More of the same

I was not able to take pictures of today's work. I had to go get some aluminum tubing from a friend, then when I got home it started to rain. I was able to finish prepping the front section of the starboard top. Then I fitted it to the stringers and glassed it to the aft section. Hope to roll it over and glass the underside tomorrow morning. Then I just have the lower center top to prep and fit. Luckily I have a piece that is long enough so I don't have to glass two pieces together. Just a lot of grinding. Then on to the upper center top, which is already cut. But I need to glass the underside of it.

I hope to take pics tomorrow and add them to this post.

Too Hot to Work

It was just too hot to make much progress today. I was only able to work about 4 hours this morning in the heat. Can't wait for it to cool off.


 I was able to get the larger piece of the starboard top fitted between the stringers. It is very awkward working down in the tanks. It takes multiple passes scribing the edge to get it to fit well. Of course the lid has to lifted out of the tank for each grinding. Not a very fast process. Luckily I only have the front section of the starboard tank and lower center tank left to fit. The upper center tank fits on top of the walls.













The front section in progress. I need to grind the filler off and then fit it between the stringers. Then it get attached to the after section.


 I'll be back on it tomorrow. Hope to get this part done by Monday or Tuesday. Then I am on to cutting the access
 holes and plates. The end seem to be in sight finally.

And the beat goes on

Back to work on the tank tops after a day off taking care of Mom...

I realized that I had to glass the outside of the top before I could cut the access hole in. I plan to bevel the ply down from the underside face of the tops at the access holes. That way the access covers will not be sitting in a depression in the tank top that could fill with water and ????

So here is the glass on the top side of the first lid. The area with the greenish tinge is the new glass work, 3 layers of 24 oz. Combo mat. This layer now covers the plywood completely and is bonded to the bottom layer of glass at the edges. The biax tape will cover the rest of the exposed wood when I glass the tops in to the stringers. When completed the plywood will be completely enclosed in fiberglass. Then the fiberglass layer gets a coat of epoxy paint both inside and out. So long as no one drills holes into the glass or drives screws into it the wood should be safe from rot.

I staggered the ends of the 3 layers so I could fair them into the existing glass work. To left is the aft end with only 1 edge to fair.









And to the right is the forward end with the 3 edges exposed. If I had been a little brighter this morning I would have cut the first layer shorter than the 2nd and the 2nd shorter than the 3rd.
I guess I just love grinding...










Got started on the top for the Starboard tank as well. Ran into a little problem in that the builder did not get a good bond between the plywood they did not glass in. It looks like they used a bondo type material to "glue" the plywood to the underside of the fiberglass. I guess there was not enough pressure applied to squeeze the air and excess material out. So I pried the ply off in the few places it did bond, than ground all the bondo off.
I re-bonded the ply with 2 layers of 1.5 oz mat well wetted out. I was able to clamp it with stiffeners in 4 places. Good old C-clamps got all the air and excess resin out. You can see the resin pooling in the few places where there was hole through the plywood.









This is a close up of one edge of the top with the plywood re-bonded to the glass. you can see the bevel on the plywood edge, as well as one of the hardened pool of resin that came through a hole in the plywood. Oh boy more grinding...

One other problem the builder had is the way they performed the plywood coring in the cabin top. The idea was better than the execution. The coring material is cut into small pieces and the individual pieces are than placed on the wet glass. A little gap is left between each piece. The idea is that the gaps will be filled with resin when the top layer of glass is applied over them. Then each piece of core is isolated from the rest which would limit rot to that one piece. As you can see in this close-up they did not manage to get all the spaces filled. They also forgot to tell the crew to use the same thickness of ply everywhere. So the top layer of glass work did not come out very flat... I ground off the obvious bad spots, filled the voids and will ads another layer of biax over the whole thing. 

Here's a shot of my two favorite tools. The 7 " grinder has a 24 grit disk on it. Grinds through wood and bondo pretty fast. Excellent tool for covering the entire boat and surrounding areas with a fine fiberglass dust. I work with two fans running to try to keeps from overheating and to spread the dust a little further. Can't wait for it to cool off.
The 4" grinder has a diamond wheel on it. I have not found anything that cuts fiberglass as easy as a diamond wheel. Cut it like butter, will cut wood core as well. They last a long time too. I have tried carbide tip blades, but the tips come off. This little guy is more more handy too.

Hope to get the rest of this top put together tomorrow and get started on the top for the lower center tank. At least that one does not need to have two pieces glass together to make the length.

