Main Salon Demo started

It's funny how it all ties together in one big jigsaw puzzle. I am trying to maximize the use of space as much as possible. There is not that much space in boat and you don't want to waste any of it. In working the drawings over I realized I could fit the propane tanks under the side stairs leading up to the sun deck which is right next to the galley stove. I even managed to utilize the dead back corner of the galley cabinets to fit two extra tanks in. I also managed to fit the flash heater in right behind them so the propane lines will be really short.
Of course a propane locker that fulfills ABYC requirements is not an easy thing to build. It has to be completely sealed from the rest of the interior of the boat, have a direct drain over board and accessed only from the exterior of the boat.



So yesterday I began doing the demo in the aft port quarter of the salon where all this is going to go in.




There had been a long term leak in the fly bridge deck right over this area so all the plywood "core" was rotten.
Nothing like nice black mold. I decided the strip all the plywood out of the cabin side there to get a fresh start.


Today I continued with the demo. I decided to remove the aft cabin side today too. I am moving the aft end just a little further aft and making it plumb. With that removed I realized that the really was not much holding the outside skin of the aft portion of the port cabin side. Sooooo



I just finished removing it. I have to close up the door anyway and I need to grind all the bondo which they used to bond the plywood to the glass off as well. It is a very messy dusty job and I was not looking forward to doing it in the boat. Works out great, I was able to grind all the junk off down below in the open. Then I can bond it back on to the new plywood core in the shop before re-installing it up on the boat.
So back to the butane tanks. You can see part of the side deck still left just below the blue tarp. I will cut it at the lower end of the sloped part of the hull side just above it. The stairs go up there. it is about 15 inches down to the deck beams that hold up the main salon floor. The propane locker will sit on top of the those under the stairs.



Here is a close up taken from down below in the aft cabin. I will try to take pictures as it all comes together.

First Deck Panel Completed

I am a little late with this post, due to a cold...again. But I was able to beat this one in 2 weeks!!!!

We laid up the first 4 foot wide deck panel last week. Here it is with the core in place. I made a mold for the an upside down panel. That way I would have a finished surface on the top. So we laid up 3 layers of the 24 Oz Biax material I have and 1 layer of 1.5 Oz. mat with the cored embedded in the wet mat. Those are 50 Lbs. lead bars on top of it.

A closeup of the core and top skin. If you look closely you can see how well the resin saturated the scrim of the core.

Here is the completed panel before trimming. We laid up 2 layers of 1.5 Oz. mat and 18 Oz. Roving.

When we put it up on the boat it seemed a little too flexible. The laminate schedule is based on a book I have on boat building. I think that when they are all glassed into one it would be stronger. I am working on trying to do a better calculation of the strength. It may be that I have to go with a 2 inch core. This panel will be fine because it has a lateral bulkhead under it with only a 30 inch span or so.

Aft Cabin Glass work done....at least the big stuff

The 2 final  projects in the aft cabin structural work were to glass in the aft ends of the main stringers and the rudder log and reinforce the lower transom horizontal stringer. First the Rudder shaft log....

For some reason the builder did not make the "log" ,which really is just a 4" thick piece of teak glassed into the hull to stabilize the rudder shaft, fill the whole space between the two main stringers. The light colored material you see is polyurethane foam which I use to fill the gap between the stringers and transom and the shaft log. It would have been very difficult and weak to glass from the hull up over the stringers and then down to the hull for 3" and then back up onto the log. That is why I filled the voids in with foam.

Then I glassed the whole thing in using 2 double layers of 1.5Oz mat and 24Oz. roving. Now it is one very large piece. At the 4 corners it is 4 double layers thick. Now I have a nice large area to mount the steering gear to.

Next job was to reinforce the rather poorly done glass work on the lower horizontal transom stringer. After grinding, yeah there is always grinding, all the old paint and crummy glass work off I had to add foam fillets to the hull to stringer joints both top and bottom. Without the foam the glasswork will make a hard 90 degree angle between the hull and stringer which is very weak. The foam breaks that into a more gradual transition. The vertical raised areas with the bolts coming out you see are where the swim platform bolts into the hull.

