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1st thing to go was the rotten transom. A circular saw, hammer, and flatbar was all it took. In hindsight, I wish I'd have left the exterior fiberglass intact and patched up the holes.
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Transom-less
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Stbd flotation block, custom front deck & storage, most of main deck removed.
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The flotation blocks were soaked, the glassed plywood enclosures were rotten, and the main deck was UNDER them. They had to come out. Little did I know, hours of grinding are ahead.
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This is the original factory deck that was under the added upper deck. Under it, is poured flotation foam.
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Plenty of curves to cut
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Looks like bat wings
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The added-on bow deck is gone, the small step up factory deck and underlying foam is gone. What's left is the rotten nose piece of the main deck.
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After a lot of reading and consideration, I chose 3/4" exterior grade 5 ply B-C sanded for the transom. I learned something as I was taking this boat apart. Whoever added on the front deck , did an excellent job. It was glassed on the underside as well. As I was ripping it out, I noted that they had seriously scuffed the surface of the plywood prior to laying up the glass. It only makes sense. So, after tracing the pattern from the old transom, I scuffed it royal. With a 34 grit flapper wheel. Wiped both sides with acetone, and laminated the 2 pieces together with chopped mat. Clamped it, let it set, and that is what you see.
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New transom
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Startin to look like a boat again
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I gotta be honest here. This did not go as well as I would have liked. The bottom of this hull is curved where it meets the transom, and with the inverse angle of the transom, the glass did not want to conform to the curves. Chopped mat does not like outside transitions. It will do OK on an inside corner, or radius, but trying to get it to lay smooth over an outside corner did not go well. The more I tried to get it to lay, the worse it got. The adhesive that holds mat together is designed to dissolve in poly resin. I ended up with gooey hairballs. I was trying to lay up whole sheets, from side to side, completely covering the transom and tying it to the existing hull. I wanted to lay cloth, then mat, then cloth again, mat again, more cloth. I wanted a 3 layer cloth lamination, and hadn't caught on to using styrene as a thinner to roll the resin and glass. Another newbie mistake was to take the roller right out of an acetone bath and try to roll resin with it. The batch was just starting to kick and I got in a hurry.It wrecked the 3rd layer. Chuck the roller, and put on a new sleeve. The 3rd layer had to be ground back off later.
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By now, it's upside down, in preparation for gelcoat repair and paint work. But I had to fix that mess from the previous botched layup. I dutifully ground all of the boogered up, bubbled, lumpy glass off. I then went back and reground the sides where the transom ties to the old hull. Back to "virgin" glass. 2 strips of 4" wide 18 oz went on 1st, vertically, at the seams where it ties to the hull. Then a pre-cut 18 oz piece went across the whole transom. Then 2 8" pieces of 18 oz strips, covering the edges of the whole transom piece,lapping the previous 4" piece, then another whole piece across the entire transom, again pre-cut to fit, then two 12" pieces, again, lapping the second whole transom piece and the previous 8" piece. I cut the mekp ratio, down to 1.25% for a longer pot life, and thinned the resin with 10% styrene. I thinned and mixed very well before mekp was added. This went real well, it might as well been shot on with a chopper gun. But the 18 oz cloth is stronger than the shredded stuff that comes out of a gun. I'll work that goofy curved part, fix the hull nicks and gouges, gelcoat what's needed, prep it for primer, prep it for paint, then paint it with Pettit Easypoxy 1 part polyurethane.
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2 more layers of 18 oz sheets, 3 overlapping layers at the seams, 5 layers total.
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New transom sanded, ready for final smoothing resin bath
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I had a lot of patching to do. While cutting out the deck, I cut through the hull a couple of times. I was using a thin mini grinder blade to speed things up and got too aggresive a couple of times. The cut-throughs were patched inside and out with 3 layers of overlapping glass cloth.
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Keel and hull repair
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New keel shaped, patches very evident
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This keel was pretty beat up. I ground out the smashed crushed glass, and laid a hefty bed of thick milled glass putty. Then a layer of 18oz roving, then a layer of 6oz cloth for a smoother finish. There is a lot of fairing work ahead.
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Not too many straight flat surfaces to work with on this boat. A lot of hand sanding with a small block. The small orbital sander helped some, but with all of the curved surfaces, it was kind of limited.
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New keel lines, faired out and sanded
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Final resin bath, to smooth out the surface some.
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I've learned my lesson about taping off areas I don't want gobbed up with errant resin.
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A lot of work went into this part. The cabogel stuff I make up is what was used to smooth the transom out. That, and lots of sanding. The last coat was thinner on the cabosill, and I rolled it on, then tipped it out with a badger brush dipped in styrene. It helped with the sanding. Much smoother.
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Multiple layers of gelcoat later.
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Finally finished sanding
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I've gotten pretty good at guessing how many sheets of spent sandpaper to pad the fresh one with. It keeps the fingers and hand from getting hot. It also helps round out the little 2X2 sanding block some, for all the curved surfaces.
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Man! Is that my boat?
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Nice lookin transom.
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Nice lines.
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I can just see the waves breaking off this bow.
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