My Restoration Process

[muddywater]

My restore on my 1972 20 Superfisherman has been progressing glacially for 6 years now so I thought I should post something before I forget all the details.

I have never done fiberglass work before so I decided to learn on the console. All the hardware was so far gone it had to be cut off with a cutting wheel. I cut 10 inches out of the center of the console and glassed it back together from both sides.

Having worked with WillyC on his gel-coat job, I decided to Gel-coat my console using gel-coat and Duratec (over epoxy for those of you who think it cannot be done). The Duratec makes it flow easily and you don't have to mess with PVA or wax. I think it flowed a little too well for the Gel-coat gun so I switched over to the $20 Harbor Freight gun which sprayed it ok but slowly. It tends to run pretty badly as you can see in the pic. Runs are hard to sand out without cutting completely through. After spraying it was sanded with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, sanding discs and then wet polished with Aquabuff 2000. The results are at least as good as factory if you spend the time. The only flaws I can see to the Duratec/Gel coat are all the sanding and the fact that the Duratec replaces some of the gel-coat (and therefore the pigment) so you have to have a pretty good build up or you can see through it. I think that was the reason WillyC decided to only use it on the bottom of his boat.

I guess I should note that although the company I got my epoxy from (Raka) sells a non-blushing epoxy, I used the normal low-blushing epoxy and made certain to wash any blush off with detergent and water. I guess using non-blushing epoxy would be the safer route.

[muddywater]

So I spent years trying to repair every hole and crack in the gunnels. Apparently one of the previous owners thought that the way you stop a boat is to run it into the dock.

The boat had not been used in 15 years and there were about 15 gallons of something that looked like kerosene in the tank. The old tank was still in good condition so I sold it. The old 1980 Mariner "Tower of Power" (built by Mercury) actually started when I took it to the dock (after sitting 15 years!) but the dry rotted gas lines immediately split and started shooting gas out of every orifice (and the engine STILL ran). I touched one of the wires and it disintegrated. After replacing all of that stuff I sold the engine. I never went for a run though as the boat would have sunk since the drains were corroded through and the transom was gone since no sealant was used on the bolts for the swim ladder.

[muddywater]

I still am not sure how you guys do it. It is WAY more fun to go spend time in one of my other boats than to suck fiberglass dust for days on end.

After a few years of fiberglass dust my Shop Vac, Skil grinder, and Black & Decker sander bit the dust. I replaced the grinder with a Bosch grinder which I got an optional dust shroud for. The dust shroud tends to get in the way so I do not use it all the time. I have mostly been using 60-grit flap wheels for cutting stuff fast, but it occurred to me at some point that I could put 60 grit fiber backed sanding discs on my Harbor Freight sander-polisher and that seems to give me more control for the initial knock down on repairs plus it seems like it puts out coarser dust that does not fly around as much. The 6" Ridgid sander I have had since the beginning has been holding up pretty well (probably because I think Metabo made it for Ridgid). The Shop Vac had been getting on my nerves because it would clog after about 10 minutes. After it died I replaced it with a mid-sized Fein which has been really nice. The hose is so long the vac does not even have to be in the boat and the auto on/off with tool use is nice as well.

Anyway... too many distractions to spend all my time on the Seacraft. I had a welder build me a 13 foot smooth bottom mud hull which I put a 12 HP mud motor on for hunting. FUN... Click on the pic to see us running across a mud flat. The second is a video link running through grass on a hunting trip. Both videos are with the 12 HP. I later upgraded to an 18 Copperhead and after some mods the little sucker runs 27 mph with 2 people and hunting gear. This year it will probably get heads polished and carburetor mods (or a 30mm carb from a 35 as some of the Ultralight glider owners have done).

[muddywater]

The old engine did not have a lifting ring, so we rigged up some straps to unmount the old engine. I later found out you can buy a Mercury lifting ring off of ebay for less than $20 that threads onto the flywheel shaft and makes engine removal cake. I got one and used it to remount the engine on my other boat which gave me an additional 6 miles an hour top end just from raising the engine 1-bolt hole! Given, it was mounted too low by the dealer originally, but still...

I cut the inner liner as I intended to do my transom from the inside. I used a piece of flat steel bar to separate the liner from the transom. The problem was the live well which was attached to the hull by the invincible potter putty. I separated everything else from the transom and hull and when all else failed, rigged it up so I could use the hoist to pull on the live-well. I picked the ENTIRE boat off the trailer just by the live-well and it would not let go!!!!!!!! When that failed, I just cut the live-well in half with a Sawzall at which time the liner came out easily allowing me access to the bottom of the live-well with a couple crowbars and a sledge hammer.

[muddywater]

Years passed... and I worked on filling more holes in the Seacraft by the thousands.

