the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

funny, i don't really mind being unable to eat it. i used to think baby tarpon were da bomb when i was a kid in Fla. certain to expand the horizons of anyone who thinks largemouth bass are badarse fish. sailfish ain't worth anything to eat either but they're stll fun to catch.

Did a few hours on the boat last night, but movin pretty slow.....too absorbed in a big sentencing for this morning. Basically just finished cutting out the last floor section and got the rest of the console wired. Got the ACR hooked in and wiring run for the VHF and sonar. I had the batteries hooked up to check cable routing, and had a momentary scare when I felt one of the ACR sensor wires and noticed that it was hot. Uh oh. Then I realized it was still warm from shrinkin the heatshrink with a butane lighter.....

Anyway, a few pix:

the console now pretty much fully wired:

the leads for sonar and VHF are just hangin, and i need to finalize the bundling and clamping once i'm ready to install all this for good after epoxying inside of console

the teak step pads from Defender...these were $18 each. got 2 and split each in half for 4 pads. will put my factory step pads up on the parts thread in a bit.

A visit from the QC supervisor and First Mate

the alum transom cap was split and about to fall apart as i moved it around the shop so i stuck a piece of scrap 1.5x1/16" alum bar inside it for now....snapped into place perfectly and i may TIG it in place later. will still add top reinf.

i think i want to flush mount my VHF to keep console top uncluttered and so i can fold windshield flat for storage. too cheap to pay the extra $20 for cobra's flush mount kit. lo and behold....drill a hole at the right spot on a hunk of alum L-channel and it will clamp the radio tightly against back of console. done.

 

[FishNmemories]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Wow, your making some excellent progress, B2. Love the pics, sure help out visualizing. Nice home delivery of goodies to install on your boat. I installed a quick tightener on the VHF antenna to raise and lower it too, helps with the trailer as well.

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

3 days to myself with no work, just me and the boat, time for a TIN ORGY! wherein yr humble narrator covers self with oil and rolls around the inside of the boat. OK, maybe not...but i did get so much done that it will have to be multiple posts. Jas and EZ, you only got yourself to blame if you created a fotomonster.

between no rain in forecast and a 3 day stretch, i figured this was the time to get the sanding and self-etch priming of tin done. surprisingly cool, too....we normally are having 3 digit temps about now. still waiting on a VHF antenna as UPS apparently decided to use the first one for a softball bat.

we love our tin boats but let no man say we are excessively softhearted

instructions for DuraBak, like other antiskid stuff i've used, say to get serious roughness, like about 36-40 grit, for best adhesion on bare Alum.

36 grit leaves a durn near nonskid surface BEFORE you add the duraBak

TOOTH

the cat proves worth every penny i paid for it when i need to let the varnished stuff bake in the sun to harden it up

cat was free, BTW....

 

[jasoutside]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Oh man, you are going to Durabak the topsides? Yah, no turning back now!

Yah, I could buy another boat for a drying rack, Jen would go for it

Man it sure looks hot a dry where you are at Bruce. I need some aqua

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

SECOND INSTALLMENT

last floor section

lotsa prep work for the gluvit. you can see the 1" of crud that washed out of the inside of the ribs.

taped up and ready

i made a sanding station under the trees....part of donorboat seats on top of old fuel tank

LET'S DO THE TRANSOM WARP AGAIN

or maybe not. the ply warped before i got it cut. i can flip the halves and cause the warp to sorta cancel out, but then they don't line up perfectly with each other or with the alum skin. i haven't glued or screwed em yet. anyone have any input? i don't want to have to use a sledge to get the new transom INTO the boat. if no one has a better idea, gonna just slather glue on for max moisture, line em up and weight down with 3 deep cycle batteries and a cast iron cyl head, and hope that will flatten it out. HELP!

