Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Deck Repair



In order to repair the underside of the deck it was easier to flip the boat than try and work on our backs have epoxy drip in our face.  Turned a lot of heads taking her down the road.



Blocked it up high enough to crawl in.



The view from the inside...  The plan is to put balsa wood with mesh attached over the hole and then epoxy it in.  To fill an open area like the old hatch you have to use clear tape to completely cover the hole on the outside.  You can only use clear tape any other tape will affect the curing of the epoxy.  You spread the epoxy down on the tape, then lay the mesh and balsa, then epoxy over that. (Easy right??) I am told this will make a rock solid deck.  We were going to use marine plywood, but when we talked to an expert he said to use balsa.  It is lighter and will flex to the contour of the deck.  ( I will put pictures of the supplies up with my next post)  Once we get the old hatch hole repaired we will cut the hole for the new hatch.  Why not just put in a new hatch that would fill the hole??? The deck was soft for one and needed support, secondly the guy who cut the old hole made a mess.  I couldn't find a hatch under $500 that would fill the hole.  He had a piece of tinted glass and a rubber gasket covering the hole that kept the rain out but if you stepped on it you would end up below deck.












Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Trailer Cont... and the start of the Cabin restoration.

After two full days of priming, sanding, and a little bondo the trailer looks beautiful!




Looks like it did in '74!!  Mission accomplished!




Final touches to the trailer, put on a new winch and jack.






I have also been doing a little polishing...  I can't take all the credit as you can see in the picture I had a little helper.  I went in the house to get a new polishing rag and found him just polishing away. That's my boy!!



All the aluminum pieces were dingy gray, but they polished up great!  I tried two different brands of polish.  Mothers worked the best.  It comes in a little red tub.

Before & After


The latest project has been tearing out the cabin floor and replacing the wood.  It wasn't horrible but we thought we should replace it before we repaint the boat.  Wouldn't want to scratch up the new paint job getting the boards into the cabin.  Also decided to take out the under side of the deck. (you can kinda see that in the first picture) It was a little soft.  To quote my dad...  "Might as well do it right"  We are also installing a Bomar hatch to the forward deck to add a little ventilation.  





We used the old boards as a stencil.