67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

[donniepagel]

I bought this boat towards the end of last summer with the intentions of fixing it up. I really like the style of the boat so id like to make it last... my major concern is the floor. the previous owner just had a piece of plywood over the rotten floor. though its a temporary fix... i figured if im going to do this, i should do it right... so, i removed the plywood and started to take the old rotten floor out... i found that not only was the floor rotten, but so was the support beam down the center of the boat.. i also found the fibreglass under the floor to be soft in some spots as well... just looking for a bit of guidance here and im curious as to what is under the fibreglass, if i should even touch it, do i take that beam out and replace it, do i just put bracing on it...? any bit will help..

thanks in advance,

.donnie

 

[Jeep Man]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Nice looking boat Donnie. My opinion only, but I think you have quite a bit of work ahead of you. It is fixable, but you have to decide if it is worth it to you. First, check out the motor and ensure it is good for when the boat is ready. Second, make sure you have a clear title and ownership before putting money into it.
Repair is going to involve replacement of the deck (floor) with exterior grade or marine grade plywood coated on both sides with polyester fiberglass mat and resin, replacement of the stringers (support beams) and most likely the transom (rear of boat). The hull is likely constructed of an outer layer of fiberglass, a layer of wood (most likely balsa) and an inner layer of fibreglass. Part of the inner layer as well as part of the wood layer will need replacing as well. Good luck, keep us posted, and don't be afraid to ask lots of questions. That's why we're here.

 

[TruckDrivingFool]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Good looking hull, Like that square nose looks similar to my AeroCraft.

That center board is called a stringer. If its wet and rotten pull it out and replace it.

Being into this far if it were mine I'd do some test holes in the transom also. To do this you'll need to drill some holes (not all the way through) across the top and bottom. If the shavings come out light colored and dry your ok, seal them back up with some 5200 and continue on with your stringer and floor replacement. Dark and wet you'll need to replace. This will let you know if your wood is soaked which will lead to rot if it isn't already.

Keeping in mind that the hull will flex some if its not supported this may be what you are feeling and is normal. If the soft spots under the floor aren't just flex in the hull you may have some bad spots. You should be able to see them and might as well grind them out and reglass them while your at.

 

[TruckDrivingFool]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Almost forgot.

Welcome to iBoats!

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

.... so, i removed the plywood and started to take the old rotten floor out... i found that not only was the floor rotten, but so was the support beam down the center of the boat.. i also found the fibreglass under the floor to be soft in some spots as well... just looking for a bit of guidance here and im curious as to what is under the fibreglass, if i should even touch it, do i take that beam out and replace it, do i just put bracing on it...? any bit will help...donnie

View attachment 138227

I'm not clear on the soft fiberglass you found 'under' the floor (deck or sole actually). It does not appear to be glass from the back side of an original foam core'd deck from the manufacturer. It looks more like it is directly on the back portion of the outer hull. From the picture in your text I quoted, I'm guessing you mean the area at the far right side of the photo, at the stern end of the central stringer, where it appears there is a hole that the glass was torn through. Without knowing the specifics of your boats original design,layout & engineering, it looks like this is a secondary reinforcement layer of glass used to cover the deeply Vee'd keel portion of your hull at the stern. The cavity may have been foam filled originally, or not, but it looks like several additional layers of heavy roving were laid in that area, & it doesn't seem to be a hole thru to the outside of your hull. Or was a function of the previous owner's (PO) poorly planned & poorly executed repair. Regardless, if it isn't a thru the hull hole, that area also needs to be uncovered, removed, & replaced/repaired when you work on the stringers, transom & deck.

Some boats have a central keel filler that is installed in the deep recess created along the inside of the keel of a deep 'V' hull. This is often glassed in at the factory prior to installing the stringers. The soft area you've described may also be the stern end of this filled & glassed keel.

