Stratos 1850 CC Rebuild Part 2

[bakerjw]

It was 12 or 13 years ago that I took my Stratos 1850 down to a bare hull and built it back up. Money was much tighter back then so I couldn't afford composite materials.
As fate would have it, water did get into the deck and transom so I resigned myself to another rebuild but this time using Coosa and Nidacore. I did identify how water got into the transom and that was alleviated. The transom is already finished with a few more layers of 1708 yet to be added.
The deck was installed in 3 sections with each section isolated from the others. That worked great.
The glass layer under the section of deck that got soft held as intended and the foam is dry as a bone as are the stringers and bulkheads. So far only a deck replacement.
The only one unseen issue was water intrusion where the fuel line and vent passed through the deck. The space between the hull and inside of the cap is very narrow and water that made it in to the bow area on the port side had nowhere to go. When I put the cap back on, I will see how much space is there and add a drain.
It sucks to do a project again but I am recently retired and now have the time to take it easy and make sure to never have to do it again.

 

[bakerjw]

Deck is off today! YAY!
There are 2 small bulkheads that might have gotten wet so I will replace them with Coosa and glass. We're talking not even square foot.
By the end of the week, the deck should be back in place.

 

[bakerjw]

Picture time. Been too busy to be posting.
Stratos made their boats with a 2 part construction method. The hull was built out with a rough deck. and the cap was a bathtub that was then dropped in and glued to the deck of the hull and secured at the mating edges.
When I did the initial rebuild, I cut the cap from the original floor and then glued it to the new deck that I had built with a thickened epoxy mix. PITA to get cut back out. I had to use curved sawzall blades to get under the lip.



This is where I had water intrusion in the deck. Right by the 3 prong plug, you can see where the deck panels were partitioned.


You can see the rot in the decking here.


Even with some water intrusion, with the exception of near the fuel fill line, all of the foam was dry.


All of the deck off. A lot of VERY dry plywood. And messy.


This shows where some water had gotten in my the fuel fill lines. The way everything was constructed, there was no gap between the hull and cap with the fuel line there so water pooled. I will be adding a drain line.


Nothing that we've not seen before.

 

[bakerjw]

Transom Insanity!

Well, I had some air voids when I did the transom the last time and it came back to bite me as seen here. Lessons learned.

The typical, "Yeah, that's a wet transom." To quote Chong from Up in Smoke... "Hope you're not busy for about a month"


With the cap off, it was much easier to get access to the wet wood. It was still solid but something that I cannot let go.


The bilge looked pathetic but the stringers were all dry as a bone.


Slowly making headway. I found a large crowbar with a sharpened edge worked well. Carpel tunnel to the max though.


Down to glass with original tabbing that I had installed to be removed.


Clean starboard side with tabbing removed.
Even with the wet transom, there were no signs of cracking or fatigue on any of my original work.


Nice and clean fully sanded surface.


From the other side.
All ready for a new transom.

 

[bakerjw]

New transom time
Using 2 sheets of 3/4" Coosa 30.

Template made and marked. Ready to cut.


Checking fitment. As the original transom had been bedded with thickened epoxy and glass, it was not an exact fit so I had to adjust the bottom edge of the first piece. I left a very minimal amount of room between the Coosa and the hull.


Starboard view


With both pieces adjusted to fit the hull contour, I lightly clamped them in place.


On the transom, there were 4 motor mount, 2 splash well drain, 2 hold down mount and 2 sculper holes.


With the 2 panels in place and aligned nicely, I drilled out the holes for alignment purposes. I bevel cut the 2 sheets.

 

[bakerjw]

Time to LAMINATE!!!

Using the alignment holes. I inserted 1/2" rubber tubing as I did the lamination. I used epoxy and 1708 glass between the 2 panels.

It went very smoothly.




Once aligned, I used 1 5/8" drywall screws and started from the center and worked my way slowly to the edge. As I did so, epoxy started pushing up the guide holes.


NOTE!!!!
I removed the screws after it was cured. ?I was lucky that I did so as when I installed the transom and started clamping it from the bottom up, air and epoxy started to ooze out. When it was just epoxy, I lightly put a screw back into the hole.

 

[bakerjw]

Installing the transom.

As I mentioned, When I originally reworked the transom, I had some thin air gaps between it and the outer skin of the hull. This time, I had multiple holes where I could use threaded rod and get much higher pressure between the new transom and the hull. Wooden shims were used between the stringers and the coosa as well. This all allowed me to stagger the pressure from the bottom to the top as I clamped things into place.

The first step was to lay a bed of very thick epoxy that was heavy with glass. The transom was set into it and bondo paddles were used to push it into and void as the base. This acted like a seal at the bottom.

Thickened epoxy was brushed onto the Coosa and a heavy coat brushed onto the hull surface prior to setting the transom in place. All of the threaded rod was lightly tightened up and I started with the rod through the drain hole seen at the bottom. After a minute, I drove in shims top the stringers.


Through the sculper holes, I had a small I-Beam running across the outer skin to keep the surface flat.
The lower motor mount holes were used as part of the tee board that connected to the drain hole. These holes anchored on the outside to the I-Bean as well. The drain plug to lower motor holes was under heavy pressure. I noticed epoxy coming out screw holes so when it was just epoxy, I put screws back in place. The shims by the stringers were tapped again.


The sculper threaded rods were tightened heavily. Pretty much the entire bottom of the transom and hull were under pressure and epoxy was pushing up toward the top.

The next 2 pictures show the rod from the I-Bean at the bottom and rod through the tie down holes applying pressure at the far edges of the transom.
Shims at work too.





So I now had a cup of sorts in the middle that was not under a lot of pressure. I opened the gap with some shims and added some regular mix epoxy which flowed down into the gap nicely. More epoxy was coming out of screw holes so they were filled. The splash well drain rods were tightened and finally the upper motor mount rods.


Additional clamps were used at the edges where needed
If there are any voids now, I do not know what else I could have done.

 

[MikeSchinlaub]

Looks very well done. You definitely know what you're doing.

 

[bakerjw]

This is NOT Johnny's first go round.