i saw that the stringers were free floating and most ppl here are saying to PB them in. should i keep a little lip were the cavity is? and put the fillet over the hump?
there is also the bulkhead stringer age old question. i want to go ahead and go straight from the transom to the front of the boat but i have a problem. there is a STAIR like glass between 2 bulkhead im assuming it is the area were the center console storage space goes. should i keep the setup the same of the original or you PRO's have some fun ideas
So here's the thing. Bayliners, especially of that era, get a lot of flak from people as being poorly built boats, and they sort of are. But to put it in context, Bayliner sold a LOT of those boats, probably more than anyone else in that market, and you will be hard pressed to find many credible reports of incidents due to manufacturing defects. The fact that they are *still* in business in a place like the USA where ppl sue for everything, and that Brunswick was not concerned about carrying liabilities when they bought the brand tells you a lot too.
My point is that they are built *well enough*, so if you follow their design with better materials and workmanship it is unlikely you will sink. If that's what you want to do, go for it. Now... with that out of the way, many of us here want to do much better than that, because that's part of the fun.
I would strongly recommend you remove all the old tabbing, the "lip". On my boat the original tabbing had delaminated in a couple places and was close to coming out in others. You want to get rid of that shoddy stuff and get your tabbing right onto the hull roving.
Get a large chisel or a wrecking bar with a wide flat edge, get under the inside seam and tap. It should delaminate from the hull fairly easily... you'll see the colour change to whitish when it separates. Start carefully... once you get in going you'll get the hang of it and will discover that you aren't in any danger of damaging the hull. You'll still have sanding to do when you're done, but this way is far FAR better than grinding it all out.
See that bulkhead with the plastic strip? It partially supports the sole. You'll want to take a template of its profile, and also measurements from the top of the hull so that you can replace it.
Floating stringers vs PB... personally I like the PB, but floating ensures no hard spots. I "float" the stringers just above the hull using bits of blue foam, and ensure the gap is completely filled with PB, and make nice wide fillets so that the load is transferred from the hull evenly over a wide area.