I still did not get anywhere fast. Too many distractions. Caught 5 of these a week and a half ago (could have caught them all day but there is a limit). I need somebody to teach me how to catch the smaller tastier ones though.

[muddywater]

I have seen many on this board complain of how much of a pain it was to remove their core with everything used from chainsaws to air chisels. Mine was so rotten, I literally just vacuumed it out and hit it with a flap wheel on the angle grinder.

In case anyone was wondering, I included
1) rotten transom core
2) a cross section of the (rotten) balsa cored deck attached by the invincible Potter putty
3) a cross section of the foam cored stringer and wood 2x4 cored fiberglass keelson
4) the battery box and the strange rectangular shaped soft portion in the top of the starboard stringer which did not seem to have much or any glass over it (I had dug it out a little to check to see if the foam was wet. The foam did not seem wet but at the bottom of the stringer next to the glass there was some water. The keelson on the other hand was dry and in good condition.

[muddywater]

In prepping the boat for the transom job, I kept grinding away trying to get rid of all of the bad cracked glass in the corners of the transom. Apparently the factory used very little woven roving in the corners on mine because it was almost all thickened resin which had cracked. In one spot I ground completely through the side of the boat (the crack went all the way through). As a result I decided that my outer skin was going to need alot more beefing up. After removing all of the bad glass, we laid in 5 more layers of 1708 biaxial over the outer skin extending out over the corners. WillyC had told me that his 1-1/2 inch Coosa core was thick enough that it was difficult getting the liner back on so I chose to go with 1-3/8 inch Coosa Bluewater 26 to give me a little more room to add some extra glass. I found a dealer close by in New Orleans that had prices on Coosa literally half of what I was finding online and I did not have to pay for freight.

I made 2 plywood templates to make sure my fit was perfect before I cut the Coosa. I cut the bottom of the Coosa at 77/102 degrees to match the transom angle. Coosa cuts and works pretty easily. I decided to use a router with round-over bit to round all the edges so I could get the glass to mold itself to the edges (biaxial and triaxial will not do 90 degree corners).

[muddywater]

Putting in the transom core was almost a disaster. It was one of those Louisiana summer days where it is 107 in the shade with no wind and 100 percent humidity. One of the batches of epoxy started smoking and melting the pot before 2 minutes of mixing was up. That was with slow hardener and we were not even making large batches. It was taking us 6 or 7 batches just to wet out 1 piece of 1708. We were also wearing Tyvek suits so we were dying in the heat. I was sick for a couple days afterward and did not work on the boat again for half a year, but the core was at least in. I went over the edges with epoxy thickened with cabosil and a little chopped glass strand (I think it is a little stronger that way) which I hit with the die grinder after it had hardened so I would have nice radiused edges that my cloth for the inner skin could conform to easily.

Note that there were a zillion other clamps which were not shown in the pic.

[muddywater]

After the core was in I started making knees out of Coosa for the transom thinking I was going to put it in all in one shot. This was not really a good idea because it did not take into account the thickness of the glass for the inner skin so I have to go back and trim them.

So I started thinking that there had to be a better way than when we put in the outer skin layers and core. Obviously there was no way I was going to do any big job in the middle of the summer again. It also occurred to me after some research that 1708 biaxial was not really optimal because the 8 oz mat in the 1708 does not really add much strength but requires a ridiculous amount of epoxy to wet out. Supposedly the mat is there for bonding to substrates like plywood when you have a resin other than epoxy that does not stick as well. It is also for finishing so the woving does not show through finishes. The strength is supposed to come from the directional fibers. I probably should have asked you guys first, but for the inner skin I decided to go with
1 layer 1708 (mat side facing the core)
3 layers of 24 oz triaxial (no mat)
1 layer of 1708 (mat side facing out)

What I found was that the 1708 with the mat is difficult to wet out with epoxy unless you have it on a horizontal surface where you can just pour on vast quantities and then move it (a pain). The 24 oz triaxial wets out really easily in comparison so you can lay it in place dry and wet it out on the spot. It takes alot less resin and seems to conform to curves better without the mat. It seemed to conform well to the routed edges so I was able to curve it all the way around to the back all in one shot, and lay a little extra in the corners. My only complaint about the 24 oz triaxial is it tends to fray really easily so you don't want to move it at all once you have resin on it.

I would love to hear any opinions on how to improve my workflow because we are still pretty inefficient and I still have a deck to do.

[muddywater]

With the old 290 lb 115 Tower of Power the boat was self bailing, but there is no way with any modern engine so the drains had to go.

Although it looks like it is just a big blob of potter putty, as you can see in the cross section, there is actually wood in there.

For the most strength I glassed it from both sides at once which is kind of a pain since you have to jack up the boat (the drain was over the trailer bunk).