up.Like where your stringers contact your hull or where your deck contacts your hull.Poly resin is by far the easiest to use and get some camosil and 1/4 fibre strand i think its called and mix it into the resin and make peanut butter and use that to fillet your stringers and so on to round them off.

When youre doing a lay up you need to have a clean surface and put resin down first,then lay your cloth down and then put resin on top of your cloth and work it in.if there are any light spots or its lifting they will cause those air bubbles you have gotten.You just keep working it and work those out to get smooth lay ups.Hope this helps.Good luck.

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

Okay I have ground off the first layup and re did it. I used CSM then 18oz. Biax then another CSM and a final Biax. I am wondering what the PL is that is being used for laying in the deck. Also do you put it on the hull where the deck and hull meet or just on the stringers? Finally do you have to screw the deck to the stringers or can you just weigh it down until it cures?

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

My foam will be here tomorrow. Can anyone tell me the best way to put it in? Meaning should I raise the bow up so it flows back or should I have it level? Any thoughts here?

 

[jigngrub]

Re: It has begun!

How do you intend to pour it? Through the decking or with the decking off? Did you compartmentalize your bilge?

Got any pics of what you have now?

 

[lowvlot]

Re: It has begun!

http://forums.iboats.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=112291&stc=1&d=1315350658

Here is a pic of what I have. I figured I would use a 2" hole saw and drill holes about every 3 or 4 inches and pour in the foam. My question is should I put it bow up or leave it level?