Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Here are the pictures.
The boat as I purchased it:



I knew the floor wasn't in great shape, but didn't realize just how bad the rot was going to be. Shame on me for not doing more research...


The floor had been laid over the previous floor - which was rotted. Basically, they took some plywood and screwed it into the old floor. Then, they left it sit outside for at least a year uncovered.


Another shot of the floor and the steering console


What I found once I removed the top floor. The old floor was very rotted out and had been sitting waterlogged for a long time...


I have a few more pictures, but nothing significant. Once I get the entire floor pulled out, I'll post more pictures of the hull. There are a couple spots that I am concerned about where it looks like they attempted to patch holes.

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

I drew up some plans this weekend on what I'd like to do with it. Plus, I needed to cost out the materials before my wife has a heart attack. lol. It makes sense on paper, but I am concerned it will make sense from an ergonomics standpoint.

This is general layout of the boat along with measurements.


This is an overview of the benches, steering console, and the access panel to the front storage


I think this will work from a utilitarian standpoint (I plan to use this for fishing and hunting). What are your thoughts?

 

[rickryder]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

ok...Lowes' doesn't sell MDO plywood. What are other options that I can use instead of MDO...or where can I purchase MDO?

Check with your local lumber yard and ask if they have underlayment plywood..... It should have waterproof glue and no voids between the layers....

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

I was able to get back into tearing the boat down. The angle grinder worked really good – thanks to those who posted that tip. It cut a lot of time off tearing down!

Several holes are showing stress fractures (about ? to 1/5 of the total bow area has these):


A couple of cracks in non-critical areas:


There are multiple areas where the bumps and bruises of use have pitted the hull, but it looks like it is still sealed in those areas:



The hull with most of the foam out:
See next post - I guess only 5 pics can be uploaded per post

Next steps are tearing out the stringers, transom, and cleaning everything up!

There are a couple of questions I have.
The transom is pretty much rotted across the entire back of the boat. Where the engine mounts were resting has pushed through the fiberglass and provided one route for water to get in. However, there are many others due to fasteners rotting out and un-sealed screws. I have pictures posted in another post.

So…the information I read from Woodonglass showed 2 layers of MDO plywood along with lays of 1708 Biax, glass, etc. Are two layers of ?” plywood enough to hold a 200+ pound motor? Also, since I basically have to rip the entire back of the boat off, should I look at an extra layer of 1708 Biax just to make sure it’s extra solid or am I just being overly concerned?

The hole in the hull that I initially was worried about is little bigger job than I thought it would be. The hole on the inside of the hull is about the size of my thumb (shown directly in front of my foot). However, underneath there is about 3 feet of an attempt at a patch. It doesn’t look like a good chunk of it sealed and there’s some white stuff (paint? Sealer?...) under the glass. I am planning to grind off all of patch, grind the hole out (through the hull, then start re-patching. Is that the correct way to do it? Pictures are posted 2 posts down.

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

The hull with most of the foam out:


Transom pictures:

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Hole on the bottom of the hull:



The hole is directly in front of my foot and it's easy to see from the inside. I'll have to wait until it's cleaned up to see if there are any more - but this one was pretty obvious.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Yep, get all the demo work done, the hull totally cleaned out and ground down. All the holes etc can be addressed then.

 

[ImperialV184]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

looks like some good progress. I am about on the grinding stage with my project. not looking forward to that but i bought a tool at lowes, that is going to help me to get real close to the hull to minimize the amount of grinding i have to do. i am probably going to have to do it in stages. then i am going to rinse it all out and do the transom first.

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

looks like some good progress. I am about on the grinding stage with my project. not looking forward to that but i bought a tool at lowes, that is going to help me to get real close to the hull to minimize the amount of grinding i have to do. i am probably going to have to do it in stages. then i am going to rinse it all out and do the transom first.

I finished mine today, but wish I had something to do the smaller work. Getting tight into the corners and some edges was tough. Someone posted they used a dremel for the detail work - I wish I would have bought one and used it. It probably would have saved me a good 30-60 minutes today.

Good luck on your tear down! Wear masks, the suit, and the glasses. Fiberglass dust is pretty nasty...

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

I got quite a bit done today. I ground down all of the protruding fiberglass to where I wanted it. I also drove over to Fort Worth to pick up the wood for pretty much everything. It was a long day, but very productive. At this pace, I may be able to start rebuilding next week (when all the fiberglass is delivered).

I have a long patch I'll need to do in one area (shown in the videos). Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I tried my hand at videos. They aren't great, but show what's going on a bit better.

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

The second video:

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Well, I ground off about 2/3 of the bottom section that I was worried about. It looks like there is a 2-3 foot crack in the lowest point in the boat. While I am not sure, I think that they used Bondo to try to fix it before. In some areas, they had close to 1/4" of it plastered to the bottom. Over that they had about 2-3 layers of glass. Towards the back I'm not sure they even had it covered with glass - it looks like they just painted over it. From what I can see it was a pretty ****-poor attempt of fixing it. Since it didn't really fix anything, it probably only made it worse. I'll post some pictures later today.