Starting on the Water Tank Tops

Finally got to start on the port tank top today following a brief 3 day vacation to Philadelphia to take my Daughter (Beatrice) to the University of Pennsylvania. It was a very poignant moment for us, we will miss her very much but we are very proud of her.




Back to the work in progress. Here is a picture of a piece of
the aft cabin top that will be part of the Starboard tank top. I am not sure why but the builder only only cored about half of the top. That is the part in the foreground. I will be adding a layer of fiberglass over the plywood area towards the other end.

This is the uncovered area on the piece I used for the Port tank top. To the left is the cored area of the top and the uncovered ply is in the center. The top is longer than the pieces I cut out of the cabin top, so I have to join two pieces together to make the top. The second piece is glassed on to the right end of the uncovered ply. When done there will be 3 layers of 24 oz. biax tape on each side of the splice. Then I will cover the exposed ply with 2 layers of 24 oz combo mat. I plan to do that when I glass the tops into the stringers.

The picture to the right show the aft end of the tank with the top in place. You can see how I cut the the core and top layer of glass away at the edges of the top. I am going to glass the top on from the outside which in this case is the top. I did not want the plywood core to be exposed to the water in the tank.
Easiest way to do that is to remove the core and top layer to expose the bottom layer of glass to the outside. I will glass the tank top onto the stringers with 3 layers of 24oz biax tape.
I have not put the aft end of the tank in yet. I was waiting till I had the top made to determine exactly where the aft wall would land. As you can see the aft end of the tank is very shallow. I would rather have water storage than empty space to collect dust. The aft half of these tanks are under the master berth.



 I still have to remove the top, glass the underside of the joint between the two pieces and make the 4 access holes. Then I need to spray the inside of the tank and underside of the top with white food grade epoxy paint before glassing the tops on. I plan to fill the open tanks with water before the painting stage, just to make sure there are no leaks...

Progress on Tanks

Just a quick post regarding the progress on the tanks. It has been so hot that really wipes you out to do any work. With the paper suit  and the respirator on your body temp get up to fever levels and you feel really weak.

Anyway all the baffles are in on the starboard tank. Here is a view of the three tanks

             You can see the baffles in the port, starboard and lower center tanks. So all that lost space that was collecting dust where you could not get to it is now water tanks.

 To the left is a shot of the upper center tank with the baffle in. I still need to drill hole in the baffles to allow water to flow through. I think that 30% of total baffle area is recommended for the openings. There is also an opening at the lowest point of each baffle to allow for complete draining of the tank.








Next week I get started on the tops. I also plan to fill the tanks with water to check for leaks before I install the tops.

Work on Staboard Water Tank...Finally

Finally got back to work yesterday. A small cut on my calf decided to get infected with staph. So I have been battling that for the last 4 weeks. Hopefully it is truly gone because we are running out of antibiotics to throw at it. Wound care is becoming very important with this staph floating around. Anyway on to the fun.

I ground out and filled and ground out some more and filled...well you get the idea the original fiberglass work until it was reasonably smooth. Today I was able to add 3 layers of 24 oz. Biax to the bullhead at the forward end of the tank and a layer of 1.5 oz mat and 18 oz roving over the rest of it.

 The whitish-grey spots are body filler under the glass.

the top of the tank is 3 inches below the top of the stringers. When I glass the tops on the glass will wrap over the tops of the stringers.













Looking down from what is left of the stern deck. It gets cut off pretty soon. You can see the ceterline tanks to the left of the starboard tank.
















View of starboard tank looking aft. you can see a couple of loose stands from the roving that need to be removed tomorrow. One of the disadvantages of using loose mat and roving.













Here is the lat piece of the original glass work I cut off the bad stringer. Tomorrow I will cut pieces out of it to use for the baffles in the starboard tank.

Grinding dust everywhere. I try to keep it cleaned up, but the fine dust goes everywhere.
I will have spend a day cleaning the whole out side of the boat once I have all this grinding done.







So far I have gone through 13 gallons of resin , about 10 yards of 50" width combo mat, 10 yards and about 12 lbs = 36 yrds of biax tape.....

