Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

[jbcurt00]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Advice needed.
What kind of wood is acceptable to use for the rub rail screws? The ply that is in there now are 6" long or so and 1/2" thick and I believe that it is cedar. Many of the holes are also stripped out so I want to replace the wood. I have plenty of 3/4" exterior grade that I can plane down to 1/2. Will that suffice?

Do you have room for the 3/4"?

If so, I'd run w/ it. If only to save the time & etc to plane it. I think GT had to kerf the wood to get it to follow the contour of the hull. Esp along the port side where he's got those 4 or 5 spring clamps

Once installed, cove the bottom as you would any hull-wood union & layup some resin & glass.

Colors aren't my forte, that's the Admiral's domain

 

[GT1000000]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I actually used some 1x2 fir strips, but 3/4 ply should work just fine...
I didn't do any kerf cuts as the bends I had to make were not too tight...I just sanded the wood strips to fit the curve, except the port/starboard long pieces, those just followed the curve with enough clamps...
Frisco did cut kerfs in his for the Carlson rebuild...
As JC said, if you can use the 3/4 without having to sand it down to 1/2", that would be ideal...

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I have some 5/8 left and after looking at it, I think that I can work it into place under the inner tabbing. the tabbing is still in place and in decent shape and I'd like to leave it if possible. The wood that is in there is all dry rotted, so it's obviously not cedar and it comes out very easily. I had thought about hairy PB, but the ply will work fine.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

With the 3 day weekend, I decided to eat up of my Christmas days and get an extra day of work in on the Stratos.

Yesterday, I focused on the foremost bulkhead. I cut new stringers and bedded them in place with PB.

Once bedded in place, I glasses them thoroughly in place. Solid as a rock now.

Originally, there was no access to this area, so I opted to put a waterproof hatch into the floor and convert it to dry storage. It took some good measuring to get a board cut that would fit on top of the stringers and mate up with the contour of the hull.

I put a good line of hairy PB (I love that stuff) on top of the stringers and then placed the board on top of them. The remaining PB was pressed down along all sides. Today I'll run some 1708 around all of the edges and the some 10ounce cloth across the board.

As you can see from the board, there is a cutout that gives access to the drain that I installed in this compartment. I'll be able to reach in and put a plug in there if needed.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Some other areas where I made some headway was routing conduits. For the fuel fill and vent, Stratos used a 4" thin wall piece of PVC for routing them to the fill area of the cap. They notched through the bulkheads and cut it off flush with the deck. The cuts that they made was a structural weakness on the stringers and provided an easy way for water to get to wood and under the deck.

The conduit that will house the fuel fill and vent lines goes through the stringers as well, but structural integrity is mostly maintained. The areas where they conduit passes through has been epoxy coated many times and hairy PB has been liberally applied on both sides of the stringers.

I will have to use a pulling compound to lubricate the hoses to get them through, but that is no big deal.


In the stern of the boat, Stratos made 7" x 9" cuts into all of the stringers for passing hoses and wiring. It really looks like structural integrity wasn't of concern to them.

Here are the starboard feed through conduit holes. There will be a 1 1/4" bilge hose and a few wires passing through here. Plenty of room.

Here is the port conduit feed hole. There will be 2 3/4" hoses passing through here that will go to the livewell. Again, plenty of room.

I will double glass the stringers here in the back section of the boat. While one layer might be sufficient, the added weight will be made up for with piece of mind.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Ah, and so ends another glorious day of boat restoration! Day 37 to be exact. I made a couple of milestones today too! The front dry storage area and the fuel tank chamber are all glassed up and sealed. Once I clean up the amine blush, I'll likely paint them so that I can look and see that I've actually made some headway.

The decks in these areas have 10 ounce glass on the bottoms and were affixed in place with hairy PB. The dry storage area has stringers glassed in under the decking and the deck was glued down with PB. I then tabbed everything in place with 1708 on top and laid sheets of 10 ounce fabric across everything.

I finished glassing out the fuel bulkhead chamber. For some reason, Stratos didn't have any way of draining water out of this chamber. I'm not sure why, but there was a lot of water in there before so I added drains out the back of the bulkhead.

There is a 1" slot that is all glassed up at the end of the board that makes up the base of the fuel chamber. The fuel tank sits on rubber hoses and the has tabs that bolt to 2x4's that are attached to the stringers.