I know I have to grind it back to the good glass and bevel it so the new and old glass can bond. Any ideas on how to get the same contour as what is currently there?

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Here's a couple more videos of progress

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

 

[rickryder]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Don't know if those are stress cracks..... might just be the layer of glass.... To clean the old glass down..... 36grit flapper wheel on a 4 1/2" angle grinder......

I would grind all the bad spots down and get it ready for repair. Where you saw wood.... was that on your keel? They do put wood there.

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

Ok. I'll head to Lowes/HD to find a flapper wheel and use that.

It was in the keel - in fact the entire 3-4' piece that is cracked is the keel. I found this last night that I plan to use to repair it (thanks WoodonGlass): You are correct that inside out is the way to go but...For a quick outside only fix, grind it back about 2-3" all around and feather to the middle so it's thin and valleyed out , mix up some thick structural PB (Resin, Cabosil and shredded pieces of csm) Consistency Thick peanut butter. Form the PB into the damage area and shape to the shape of the keel. this is just to hold the shape for the next step. Two layers of CSM, and layer of 1708 Biax and then two more layers of CSM. Sand and fair. Paint or Gelcoat. 2 hr job. Should take a major hit to break it loose.

I'll do this along with basically the same steps on the inside minus the PB.

I'll post more pics once I have the inside cleaned out. Thanks Rickryder!

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

The sanding went pretty well today - although I have to admit I'm ready for the sanding and grinding to be done. That dust isn't too enjoyable. Below is a video of the hull. There are quite a few stress fractures in the hull. I'm going to sand them down a bit farther, then fill in with 1.5 oz CSM. I do not plan to remove it completely - if that is extremely dumb please let me know. If I were to remove them all, I'd be cutting out about 1/3 of the hull...

I built out my stringers today out of 3/4" plywood. I didn't get them glued together yet, but they are cut to size. The old stringers (a 2x4) was in-tact enough to use as a template. I'll trim for a better fit before final installation, but they are close enough for me at this point.

 

[rickryder]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

I would like oops to look at the stress cracks

 

[oops!]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

HI..... hope you dont mind me jumping in.......rick asked me to have a look

it looks like the hull was not properly shot from the factory...

a few questions......please dont be upset if i missed a pew posts where you have discussed this....

was the hull foamed?
was the foam wet?
what does the bottom of the hull look like> are the stress crack showing thru to the gellcoat?

as i mentioned. it looks to me like the hull was not properly shot from the factory.....that means the chopper gun operator did not apply enough, and to top that off.....it looks like the did a shoddy job of rolling the chopped.

i cant figgure out why the two layers of woven are even under a bulkhead in the hull.

you are correct about the hull wrap.
you have a choice to lay another 2 layers of 1.5 csm on the entire hull or a 1.5 and a full 1708.
remember, when you tab the stringers,,,,,you tab 6 ins away from the stringer on each side, so that is a foot total......you tab with one csm and a 1708.....so if you choose to do a full 1708 hull wrap, plus the tabbing, that is way over kill. and weight

but its your boat, and you can build it however you want.

if you foam the boat, (i would) i would just go with the 2-1.5 csm.......

the full 1708 wrap is optional.....it will strengthen the hull, as 3 layers are the thickness of the hull.
the only thing with a 1708 full hull, is it will be heavy......10 gals of ploy resin and the weight of the cloth.

you have much more grinding to do.

did you go get that rubber backing pad for your grinder?

get a rubber one...not a plastic one and a bunch of 24 or 36 grit discs....

then do what i call rough and scuff....
do the entire hull.......grind off the top layer of resin, this just takes a second ,,,,,each swipe will take off more than enough contaminated top layer to get you to the glass so you can bond glass to glass.

you mentioned cleaning in the vid......after you grind....vaccume the entire hull......then wash with acetone.

and just before you are about to glass....... wash it with acetone again.

then you are clear to do your laminate lay up, which ever you choose to do.

but can you get some pics up of the underside of the hull?

 

[hate to love it]

Re: Newbie questions/confirmation on a fiberglass boat restore

was the hull foamed? -- yes
was the foam wet? -- soaking wet. The video was also taken right after I washed it out because the cracks showed up better
what does the bottom of the hull look like> are the stress crack showing thru to the gellcoat? -- no, and I looked carefully yesterday

remember, when you tab the stringers,,,,,you tab 6 ins away from the stringer on each side, so that is a foot total......you tab with one csm and a 1708.....so if you choose to do a full 1708 hull wrap, plus the tabbing, that is way over kill. and weight -- when I took the old ones off, they had only tabbed out 2-3 inches on each side. That may be one of the reasons the stress cracks are so prevalent in the stringer area.

if you foam the boat, (i would) i would just go with the 2-1.5 csm....... already purchased and waiting to go in

the full 1708 wrap is optional.....it will strengthen the hull, as 3 layers are the thickness of the hull.
the only thing with a 1708 full hull, is it will be heavy......10 gals of ploy resin and the weight of the cloth. -- ok

did you go get that rubber backing pad for your grinder? -- no. I'll get one. yesterday I went over the entire thing with a 40 grit to get it down to what you see now

but can you get some pics up of the underside of the hull? -- I'll post them later today