1967 Wellcraft 17ft Fishing Boat Floor Repair

[BJD]

New Image.jpgHello everyone, I have been reading over alot of the restoration posts and i am extremely lucky to find this forum. Well lets start this out with i recently got given a 1967 wellcraft 17ft fiberglass boat. yep thats right free. hahahaha well nothing is free in this world ive found out.

I took this boat home it was in very bad shape. it had been sitting in the backyard uncovered for seven years. Needless to say i ripped the floor out and found the stringers were shot. took all five stringers out and now im trying to figure out how much fiberglass resin and matting i will need to do all five stringers and the floor would anyone be able to clue me in on this?

i have several pictures of my progress on my phone i am going to try and upload.

This is my first boat and boat project. I am a machinist by profession and have rebuilt from frame off a 1971 international 1310 dumptruck and a 1974 chevy 1 ton pickup just nevr a boat and thought how hard can it be. hahahaha

Any help with a formula to figure out the resin and mat quantity i would very much appreciate. thank you

[BJD]

Above is what i had and ran into below is the floor ripped out and the stringers gone.

[ezmobee]

That's a really unique hull. Definitely worth the effort to fix up. Nice work on the tear out. (I'm not a glass guy so I'm only here for moral support )

[rickryder]

I would say you need to start here....http://forums.iboats.com/boat-restoration-building-hull-repair/let-s-make-fiberglass-information-thread-286013.html

This will give you a huge amount of glass info.
You are going to need a bunch of csm and biax.... You need to do a bunch of math.... measure stringer height and length with overlaps on both sides 6" and 8" .....you get larger as you glass the stringers to the hull to help spread the load....bulkheads figure 2 sides 2 layers....the deck 1 layer 1.5oz csm for bottom and 1 csm 1 1708 biax for topside.... when you figure how many yards of glass then you need poly resin....1 gallon of resin will wet out approx 4 yds of csm or biax....

Oh and don't forget the transom.....check for rot there too!

[Woodonglass]

I'd say a good start wood be 10 gallons of Resin and 15 yards of 1.5 oz CSM, and 10 yrds of 1708 Biax Cloth. 2Gallons of Cabosil and a quart of chopped fibers.

[BJD]

thanks you very much for all of your input. i have another question. what type of wood would you use for the stringers? grade a pine or something else? does it matter since i am going to cover it in poly resin mat and then epoxy? i have learned not to use treated like i originally thought would be a great idea after talking to the guys at US Composites.

[Charles Watterson]

I would use oak.
I had one of these boats. I picked it up cheap and in bad shape cosmetically. I restored it and it turned out to be a pretty boat and I received offers to buy it when it wasn't even for sale. My boys learned to ski and handle a boat with that boat.
Definitely check the transom for core rot. Mine had it. I couldn't figure out an easy way to replace the core so I removed the aluminum cap and drilled out as much as possible. Let it dry for a few weeks and filled with epoxy mixed with filler. Capped it with fiberglass cloth and epoxy. It held a 75 HP merc and later a 100 HP evinrude (over power I think) for the several years I owned it befor I sold it.