What did you do with your cap?

[redfury]

The other thought would be to divorce the cap from the hull and slide it forward enough to do the work on the transom. But that mainly depends on the design of the boat. I had my cap off of my boat for well over 3 years in MN. Don't worry about the cap. If you have it supported at the front and back properly, then the snow load won't matter.

In regards to the dust, yeah, it's going to get everywhere no matter what you do. Make sure you have a vacuum bag in your shop vac, otherwise all you are going to do is redistribute the dust with the power of your vacuum, not to mention run all that through the shop vac's motor. Otherwise, grind, sweep and then vacuum up the mess. I bought a cheap dust collector for my angle grinder and ran flexible tubing to the shop vac for part of my final sanding/grinding and it worked okay, but I still had airborne dust. Make sure YOU wear a respirator.

 

[oldboat1]

grew up in a snow belt in west Mi, but think I would still opt for storing the cap outside, covered on sawhorses. And If taking that hull all the way back, replacing stringers and all, I would definitely try to do the deconstruction outside. The dust and debris will be huge. If doing only stern and transom work, btw, I would remove only the stern section of the cap, as was suggested above. I've successfully done that, and you might be able to find a spot in the molded cap that would hide the seam on reassembly.

 

[oba97]

I like the idea of only taking the back part of the cap off. I'll know for sure tomorrow, but I can't hunk the bow rider seats are molded to the cap. So if I replace the stringers I will have to remove the whole cap. Another question..... Is it worth cleaning out the old gas tank? Probably full of varnish. New 6gal is around $50.

 

[oldboat1]

your choice, of course, but I wouldn't clean and reuse a badly neglected tank unless it was necessary for a restoration (real unlikely). I've gotten to be a fan of plastic tanks.