 Here's a shot of the whole stringer with the foam in place in the top hull to stringer joint. That's my work table on top of the water tank that extends up under the berth ( bed).

Here are 18 pieces of cloth cut and ready to be glassed in. I stack them with the last piece I will glass in on the bottom. It is always nice to pick up that last piece of glass and know that you are almost done!

Here it is after nearly 3 hours of glassing. It is slow work do to all the curves and how low it is on the transom. Notice how you can see the foam fillets through the finished glass work.

A closeup of the underside of the port end of the stringer. All done. 

I am finally done with correcting all the poor structural work in the hull. I have replaced all the rot in the stringers and reinforced all of them from the forward cabin back to the transom. Next stop the deck sections mold.

Starboard Secondary Stringers all glassed

                                                      Looks a lot better than ....

There are 2 layers of 1708 biax plus 1 layer of 1.5 Oz. Mat on each stringer. I glassed the vertical leg in first and then the horizontal leg. So each stringer takes 6 pieces of cloth and the there are 5 stringers to each side which makes it 30 pieces in total. No wonder I am tired tonight. 

I actually finished that work about 1:30 had lunch and went back to grind and  prep the rudder log for glassing.

For some reason they did not make it the full width of the space between the two main stringers. So I filled the spaces in with expanding foam then trimmed it flush with the log and stringer tops. It also did not fit back to the transom so I filled that as well. Thursday I will glass everything together so it will be in there solid, plus it will be easier to mount the steering gear. Just another 16 pieces of cloth, but they are smaller. The last job in here will be to strengthen the lower horizontal stringer across the transom. The I will finally be done with correcting and reinforcing the internal structure of the hull.

Progress on the Starboard Aft cabin stringers

I cut all the old junk secondary stringers on the Starboard side out a couple of days ago.  One of the vertical stringers was half full of water!!! You can see the dark area just ahead of the forward stringer.






Here is a closeup of the water leak. Not something I really want to see in my boat! You can also see the rather poor job done on these stringers.

Here is a shot taken after I had cut everything out and ground all the bad glass work off. There was a lot of the glass work that had not bonded to the hull laminate. The telltale sign is the glass being a lighter color, than when you grind it it gets lighter then pops off just as you grind through it. Took 5 hours of grinding to get everything cleaned up on the Starboard side and the transom.

The next job was to glass the horizontal stringer with 2 double layers of 24 Oz. Roving and 1.5 Oz. Mat.

I used Combo Mat which I had to wet out before I put it on. The advantage of combomat is that the mat and roving are stitched together so when the mat is wet it does not slide off the roving. The main disadvantage is that it is very hard to wet out if you apply it with the mat side down. Another disadvantage I found is that it does not conform to compound curves as well as separate mat and roving does.... Anyway it is done.

Next came glassing the outer side of the Starboard outer stringer in the aft cabin. This is the last bit glassing to be done on the stringers. Seems like I have been working on them for ages.
The last bit of glasswork before building the secondary stringers  was to finish glassing in the aft starboard side of the aft engine room bulkhead. That got another 3 layers of 1708 biax plus 1 layer of 1.5Oz. Mat. I also made and installed the limber hole to drain any water from this area into the engine room where it can find its way to the bilge. I make a fiberglass tube by wrapping 1708 biax around a PVC pipe covered in wax paper. After it cures I drill a hole through the bulkhead for the pipe. Then I seal it in with resin thickened with grinding dust. That way I know that the water does not get into the stringers like before.
I laid out and cut all the secondary stringers this afternoon. Hope to glass them in tomorrow, weather permitting.

Aft Cabin Port side Stringers done

Progress was held up by outside work for the last two weeks. Before that I was able to fit the stringers in the right locations. Some of them line up with bulkheads that I will glass on top of them.

I started glassing them in last weekend and was able to finish them up today. Each stringer has two double layers of 1.5Oz mat+ 24 Oz. Roving. They are solid and several will get a bulkhead glassed on top as well.