Water Tanks below the aft Cabin Sole

During the demo phase I remove 2 large 75 gallon tanks from the lazarette and 2 smaller 35 gallon tanks from under the bunk. My plan is to replace them with built in fiberglass tanks between the existing stringers under the aft cabin sole. This will accomplish 3 things (1) free up space, there will be no lazarette in the new design (2) lower the CG a little which will help compensate for the added weight of the sundeck roof and (3) seal off spaces under the cabin sole that are otherwise inaccessible to be cleaned. When I am done all of the spaces under the aft cabin sole will be either tanks or accessible via lift up hatches or gratings in the hanging lockers. The interior of each tank will be sealed with white food grade epoxy paint. I plan to also paint all of the remaining exposed hull area with the same paint.

There will be 4 tanks; one lower and one upper tank in the center line space and one tank to both port and starboard.

 Here you can see the port tank with the baffles glassed in.
the stringer which forms the right "wall of the tank is the new stringer. I ground down the existing glass and laid 2 layers of 18 oz roving/1.5 oz. mat combination. The new stringer received 4 layers.
The baffles are made from pieces of the original glass work I cut off the bad stringer. I am trying to recycle all the fiberglass parts I cut out of the boat. I see no reason to throw away good glass work and then have to buy more materials to replace it.
As you can see the outboard tanks will be pretty shallow at the aft end. My intent is to close off spaces that would otherwise have be cleaned. There will be an 8" X 12" access plate in the top for each space between the baffles. I also need to cut more holes in them.

Here is shot of the lower center line tank showing the forward end.  The dark line you see snaking down the starboard side is a 1" tube I glassed in to act as a drain from the space aft of the tanks where the rudder stuffing box(read leak) is located.

There is a small problem here, the tank will be taller than the bolts for the stuffing box.










So I built a 2nd wall 5 inches aft and down to a depth below the bolts.You can see the shaft tube going through it.

View from aft looking forward. The tank extends under the "cutout" piece to a wall in line with the teak block. Again closing off space that I would not be able to reach to clean. this tank is about 3 feet deep at the forward end.

Here are two views of the upper center line tank in progress. I built it using 1/2" Dura Ply. I then covered it inside and out with 2 layers of 24 oz. biax. The corners and joint to the stringer is reinforced with 3 layers of 24 oz biax tape.
This tank rises up above the cabin sole to occupy lost space under the bunk. There will be one baffle in each tank.



Here is how the baffle for the upper tank started out. It is a piece of the aft cabin side. The plywood was "bonded" to the glass work after it had cured using a bondo type material. The bond was not very complete, so I chose to remove the plywood and grind the bondo off.

Same piece after removing the plywood and grinding all the paint off the outside and bondo off the inside.

 

 So that about catches me up to where we are now. I have done some a lot of work in the engine room removing a complete mess of wiring and the bulkhead between the engine room and the port fuel tank. Not quite sure why they put it in. Again creating spaces that can not be accessed to do cleaning and maintenance. I can now see that the top of the tank is rusty... Oh boy more work.

Bad Stringer replacement

I knew from the hollow sound when I tapped on the side of the stringer that it was rotten. The builder had pierced the fiberglass covering at every floor beam. I was shocked at two things when I opened it up,(1) how thin the glass work was, only about 1/8"(maybe 2 layers mat and 1 roving) and (2) how rotten the interior structure really was.

 Does not look too bad from the outside. Notice the hole I cut in the top(two dark squares). I was able to push a long screw driver all the way down to the bottom of the stringer.

 But this is what I found when I opened it up. The picture did not come out very clear. This is a view looking forward. The dark areas at the top and bottom of the stringer are what is left of the 3 X 6 teak beams.  The two timbers were connected on each side with 1/2 thick plywood. The plywood was so rotten I was able to vacuum it out with the shop vac. The timbers were still soaking wet.

This view is from the same side looking aft.
You can see how thin the fiberglass is. Luckily the rot ended at the engine room bulkhead. I was able to look forward inside the stringer aft of the engine beds and see that it was fine.








I ended up removing the entire stringer up to the engine room bulkhead. They had sliced it there raising the level of the stringer under the aft cabin sole. I replaced the upper and lower beams with treated pine lumber that I dried in the workshop. I used 2 x 6 that I laminated together with epoxy resin. I used 1/2" thick DuraPly to rebuild the box beam. Duraply not only uses a marine glue, each laminate is also treated against rot. This time there is a resin bond between the plywood and solid members. At the worst it should provide a vapor barrier if one of the pieces get wet. Then the glass work was replaced. This time I used 3 layers of 24 Oz. Combo mat. The stringers are now also  dividing walls of the new water tanks. There are baffles every 30" inside the tanks. They are glassed in into the hull and stringer. The building of the tanks are covered in subsequent posts.