You can't post too many photos for the guys to see that will give you a great deal of assistance getting this boat back in the water. However, the iBoats server will only let you upload 5 per post. Videos are good too, but try to do most Q&A in text, some can't open videos @work or their tablets/phones. If you really want them to take a good look at the pix, use photobucket to upload the pix, that way they are larger & don't require you to 'open' them as attachments.

I saw a similar Arrowglass boat this weekend, blue gelcoat, nice looking boat, very similar to yours, just no handrail @ the bow.

I bet the light yellow would really sand, buff out & look great w/ a little effort, then completely pop w/ some polishing. I just looked at the pix again, and the yellow hue on my monitor may only be the reflected light from the grass:facepalm: I like the steep rake on the windshield & the dual large vents!

Welcome, & may your stay in dry dock be short & painless.....

 

[Jon Sob]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Hi donnie .... welcome to iboats. TruckDrivingFool has given very good advise on core samples of your transom. In most cases if the stringers are rotted then the transom has issues as well. Just remember to take the samples from the inside of the boat, not the outside, and don't go all the way thru. Good luck and post a lot of pics.

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

I bet the light yellow would really sand, buff out & look great w/ a little effort, then completely pop w/ some polishing. I just looked at the pix again, and the yellow hue on my monitor may only be the reflected light from the grass:facepalm: I like the steep rake on the windshield & the dual large vents!

Welcome, & may your stay in dry dock be short & painless.....

Thanks for the advice everyone. Ill put that into use later today assuming its not too cold out when i get off work.. ill at least take more quality photos with my actual camera instead of my phone and get them up on here.

As for the paint... what youre actually looking at in the photo is spray paint... :facepalm: the previous owner didnt like the soft blue. i sanded most of the paint off already though.

So, thanks everyone with the help so far.

just to clarify, i should remove all the loose fibreglass thats at the stern of the stringer? the only area that i feel it soft is around that hole. there is also water in it so i cant see exactly whats under it. i can feel it. its really solid...

how tough is the stringer going to be to pull out? im assuming i should cut all the glass from it. and should i invest in a grinder today? if so, something like this? http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hard...splay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051

blades to get...??

thanks again everyone!! i LOVE the look of this boat. and the lack of information on it makes me love it even more, even if its more of a pain. lol.

.donnie

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Soft blue on the cap, white on the hull is a great looking combo for a 60's runabout. Look for WoodOnGlass's Flamingo & Jon Sob's MFG builds, they both used a very similar colors & they turned out great!


If there is a harbor freight (HF) nearby, you might get a $19 grinder there. Most will, after grinding 1 glass boat, never use the grinder for glass again. If this is the case & you can live w/ burning 1 up & having to buy another inexpensive grinder to finish, by all means go inexpensive. You might burn up an expensive 1 too. I have both. I use the cheap 1 for aggressive glass cutting/removal & most of the dirty work, w/ a thin metal cut off disc. Once I get down close to the hull, I use the 'better' 1 w/either a 24Grit or a 36Grit flap wheel. I will also use this to rough/scuff the glass in prep for the tabbing & resin work. Depending on how the boat was built, you might want 1 of these too:

I got 1 similar from HF, but not this 1 by Milwaukee. I would not be able to remove my cap if I had not gotten the multitool. And it did a god job trimming the left behind deck edge from the hulls sides.

If you can't tell how big an area that is around the hole, I'd slow remove some of the glass, until you can see into the hole & find out what's under there. If it's solid, great, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't water damaged foam &/or wooden structure down in there somewhere. Perhaps under the glass roving. Same w/ the keel filler, it may or may not be that central stringer. Do your best to NOT ACCIDENTLY GO THROUGH THE HULL... It can be repaired, but why make more work for yourself. Many do, I did...:facepalm:

BTW, I just checked back & it appears as though there are no other stringers in your interior hull pix. Was the deck/sole you removed flat from port to starboard, or sloped down towards the center line of the boat? The stringer doesn't look tall enough for the floor to have been flat.

