1978 20 Master Angler Restoration

[GradySailfish]

Well I've actually done a lot since my last posting. Last sunday evening I cut out the deck as planned. I first cut out the tank coffin (which I forgot to take a picture of) and then the rest of the deck came out as I planned. The coffin is impressive, it's VERY well made and sturdy.

The deck came off and I managed to get 85% of it off in large sections, which is nice because I used those sections as templates.





This was the deck section just ahead of the console...talk about ROT. The core was nearly all gone.



These pics are after I ground the stringers clean and shop vacumed everything.....I wish I took the dirty pictures!



I inadvertently cut into some of the stringers, so I had to reglass them. It was no biggie.







This is the lip around the deck...it runs into a drain channel.






Most of the stringers had a little foam towards the bottom...which to my surprise and delight was about 95% dry. I got some two part foam left over from last year and poured topped off the stringers. The area underneath the tank coffin also had foam sprayed onto the floor, which I took up and let the water underneath it dry up in the places which it existed, and then I refoamed the dry foam back in place.

Yesterday I cut out the three main deck sections out of 3/4 inch Douglas Fir.

The new deck will primarily rest on top of the stringers, but the edges will be tabbed into the lip I left around the deck. Here is how I'll be epoxying the tabs to the lip. I'll use epoxy mixed with cabosil and fiberglass strands.



Here are all the tabs/cleats I'll use. This is a pic of them after being coated with Epoxy.



Tomorrow night I hope to have the tabs in place and wednesday hopefull the deck will be going in.

Any advice guys......is everything looking good?