Looking forward into the dry storage area. All sealed tight.

the drain access hole at the rear of the dry storage area. You can see the drain that runs all the way to the back of the last bulkhead.

Looking back

Tomorrow, I will be glassing in a pair of short stringers up in the bow area. Shouldn't be any trouble at all. Then I'll finish off the starboard bulkheads where the 4" PVC pipe for control wires and cables runs to the back.

When that is all done, I'll sand down the glass at the tops of the stringers and glass on some caps. When that is out of the way, I'll set some plywood scraps into place and set the cap back down for a test fit. I am really hoping to have the deck in this next week and the cap settled into place as well. Time will tell.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Your attention to detail and the quality fashion you are using to restore this boat is something to behold...excellent craftsmanship and awesome progress...

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Thanks for the compliment. It is greatly appreciated. I look at it compared to other people's work and don't think that it compares quite as well but as long as it is strong, I will be content. Again, thanks.

And for the record, after 37 days straight, I am getting burned out. And I have really exceeded my original estimate on materials. This is one big beast of a hull!

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Even with all of the rain that came through today, I managed to make some headway.

Firstly, I was able to PB in the conduit from beneath the center console to the starboard stern.

The cutouts were also PB'd into place. It is much more solid than when it came from Stratos.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I also PB'd the conduits from the bilge to the port and stern access ways. Both are rock solid and waterproof.

I also finished up the fuel fill and vent hose conduits. They will get more secure when the deck goes back on.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

It's kind of hard to tell how this layup went into place but it worked out great on both sides. I was glassing in the outermost stern end of the stringer. There was enough glass that I was not only able to able to lay it down the stringer, but along the base of the transom and back up the side of the hull. It laid in great.

And lastly, I said "Screw it! I'm painting something!" I painted the front dry storage area and the fuel tank compartment. The TSC paint with hardener really goes on nice.

 

[lokonn]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Congrats, I am amazed at how neat thing are.

 

[Tnstratofam]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Seeing the work you have done first hand was very inspiring. Your attention to detail and getting the compartments waterproof is a formula I plan to follow when I start on my bowrider. You were right I worked on my tank today and checked the stringers that run up both sides of the tank area. Both are bad and the floor is bad all around the tank. Lots of work ahead in my future. I'm torn on whether to start the tear down now or wait until the weather turns colder. With the garage I have a little better area to work in out of the weather. I really appreciate you letting us stop by yesterday to get a look at your work. We were very impressed. the boat is going to be great.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

It was nice to have you and your wife stop by. I love to show off my madness.

The itch that never ceases. I had a number of stringers and bulkheads where the glass came over the top a bit. Imagine tiny icicles pointing up. Actually they were more like needles. Well, all of that had to be sanded down in preparation of epoxying glass caps on top of them. That was today's task.

Another task was to sand and prep the central piece off of the old deck that contains the hatch allowing access to the fuel tank as well as the mounting area for the center console and the livewell cover. Here it is before I cut it to the desired dimensions and sanded it down. I had already removed the livewell.

A side view.

The livewell. All ready to glass to the new deck

I pulled down the BBE today and lowered the cap onto the hull. I wanted to see how well the cap fitted to the new stringers and bulkheads. I also wanted to see how everything fit together with the old center console support piece.

Although I had originally planned on using 5/8" plywood for the decking, it looks like 3/4" plywood will fit the bill better. But...

I did have one "Oh crap" moment today. I thought that I'd have enough room between the hull and the cap to fit the conduit that I am using for the fuel fill hose. I thought wrong. It is forcing the inside of the cap out about half an inch. I think. I need to cut out the conduit and refit the cap and see where that leaves me.

With the contortion to the cap, the port side of the cap near the fuel fill conduit is about 1/4" to perhaps 3/8" different that the rest of the cap. I did find that you can push the cap closer to the hull and it will close up the gap. The fitting of the cap will be a bit trickier than I anticipated, but I have wiggle room all over the place.

Once I know how much room is between the cap and the hull, I am considering feeding the fuel fill hose through the conduit, heating the conduit and forcing it into an oval shape. There will be an ever so slight constriction of the fuel fill hose, but not nearly enough to affect filling operation.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

After resetting the cap late yesterday, I had taken down the BBE. After dinner, I put the tarps back up and secured the inner one. With no sign of rain on the horizon, I thought "Good to go!".

At 1:45 AM, Mother Nature felt differently. We had a thunderstorm warning and a line of pretty strong storms was tracking in out of the Northwest. So at 2:00 AM, I was outside throwing a couple of extra bungees on the tarps and enjoying the light show. And then, there was a split in the line of storms and it spit rain for a minute or two.

But, at 3:00 or so, another set of storms rolled through and dropped some rain. Which is lucky as it washed away a lot of the glass that was sanded off yesterday afternoon.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Well, today was a ciphering day. It's going to be clear for several days, so I lifted off the tarps and worked with the cap a bit. I pulled out the piece of conduit that was giving me some issues and settled the cap back on the hull. I've got some room to work with the screw strips so I'm not too worried about getting everything back into place. This boat was kind of jury rigged together from the factory to begin with. I found that the live well hatch is about 1/2" off of the center line of the fuel access cover. And there are other things that aren't symmetrical.

So, in preparation of putting in the deck in the next week or so, I laid a piece of plywood in the boat and set a center line from the transom to the bow. I measured out 12" increments and then took measurements to both sides to the center line.

On the good side of the plywood, I marked a center line and drew out the port side measurements.

I did the same on the starboard side as well.

Once that fit into place, I did the same process for the 2 pieces of plywood that go on either side of the fuel compartment. I left bout an extra 1 1/2" on the edges that go over the fuel compartment. Those will be cut flush and rounded and eventually glassed down the compartment stringers. That will really tie everything together.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I got the last of the deck cut tonight and had to go out to dinner so most of the evening was a washout. I did manage to wire wheel some of the brass pickups and outlet pipes with their associated ball valves. No pics tonight though.

I do have one question pertaining to repair of chips in gelcoat. Can epoxy PB without the use of glass (Cabosil only) be used to fill chips in the gelcoat prior to painting? I don't have any polyester resin and really don't want to have to buy some for chip repair. My theory is that if I roughen up the surface of the chip, then epoxy PB should adhere quite well. Thoughts?

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Last night was transom details night. I cut out some of the holes through the transom to fit drains (there are 5 of them in the boat). I also worked on filling in old mounting holes and dings in the gelcoat. None of the old holes in the transom fiberglass had access to the wood in the transom as I had glassed over all of the holes prior to mounting the transom with hairy PB.

I felt like a dentist with my die grinder as I ground dings down to good glass and opened up the openings of holes to expose glass and worked the gelcoat to a more even transition. A syringe for injecting PB into the cavities would have helped but I got them all filled in nicely.

I'm going to have to take my time sanding everything down as the epoxy will be harder than the surrounding gelcoat. But once that is done, I'll be able to prime and eventually paint the transom prior to mounting drains. I'll also have to finish out and paint the bilge area before mounting the drains.

Then comes the outside paint. I've been planning on using the TSC Majic paint but the white that they sell is terribly bright compared to the original off white that is on the boat now. I'm thinking about going with a general automotive enamel from PPG or Sherwin Williams. I read a painting thread where someone stated that they only use Sherwin Williams when they paint hulls.

Any input? Wog? GT1M? others?

 

[lokonn]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

My understanding on the automotive paint is that as long as she is a trailered bot you shouldn't have any problems. If left in the water for long periods of time, like boats moored at the marina, auto paint can foul. I'm using PPG ShopLine auto paint. If available is a little less expensive and seems to work fine so far. Of course boat hasn't been in water yet. We used Sikkens auto paint on my 14fter and that held up wonderfully for the 6 yrs I had the boat. If you are going basecoat clearcoat, spend a little more on a better clear. They have more solids and hold up well. Good luck.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Well, after speaking with a handful of paint companies, I've only found one place to be of any help. The girl there was extremely knowledgeable and very helpful, unfortunately I don't want a $400+ paint job. Sherwin Williams support was about as useless as (place metaphor here). And the local PPG shop was adamant that they had nothing at all that would work and wouldn't even discuss it.

I'm about to the point of just shooting gelcoat and working with it's issues. I know that sprayed Gelcoat needs to be sanded to get rid of the orange peel. Is there anything else that I should know about using it? I'm assuming that a Harbor Freight cheapo HVLP gun doesn't have sufficient orifice size to spray it well.

Argh... This is frustrating.