Re: Restoring 1978 Glastron, in over my head!
Removing the cap is only as hard as the lack of help you have. Help can come in the way of friends and human power, or help can come in the way of building a structure to use to lift it off by yourself. Look at my project pictures. I have a 17ft Glastron and EVERY bit of that has been done by just yours truly. I'm going to lift the cap off the boat again this summer and I'm going to video tape myself doing it to help others visually see what is involved in removing it.
Trust me, if I can do mine, you can do yours. The top is a great deal of the weight of the boat, at least half of it. With the cap off, I can slide the boat on the bunks with one hand back and forth. I can lift the front of the boat up, as well as the back. I can move the boat on my grass on the trailer with just me moving it...remember, it's a tandem axle trailer...those aren't easy to move just by themselves! Get the top on the boat and I can't do any of the things I just mentioned without some level of mechanical leverage or help.
Laminating the transom. What you essentially will do is create a bond between the 2 layers of plywood. This can be accomplished in more than one way. Some use PL premium subfloor adhesive, others will use a layer of fiberglass mat. What matters is that whatever you use, it creates a strong bond that won't come apart at the joint ( where the two pieces of ply meet ). You want to use a high quality plywood for the transom ( actually, everywhere you might use plywood it should be high quality ), for the reason that any void in the ply can be a source of problems down the road either by moisture getting past the void and infiltrating the wood, or simply air trapped. Either will expand at a different rate than the wood and cause premature failure to some degree. Any degree of failure isn't tolerable for a quality build. And if you are going to do this, do it right. Failure on the water means a lot of trouble, which is why everyone stresses this so much.
Any time we talk about "sealing it up", we are stressing the point of making sure that any wood you use in the boat that can potentially sit in water needs to be 100% sealed. You can wrap it in a layer of fiberglass, you can seal it with resin, or varnish, or thinned out epoxy...all depends on what you want to use and what you have available. Above deck, you can get away with some exposed wood if it has a chance to air out and dry ( such as wood bracing under the dash for a sonar unit.
Sealing it up also means that anytime you drill into the wood to put a screw into it or just a hole, you need to seal that hole before you leave the screw in there. Drill the hole, then seal it, then put in the screw permanently.
Fiberglass that you will be looking for is some lightweight cloth for covering the transom, or mat, the stringers you'll want to use a heavier cloth.
You'll hear terms like 1708 Biaxial cloth and what that means is the first 2 numbers are the weight in oz. of the cloth and the other are the weight in oz of the mat. It is two types of fiberglass stitched together for ease of use. The mat side goes against what you are glassing to, and the cloth is the side that you will see.
Mat is like the primer of fiberglass...the glue that binds if you will. This is true for almost all fiberglassing except if you chose to use Epoxy resins. Epoxy as you know, is an excellent glue, so you don't need the mat part of the Biax for a proper bond.
Keep in mind though, that epoxy resins break down in sunlight, so you will want to use it only where it will absolutely be covered in paint, carpet, vinyl, etc....no gel coat though...gel coat is strictly for polyester, vinylester, etc and you probably won't be using it anyway.
The number of layers of glass that you will need to use is wholey dependant on the part you are working on. I suggest you go to your local library and pick up a book on fiberglass. There are some excellent reads on boats, but I don't have the names handy...someone else can chime in on that. Definitely worth doing some studying up with your nose in a book. The knowledge you can gain there vs. reading what we have to say here is worth the effort as it is going to be all in one place and designed to be absorbed. Read up and then come here for the Q&A sessions