Find & read through Friscoboater's & oops threads. If you find 1 of their posts, there is a link in their signature line to their rebuild threads.

Tons of good info in lots of other places, also click through some of the helpful tips Don S compiled as a sticky at the top of the Restoration forum home page. And w/ the deck/sole off, make sure to follow through with TruckDriving's suggestion of transom sampling. It can quickly become compromised once water has infiltrated the bilge & started to rot the decking

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

That Grinder is fine. Get a rubber back up pad, and some 24 grit resin coated sanding discs and you'll be set. Also a pic of the floor back at the stern(transom) woul be good. How much depth, would you guesstimate, is there between this floor and the outside of the hull?

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

I'm not clear on the soft fiberglass you found 'under' the floor (deck or sole actually). It does not appear to be glass from the back side of an original foam core'd deck from the manufacturer. It looks more like it is directly on the back portion of the outer hull. From the picture in your text I quoted, I'm guessing you mean the area at the far right side of the photo, at the stern end of the central stringer, where it appears there is a hole that the glass was torn through. Without knowing the specifics of your boats original design,layout & engineering, it looks like this is a secondary reinforcement layer of glass used to cover the deeply Vee'd keel portion of your hull at the stern. The cavity may have been foam filled originally, or not, but it looks like several additional layers of heavy roving were laid in that area, & it doesn't seem to be a hole thru to the outside of your hull. Or was a function of the previous owner's (PO) poorly planned & poorly executed repair. Regardless, if it isn't a thru the hull hole, that area also needs to be uncovered, removed, & replaced/repaired when you work on the stringers, transom & deck.

alright, i took some advice and created a photobucket..

http://photobucket.com/67cobra

as you can see i peeled back some of the roving to ease my curiosity..

what i found were the square grid things you can see in the photos that seemed to have had wood in them at one point. just mush now. i dont recognize what is under that layer... you can see next to the stinger in this photo...



its hard, but i see cracks where water is getting in it...

any ideas!? im lost, hah.. im going to buy the grinder in a bit. at harbor freight of course. i love that place. just sucks its 20 min away because i cant take a freeway there and home depot is literally a minute away... grrrr... i need to open a hb close to the freeway...

ps, transom is shot. assuming i need to cut and remove the cap, right? puh...

im looking forward to getting into this. thanks guys!!

.donnie

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

That Grinder is fine. Get a rubber back up pad, and some 24 grit resin coated sanding discs and you'll be set. Also a pic of the floor back at the stern(transom) woul be good. How much depth, would you guesstimate, is there between this floor and the outside of the hull?

crap, i have no idea... 4-5 inches at the center getting more shallow as it goes out, maybe..?

heres the photo..


thanks!

.donnie

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

BTW, I just checked back & it appears as though there are no other stringers in your interior hull pix. Was the deck/sole you removed flat from port to starboard, or sloped down towards the center line of the boat? The stringer doesn't look tall enough for the floor to have been flat.

just the one stringer, and yeah, completely flat. hmm...

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Sorry man, I'm at a loss, stared at the bucket acct photos for a while..... Maybe some sort of a cored glass sandwich like someone mentioned earlier about a balsa core deck.....

go slow, be careful not to punch through the hull w/ the grinder. Look for a multi-tool while your @HF. It's been fairly cheap on sale lately. Get a few blades styles too, glass will quickly remove the blade's teeth, but it will still work. Multi-tool on sale usually means blades will be too.

Surf through WoodOnGlass's thread & check out the 2X6 carriage he made to work on his boat. Casters are a bargain at HF too! Grab 2 fixed & 2 rotating, large as you think you need. WOG's were huge, but let him easily push it around in the yard. Andgott has some good ideas in his Lake&Sea thread. Depends on where you'll work on the boat & how much you need to move it around. Lots of other threads w/ lots of good carriage ideas & plans.

