Century Coronado restore

[Willyclay]

While sanding I realized that they all have been right above the water line of the boat where the water constantly splashes. None below the waterline and none more than 4 inches or so above so perhaps there is a clue in there somewhere of the cause.

Very interesting! Not the usual pox pattern my old geezer brain recalls seeing "below the waterline" on many boats over the years. My first reaction is to think the source of the water is from inside the boat and it is being trapped at that level somehow. Just a thought. Good luck!

 

[89 resorter]

GM, I didn't take it as criticism at all and I always appreciate your input. Just my way of confirming that I am also concerned with making sure I get a good 80 grit surface to (eventually) apply the GC.:encouragement:

Willyclay, I think that this boat was docked most of its life so my guess is that the pox are a combination of sun, wind, water splashing etc. on the area of the hull. When I think about it, temp may also come into play since that exposed area of the boat will have more temp swings in a given day than what the portion of the hull that stays in the water sees. Whatever caused them, hopefully all of this work I'm doing will prevent them from coming back.

 

[Woodonglass]

IMHO your POX was due to air being trapped between the initial gel coat layer in the mold and the glass layup.

 

[mickyryan]

yeah I am one with wood on this air was there condensation formed and froze causing bubbles since it was at waterline that would be reasonable I think.

 

[89 resorter]

Whatever caused the pox marks is hopefully gone, at least from the side shown below. I got the pox sanded down to good FG this weekend.


I also removed some pox marks and begun grinding out some gel coat stress cracking on the transom. The pox marks on the transom actually ended up being a good thing since it opened up a bad factory repair that would not have been seen had I not removed all of the gel down to good FG. I ended up opening a small pocket of bad glass which ended up being about 3 x 6 inches once I removed all down to good glass. This took me back to when I was installing the new transom I saw where there was what appeared to be a factory "oops". You can see it in the below pic to the left of center where a line of raised FG is visible. Anyway, I ended up patching the area but it still needs sanded and faired.

Older pic showing the factory transom repair.


my patch on outside


My question at this point is what should I use to fill the spider cracks and do the fairing of the new patch?

 

[gm280]

89 resorter, Isn't fiberglass amazing. I mean if you do find a flaw, you simply mix up some poly and CSM and/or 1708 and patch it and sand it smooth and it is as good as everything else. There are a lot of mixtures you can use to fill hairline cracks after they are grind out. Polyester peanut butter will work and you can mix it however you like. Once filled and cures, feather it out and proceed. Nice to see your progress as well. :thumb:

 

[Woodonglass]

I make my own fairing material like this.

One 250ml of resin, 400ml of Glass bubbles, use a bit of Cabosil to take it to it's final thickness and then 1/2 teaspoon of surfacing wax. 1%MEKP. I like it to be somewhere between catsup and mayonaise. You'll get about 30 mins working time and it sands like a dream!!! For that big patch double the recipe. but keep the MEKP ratio at 1%

 

[89 resorter]

GM, this ended up being a pretty simple patch but we'll see how my finish sanding and feathering skills develop (this will be my first non-structural FG work). Woody, thanks for the fairing recipe ....... glass bubbles and surfacing wax are on order.

 

[jones01m]

Hello, just jumping on board. Enjoyed reading your thread and will soon be re-joining as fellow Century builder - this time driving to the end!

 

[89 resorter]

Welcome aboard jones. Progress will be slowing down a bit due to weather, hunting and holidays but I hope to keep plugging away. Happy to hear your about to finish your Arabian .... it was one of the many threads here on iboats that gave me the confidence to get into this.

 

[fibersport]

Here is a good article on fiberglass blisters:

http://www.boatus.com/magazine/2013/June/hull-rx-when-and-how-to-repair-gelcoat-blisters.asp

Also, 89 Resorter, the first picture in your post #190 looks more like impact damage rather than blistering. I've seen this type of damage caused when loading the boat onto the trailer.

 

[89 resorter]

fibersport, thanks for the info......hopefully after all of this work there will be no more blisters. Also, your correct that the pic in post 190 was from impact damage. It just happened to be the only pic I had at the time of the post that showed the pox marks as well.

 

[fibersport]

89 Resorter - I have another thread going on bonding stringers to the hull with 5200, how did you do yours? I've read your posts a few times and I don't think I read if you bonded yours in place with anything.

 

[89 resorter]

I used Peanut Butter. I used 1/8" wood dowels to act as temporary spacers then I forced PB into the gap allowing extra to flow on each side of the stringer which I then used to create the fillet.

 

[89 resorter]

Just an update to say there is no update on the boat since I have spent the last couple of weeks working on our boat docks trying to beat the cold and snow :smow:. Our boat club has 44 slips, many that hold 40+ foot houseboats, so they can get quite beat up during the summer. It sucks that we are on a flood control lake and lose our water in early September but when the docks are on dry (muddy) land, it makes some of the repairs a bit easier. The good news is that work is pretty much done except for some minor odds and ends so I should be able to get back to the boat project over the next couple of weekends. Maybe some day I will even have a boat to put in my dock.

A couple of pics to share for those of you who never get to see what the bottom looks like .....

 

[proshadetree]

Hey man come on to Tennessee and fix my dock. We have more people putting in deck screws that people swimming. Love your boat also.

 

[sphelps]

How deep is it when the tide comes back in ?
You could always buy a hover craft ..

 

[kcassells]

Where do they put the fish? :blue:

 

[fibersport]

I bet that lake has one of the cleanest bottoms, I can imagine all the people using metal detectors.

 

[89 resorter]

When it is at full pool in the summer months it is 200' at the deepest point. The location I show in the pic normally has about 30' of water but the lake is currently about 50' down. The fish are still out there and I hear that this is a great time to fish if you can figure out how to get your boat on the water (all of the launch ramps currently end in dirt/mud).