Re: 1976 22' Starcraft Islander Rebuild
Very impressive Jason. Somehow I knew you would have to fill those holes, you just don't do things half way..not your style
I have to let my ignoratism show through again and please forgive me. I am wondering when you fill the holes with epoxy they will become rock solid, correct? Then when you mount accessories into the holes and you tighten the bolts, you can only tighten to the limits the epoxy "sleeves" allow. You will not be compressing on the wood or transom. Would this be a problem? Its similar to installing a metal tube in the holes (same thickness of wood) and then bolting through them. If you use screws in some areas, could the screws pull the plug out? I am not even sure this is an issue, but I was/am curious.
As always you are moving along and left me in the dust...again. You are determined to make me work, aintcha?
Yah, a lot of extra steps but she will be sealed up, for good! I have it all apart, everything in front of me, might as well do it once and do it right.
Yup, solid as a rock!
Yah, I don't see the lack of wood compression as a problem at all. Just the fact that the wood is all sealed up with epoxy would have prevented that anyway. There will be a little 5200 on the threads of any bolts so that will prevent them from backing out. I have those backer plates on the eye bolts and on the ski tow. Totally bomber there. All the perimeter bolts have alum on both sides of the transom board so that is all super solid!
Check this out...
A few years ago I was taking a graduate course on education and economic development. We had a field trip of sorts over to West System owned by the Gougeon family (few minutes from my place actually). I was pumped!
Checked out the whole operation, cool stuff!
One area we looked into was their testing shop. They were doing some pretty crazy stuff. Some of the tests were checking the breaking strength of the epoxy/wood. There was a specific test attempting to pull out the "epoxy plug" from a big hole drilled into the wood. They were throwing some insane amount of weight on that thing! Anyway, in all these different tests it was the wood that failed not the "plug". The "plug" would come out, but with wood surrounding all the epoxy. So in short, the wood will fail before any part of the epoxy.
In my case, I have epoxy
and aluminum backer on all of my bolts. If any of it fails, well, the whole transom of my boat will have probably been blown off. And if that is the case, nothing would have prevented that, eh!
And listen man, your rig is painted! (twice over actually) It'll take me forever to get my prepped and painted! You are way ahead of me!
Cheers!