 
They sure look a lot better than what I tore out. They are much stronger as well. The old ones were only 1-1/2" tall and about an inch or so wide with straight sides. The new ones are 2" tall with a 60 Degrees slope to the hull the average width is about 2 inches, they are 1" wide at the top.

I was also able to strengthen the aft side hull to bulkhead glass work on the aft engine room bulkhead I added 3 layers of 1708 biax cloth plus one layer of 1.5Oz. Mat.

Tomorrow I will move all the tools from the starboard side to the port side and tear all those stringers out. Onward!!

Removed Port Secondary Stringers and Glassed Outside of Port Outer Stringer

I got started on this project last night by cutting and grinding all the crummy secondary stringers out on the port side in the aft stateroom area. I figure I will never able to get at them again and they were really poorly done.



Here is a piece of one waiting for the trash man. If you look closely you can just see a very thin layer of glass over the foam. I was planning to just glass over them but they were so misshaped and poorly glassed in that I figured it would be easier and certainly stronger to remove them and start over.

So the removing part is done, complete with a good complete grinding of the whole area. Most of the glass work that was holding the secondary stringer in just pulled off the hull in pieces. The fresh glass work you see if the final glassing to the outboard side of the outer Port Stringer.

Here is a better shot of the forward part of it. I added 2 layers of 1.5 Oz. Mat and 24 Oz. Roving. The glass runs over the top of the stringer -down the side and out 6 inches or so onto the hull.

Here is the aft end of the same stringer.

Here is a closeup. You can plainly see the foam fillet I added at the junction of the hull bottom and the stringer. Makes for stronger glass work. I added about 1/4" to the thickness off the glass work on the sides. The glass work I did when building the tanks in came up and over the top of the stringer. Then when I glassed the top of the tank on it too went over the top of the stringer Now this final glasswork laps over the top of stringer as well. So the glass is about 3/8" think on the top of the stringer, very solid now.

One final shot of the very aft end of the stringer. So I am back to the aft end of this stringer again. I have re-glassed the entire length of this one and the greater part of the 2 main stringers. Only the starboard outer stringer in the aft cabin area is left and all the stringers will be done.

Hull Extension is DONE!!!

I was able to finish up the last bits of glass work to complete the hull extension today. I added 2 double layers of Mat + Roving from the inner skin down over the stringer and onto the hull below the stringer. Now the glass on the stringer is nearly 7/16" thick. Big improvement over the 1/8" or less they had over it.

I also finished glassing in the corner, so now there are 3 double layers of Mat + Roving going from the inner skin to the hull at the end of the core. The layers are lapped in the corner so at the corner there are 6 double layers of Mat + Roving.

This is the forward end of the port side hull extension where it tapers down to the original rail. The stairs from the side deck to the sun deck are located here. I added 3 more layers of the Biax cloth + 1 layer of the Mat for a total of 6 layers of the Biax cloth + 2 layers of Mat. Final hull thickness in the area of the extension is better than 3/8" which is what the hull thickness is.

On to the next project.....I was going to reinforce the 4 stringers that start at the outer main stringer and run up the hull to the Horizontal stringer which is where the cored hull starts. But the original work is so poor that I think it will be faster and definitely stronger to just cut them out and start over. They used a very low density foam that was not shaped right, no fillet where it meets the hull, and the glass is very thin.
I have some 1-1/2" medium density foam which I can cut so the sides of the stringer slope at a 45 degree angle down to the hull. They will be much stronger and look a whole lot more professional.
And here I  was wondering what I was going to do next.....

Hull Extension Core in place and glassed

I realized that the core bonding material sets up much slower than the directions say. So I decided to bond all the core for the whole port side in at one time. I was afraid to do this before because of the time it takes to seal the vacuum bagging material at the edges. But when I realized that I had a lot more time to work with it I decided to go for it. With Steve mixing while I was spreading the glue we were able to get the 3 pieces up quickly. The bagging went fairly smoothly, there seems to always be problems do to the size and shape.

                                                       But we got it done.
Which is great. Before I was having to bond one piece in then glass it to create a surface to bond the bagging tape to, and then bond in the next piece. It was very slow going.

