imperial mess

[joy]

Have a 85 imperial 19fter, great moter. Anytime you start out with statement I guess its safe to safe the floor and transom are shot. I picked up the boat dirt cheap, tore out the floor to let it dry out and am now ready to start. The stringers are tolerable but I will probably replaceable seeings how the whole boat is already torn apart. here's my question...the foam, how do you remove it without destroying the hull? Any assistance here is helpful. Had a wood boat for years, this is a fiberglass hull.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: imperial mess

i use a sawzall and start cutting it out. you will know when you hit something, it cuts very easily, then a floor scraper, or wide blade putty knife to scrap out the rest. shop vac, lots of big garbage bags.

 

[tmh]

Re: imperial mess

After i made very little progress doing tearing the foam out the "right way", I "chipped" it out with a pickaxe (sp?). You have to take short, compact chops, but i found I could get about 8" at a whack and did no damage at all. Now, it sounds crazy even typing it today, but that's what I did.

It's a pain no matter how you do it!

 

[qaztwo]

Re: imperial mess

I used a short flat pry bar. And peeled the foam up.

 

[joy]

Re: imperial mess

I'm a little nervous about taring out the transom on the boat. The rest of the tare down doesn't make me that nervous but the transom does. It is a fiberglass boat and it has a plywood transom. Do i have to take the top of the boat off to replace this?

 

[erikgreen]

Re: imperial mess

I found if I was careful I could get mine out by cutting it into 8 inch blocks using a drywall hole saw (narrow blade with big teeth).

I sometimes had to break the first block in each space into pieces, but then the others came out mostly in one piece, which made for easier cleanup of the foam. I used a full size crowbar to get the foam out.

In a previous boat project I used an electric chainsaw, which worked ok except it did scratch and gouge the hull a little... I think I needed more practice.

Erik