For your pix, go to your bucket account & hover the mouse over the pix you want to post, a list of img tags & codes will pop up under the pix. Left click the box of text next to the last choice: IMG code. The text in the box will change to read "COPIED". Once you get the copied confirmation, come back to your post, find where you want the photo, right click your mouse button & paste that IMG code into your thread, like this:

Then the pix is BIG & nobody has to leave your thread to view it........Easy when you are trying to view several pix & get an idea about an entire problem not just the details shown in only 1 photo.

Good job on the pix of this strange & interesting problem around the keel & central stringer. Hopefully a little more probing & careful removal of more glass, will make it more apparent how to repair, & replace the stuff you need to remove. Very intriguing indeed....

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Sorry man, I'm at a loss, stared at the bucket acct photos for a while..... Maybe some sort of a cored glass sandwich like someone mentioned earlier about a balsa core deck.....

yeah, thats kinda what i was thinking... ill just have to take my time and see whats going on. ill wait until saturday to really get in there and see. maybe someone will have an idea of whats going on in there by then.

ill repost all the pics for everyone here...

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

I'll just have to take my time and see whats going on. ill wait until saturday to really get in there and see. maybe someone will have an idea of whats going on in there by then

I didn't catch it earlier, but it stands out in this photo. There is a gap between the back side of the deck (under the cooler sitting on top of the glass on top of some sort of ply/core, immediately to the left of the blue tarp in this pix. Then along both sides of the central stringer, there is a smooth flat surface of additional glass. Between the top of this glass face & the bottom of the upper 'deck', there is an air void. Under this smooth glass face, that you've started to pull up, there is a honeycomb of 'stuff' to be determined later. I now think 1 of 2 things: either the maker made this boat as a 'double' hull for marketing, structural, engineering reasons OR the hull is made of a honey-combed core of some type & you have actually started peeling up the inner face of the hull's core 'sandwich'. Often 2 layers of thinner glass & resin, with a core of balsa, foam, styrofoam, plywood or a combination of any or all of these.

Go to FiberGlassics & hunt around to find as much info as you can from that site, & it's users/posters. You may get luck & find a marketing brochure that outlines how/why it was constructed the way it is.


If it gets to be Thurs pm or Fri am & no Moderators or other heavy weights @ this joint give you any further info, start PM'ing a few to try & get some aid. Just a "I can't find much info about my hull, a '67 Arrow Glass Cobra, can you take a look at my thread & pix & give me your opinion.

Post a 'bump' comment on your thread, it wil bring it back up to the top of the thread list on the Resto forum home page, Thurs mid day & again Fri am. That way you might get some help before Sat when you can start into it again.

I wouldn't get to deep in demo w/out a better idea of how it's put together & a plan to put it back. And even if you don't post the pix, take a ton of them & lots & lots of measurements of every detail you can think of. Pix & measurements will be invaluable during put back.

JC

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Should be safe to work on the deck and roving until then though, right?

thanks!

.donnie

 

[Jeep Man]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Yup, same as mine.....sorry to say. Fiberglass, a layer of balsa strips, and another layer of glass.

 

[donniepagel]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

Yup, same as mine.....sorry to say. Fiberglass, a layer of balsa strips, and another layer of glass.

So whats the plan of attack, jm?

thanks

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

JeepMan is correct:

Laminated Balsa Hull. I will be of no great assistance on rehabbing the hull. But yes, I think you have started tearing into the inside face of the glass~balsa~glass sandwich. Tread carefully until you get some 'experienced' advice on balsa core repairs. Find a post from oops & ask him to look @ the pix for you. Not a disaster, but maybe a tough put back for a 1st effort.

EDIT: Cobra brochure page:

Website:
arrow glass boats

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: 67 Arrow Glass Cobra Project (first timer)

On an upside to the brochure, you now have more info @ your boat & it's specs. I bet that a 110hp O/B rating made this a screamer! Esp w/ the 'lighter' balsa laminated hull. That deep forward V made it slice through waves great too...