Speaking of difficult spots, I ended up cutting some of the engine room bulkhead out of the way so the bagging tape could make a smoother transition from the hull side to the top of the stringer. They had cut it too low anyway so it did not reach to the underside of the deck.
I will scarf in a piece on top of the bulkhead to bring it up to the deck. The engine room was never sealed off from the other cabins.

So today's job was to glass the inner skin on. Steve helped and we got it done in about 2 hours. There are 15 yards of glass on total in the 3 layers. I cut it into 30" widths which makes it a manageable piece to wet out. The cloth comes in 60" widths. I stagger the seams so that the seam in the first layer is in the middle of the piece of the second layer. That means that you need more time to work the glass. Let's just say that no one was sitting around during those two hours. 

I decide not to wrap the glass over the stringer on this side. It was causing a lot of extra work and did not look that great when finished. So I decided to glass down to the top of the stringer today, then add the fillet piece in the corner and glass from the inner skin down over the stringer and onto the hull below.

Sunday Funday with Fiberglass

Spent the morning grinding and moving stuff out of the way so we could add the

 4th and 5th layers of glass to outer skin of the hull extension on the port side and layup the first 4 layers of glass reinforcement for the horizontal stringer.

I still have to beef up the vertical stringers below the Horizontal one on each side of the hull. I am waiting till I get all the work above them done. The thing wrapped in paper and blue tape is the exhaust hose for the main engine.

Hopefully I will be able to get all the core in on this side tomorrow and glassed on Tuesday.

Hull Extension Transom Inner Skin is done!!!

Back to work after two days of moonlighting at the airport. I was able to get the rest of the inner layers of glass up today. You can see how I wrapped the inner 3 layers over the stringer. That stringer now has about 1/2" of glass over it.

Last job of the day was to fill the low spot at the joint between the hull and the extension so that the core does not have to take as much bend. Tomorrow I plan to add the 3rd layer of glass to the outer skin. Then it onward to the core.

Big day today

Today was a day of finishing and unwrapping....

I bonded in the final section of core in the transom. I had trouble with the seal for the vacuum bag again. I guess I am going to have to sand and re-coat with resin the areas where the bagging tape seals on the hull. I went round and round the perimeter tape trying to get it to seal. I did finally manage to get it to seal well enough to get 10 PSI of vacuum which is enough. I imagine that I will have it all figured out by the time I finish with the port side.

After lunch and a brief rest I cut the cloth for the inner skin for the core I just put in on the transom and then glassed the final layers of the inner skin on the starboard side aft. So the hull Extension is done on that side. Seems like it has been forever....

The last job of the day was to remove the mold from the starboard side and transom. That is a real milestone for this project. She looks pretty good. There will be a wood band that covers the joint between the blue and the white above it. You cannot really tell in this picture but the white area above the blue stripe actually leans in at about 8 degrees.

       
        Here is a shot from forward. The angled part at the front is where the stairs from the side deck go up to the sun deck. I use a mat finish Formica for the aft section and a high gloss Formica for the front part which really shines. It does not matter , they will both be painted.

Later on after dinner I went back to it and pulled the vacuum bag off and glued all the foam fillets. Now it is ready for the inner layer of glass.

Sunday funday

Couldn't resist making or at least trying to make progress today.

Started off with gluing in the backing blocks for the hull to deck joint screws in the remainder of the transom.

Then I tried to finish the glass work on the Starboard side, but the first layer of mat did not want to play along and decided to peel off the core just as I finished wetting it out. Once it is wet you can not do anything with it, the binder no longer holds it together....so you end up with glob of wet fibers.

Still had resin mixed up so on to the next section which was the Starboard corner at the stern.

I decided to use mat and roving instead of the combo cloth I have been using on the flat areas. The mat and riving are far easier to work into complex shapes.
The glass is about 3/8" thick around the opening for the stairs now. I added another 3 layers of mat and 3 layers of roving here.

Here is one of those complex shapes I was talking about. This one is where the corner meets the top lip of the hull. The whitish area at the upper right side is the cut out for the steps.