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

THIRD INSTALLMENT

here's another view of the transom showing where the warpage is

i'd gotten the electrics pulled back out of the console and was able to begin on the corner reinforcement with epoxy and glass cloth

the self-etching primer you have to use with the Durabak was some weird stuff....sorta looked like evap'd milk...but they caution that other self-etching paint may not be compatible with the durabak. and at $115/gal, i want to get the application right the first time! learned that i need to thin primer a LOT more than the 10-20% they recommend to get it to spray

so there you have it. 3 days of work til i drop, and it doesn't seem like that much progress now that i look at pix. my forearms are about to fall off; here's to ibuprofen in the bottle of 750. but the sanding with 36 grit was a major nasty arse gumption trap that involved me being covered with alum dust, and i'm so glad to have that behind me. wirebrushing for the rest of the gluvit prep is easy by comparison; just gotta enjoy picking those broken wavy wires out of your face, skin, and clothing. . i may or may not be able to clean the primer out of my touchup gun but it was cheap so if it's toast, no major biggie. i would definitely recommend a separate gun for stuff like this. got up and did the priming this morning at dawn....i'd already let too much time elapse since i had sanded and scrubbed it with scotchbrite, and i was worried about the alum oxide forming.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Hey, B2. I wonder if you dampened the transom wood and weighted it down on a flat surface until it's dry that it would take care of the warpage. I'm kinda thinking if you glue the two warped pieces together they're gonna stay warped.

The boat is looking really good. Glad you were able to spend some time on her, even if you worked your tail off. You have made a lot of progress.

 

[CheapboatKev]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

What if you sawhorsed each end, the warp suspended with no support inverted, with a couple of them batteries sitting on them.
Have to keep an eye so it doesnt warp more the opposite way...
Tie a string level and when the wood touches across it, pull it off?

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

thanks for ideas gents. yeah, GA, i agree, which is why i held off on gluin and screwwin them. i think i'll try the wet n weight plan and if that doesn't pretty much fix the problem, do the decidedly un-bottomfeederish plan of just getting a new sheet of ply and using the current ones for templates......i already need to go to Home Despot for some 1/2" birch ply, as i decided to go ahead and replace the side panels.

i was so beat last ngiht from the weekend's extravaganza that i just mostly sat and stared at the console. hands and wrists in agony; combo of big angle grinder and 6" wire wheel. spread a little more epoxy and that was it.

 

[FishNmemories]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Hey B2, I'm just wondering if the high heat and dry humidity might have caused the bonding process of the 2 pieces plywood to happen too fast and that resulted in the warping? Could try to slow down the curing process of your next attempt if straightening your existing plywood doesn't work.
I've thought back through the other transom projects that I have read and don't recall others having this warping effect, but GA-Boater and Kev have some good suggestions.
Boat yards used to steam the beams of wood to bend them to fit the wooden vessels I used to work on, but that would be complicated process to engineer...hope the straightening attempt works for ya.

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

pretty sure you got it right on the source of the problem, altho i never got as far as the gluing. humidity here has been at 10-15% lately with temps in mid 90s, lots of sun and a 20mph wind a lot of days. plays havoc on guitars too. most of my panels warped somewhat, but the floor ones are minor and should be easy to bend back flat when securing em down.

you gave me an idea. i'm working on engineering (or was that engin-erring?) a steam room setup for the stall shower at house in ABQ...plan is to lay redwood planks over the top of stall to create a semi "room". i should get the Admiral to agree before we start buying stuff for it that it will also be used for steaming wood. good for straightening transoms or bending guitar sides. of course, after that, guess i'll have to buy more boats to restore...

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Hey B2- with a steam room set up you could slip a woodie into the dry dock. Wood boats and tin boats are all good, Glassers are only good for parts.

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

yo Don--times have changed, "slip a woodie" in somewhere often doesn't refer to stitch n glue boatbuilding. i'll leave it at that.

and i can't totally slam glassers since i have 2. tinnies are great but go price where alum-hull sailboats start at.

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

TALL SHIPS! MANLY MEN! BRITANNIA RULING THE WAVES! CANNONS! GROG RATIONS! SCURVY! KEELHAULING!

What do these make you think of? Warped, Pinochet?s-Revenge chilean plywood? Nope. OAK, baby, oak. That?s what you want your transoms and gun port covers made of for battling (or joining, depending on the compensation and retirement package...) the Pirates of the Spanish Main.

thought about it all afternoon and eventually decided that i've never had too much success with trying to straighten any wood thicker than about 1/4". i was going to mist sections, bag em in contractor bags to keep em damp, and weight overnight. but decided as i left work to just go ahead and drop the $ for a new sheet of ply since i was stopping at the Despot anyway. so....i grabbed a sheet of 3/4" OAK. $45, less than 3 bucks more than the Arauco. The stuff may just be oak veneer on the outside of the same laminated core, but it definitely felt heavier. i think i even have something figured out to do with the warped sections; more on that later.

So anyway, I got it home, marked it, cut it out, test fitted and trimmed, drilled and epoxied/screwed it together. No mercy when a hunk of wood thwarts my desires! We now have a nice straight transom. And the look of (you guessed it) OAK for your Capt. Horatio Hornblower (or Capt. Edward Teach) fantasies.

Also grabbed some ?" birch for the side panels...I?d initially planned on recovering and reusing the old ones but I decided to cut em down to more fit the fishin boat character and give me room for rod storage under gunwales a la Mariners. When I started marking and looking closely at old side panels, decided to just ditch em. Since I was going to be making new ones, why not go with nice wood I can just varnish and skip the vinyl covering? So I got those laid out and cut, and started on the epoxy on em.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Now that's some flat ply. What's next? A small cannon? Shiver me timbers.

 

[dozerII]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Making some great progress, B2. That birch ply should look real nice all sealed up for side panels.
Glen

 

[ezmobee]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Is all that fancy ply exterior?

 

[FishNmemories]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

The transom looks awesome B2, we don't have birch plywood here to use, its mostly fir. A fella just bought some to replace his transom and it was $130/sheet

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

EZ, they don't say, so i ran a test on some of the birch a while back: added a little deterg to container of water as wetting agent, then submerged strips of the birch ply in it. after 2 weeks, the wood fibers on outer layers were getting a little "fuzzy" around edges but glue hadn't delaminated at all. i've also used the stuff in several of my other boats with no apparent ill effect over the last few years. remember that Starcraft didn't use marine ply but rather merely exterior ply for many years (i assume they know the difference and would have not have said "exterior" if they were dropping 2x the $ for marine ply...).

so i'll go out on a limb and say that it will likely work fine when given the usual slathered in epoxy n spar urethane plan. and when it's within $5/sheet of the Arauco for 3/4", not sure it's all that durn fancy. finally, it's actual 3/4, not 15/32...not much difference in single thickness but 1/16" in a transom. wonder if this will make it tougher to reinstall once i get it epoxied?

i was just thinking last night abt re-running the same test with a scrap of the oak ply, one of the Pinoch, er, Arauco, and some real marine ply. will post results and pix if i do.

FNM, i understand lots of supplies being pricier and/or semi available in Canada, but it's weird that you don't at least have great access to good cheap WOOD. still, how often does one do a transom, and how many $ does that work out to per year of use?

 

[barato2]

Re: the 1967 Holiday 18 and Multiple Boat Syndrome

Last night?s progress was devoted to getting the Durabak onto the topside and hull interior, since the self-etching primer didn?t really cover the freshly gouged alum as fully as I?d like and isn?t supposed to be left exposed to UV for long. Masked it off Wed eve and rolled the first coat last night.

The stuff is unlike anything I?ve used before, and I like it much better than the water based Tuff-coat I used on another boat ($80/gal vs 115 for the durabak) . Adhesion is much better and it covers in 1 coat altho you still need the 2d for full antiskid effect. Pine needles and bugs just become part of the antiskid surface....

Hint: don?t finish the topside BEFORE you get out of the boat. I had to rest hand on slippery masking tape and sort of vault over gunwale....:facepalm:

It is beyond nasty to clean up, though....sticks to everything, requires xylene etc for solvent, and once it dries, not even that does much. DO NOT let your spillage dry or fail to pull your masking tape til goop dries. Carb spray on a rag works well for cleanup of booboos.

I re-masked and got most of the 2d coat done this morn before work. Really like the way the stuff looks in daylight and I think I?ll be happy that I decided to do topsides in this despite what a major PITA the prep was. I could have gotten both coats out of 1 gallon if I?d been more cautious about slopping it on too heavy, held a pan to catch spillage so I could use, and not done so far up under the bow. As it is, will have to barely crack into the 2d one to finish. This is a problem cuz what they tell you abt it being hard to re-open can is right...barely got it open after lightly sealing it overnight. Will clean rim of 2d can in hopes of being able to use remnants for something.,,,,maybe the roof of the Taco where paint is abraded off from carrying the portabote etc on top?

Anyway, here are pix: