Wood replacement questions

[Helmar]

I am planning to put pvc pipes in after I'm done with the bulkhead and cabin wall and before the floor goes in. I'll take a look at your window moldings when I get further along.

I fill any voids with the fiberfiller when needed.
Once the floor goes down, then the holes drilled, boat jacked up in the bow and the foaming process happens.
I use the Fiberlay Adhisve close cell floatation foam.
It will have a small door or plate just inside the cabin as so if any water get in, will make its way to the lid/door/plate, whatever you want to call it and then down the PVC to the bilge area and get pumped out.

I can submit more pictures as I progress if you like.

Yours is looking pretty sharp !!

Helmar

[John Nelson]

Again try fiberglass on some pvc pipe to see if you get expected results,before doing installation.

[Kelly]

Ah gotcha, glad to hear that. Can't wait to see some more progress pics!

[sclapsaddle]

I am planning to put pvc pipes in after I'm done with the bulkhead and cabin wall and before the floor goes in. I'll take a look at your window moldings when I get further along.

[Kelly]

Looking over your pictures I was wondering how you plan on allowing water drainage to take place from the cabin area? I don't see any holes in your bulkhead. Did I miss a post or you just haven't tackled that part yet?

See my hardtop thread when/if you're ready to make a rubrail/window rubber order.

[John Nelson]

Its really good you are willing to test. Usually I hear nope this is what Im doing. Now compare wood without sealer and polyester to the wood with sealer and polyester, maybe try abrading sealed wood. You can also try drying a sample of treated plywood till it checks then put two layers of mat on it. Consider using that for the deck. sealed=two layers of mat over the entire exposed surface including the inside of the drain tubes. The least you can do is the transom and the floor of the splash well.

[sclapsaddle]

Ya, I'm not convinced about wood and adhesion with anything except epoxy, but I'm also not convinced about it in certain situations. The daly' s wood sealer soaked in for me well but does seam to feel moist even after a week of drying, been raining also. No other experience with wood sealers. I am only using the epoxy to bond plywood together, being carefully to not polyester over it, the filleting I did was with polyester for the radius to the hull.
I practiced with thinned polyester over the sealed wood after a light sanding with 120g wipe with acetone with 2 coats, seamed to soak in well,then layed up mat and let cured, did the same with epoxy. Epoxy did stick better until I heated up little over 100 degrees, looses all its strength pulled off the wood with relative ease., I am fairly confident in the adhesion with the polyester after the tests, took wood fibers with it after tearing off.

[Helmar]

Thanks Kelly.
I'm making some more progress. I have one complete side of the original cabin wall so I was able to make the new cabin wall 1 piece width wise, both sides of the boat are actually pretty close in shape (more then I can say for many production cars of the era). I put the main cabin wall directly on top of the lower piece that follows the bottom of the boat with two backing boards. I did this because the top of the boat need to be raised roughly 3/8-1/2" so the hull would be back to the same shape as the original cabin wall, it seemed easer to put together this way rather then how I did the back bulkhead. I sealed the wood with a couple coats of Daly's ship n shore sealer. The wood instantly turned dark and beautiful, Aquateck mahogany, no stain, all it needs now is some varnish. I'm thinking satin varnish over gloss. Does anyone have experience with one or the other being less maintenance or holding up better?
I have most of the bottom pieces filled and radius to the bottom of the boat, I will remove the bulkheads and glass the lower pieces in, then epoxy the bulkheads to the lower section and fill, radius and glass them in.

Looken pretty darn good

Beware of glass resin making contact with epoxy resin. I did some tests and that was a very weak point. I could break them apart.

Also I have used the Dalys sealer and not too impressed with the drying time and how well it soaks in. Having to sand it before paint? Didn't like that as it was exposing the wood your trying to seal....Am I missing something with that ???

I was forced to use it after MarXite was no longer made so going back to the two part epoxy sealers.
That I know I can use epoxy resin and fiberglass resin and with testing, the wood will come apart first.

Just too bad about that MarXite no longer being manufactured, that was some Killer sealer !!!

Helmar

[John Nelson]

Looks good, Now make yourself some test pieces you can destructive test to make sure this stuff sticks together as well as you planed.

[sclapsaddle]

Thanks Kelly.
I'm making some more progress. I have one complete side of the original cabin wall so I was able to make the new cabin wall 1 piece width wise, both sides of the boat are actually pretty close in shape (more then I can say for many production cars of the era). I put the main cabin wall directly on top of the lower piece that follows the bottom of the boat with two backing boards. I did this because the top of the boat need to be raised roughly 3/8-1/2" so the hull would be back to the same shape as the original cabin wall, it seemed easer to put together this way rather then how I did the back bulkhead. I sealed the wood with a couple coats of Daly's ship n shore sealer. The wood instantly turned dark and beautiful, Aquateck mahogany, no stain, all it needs now is some varnish. I'm thinking satin varnish over gloss. Does anyone have experience with one or the other being less maintenance or holding up better?
I have most of the bottom pieces filled and radius to the bottom of the boat, I will remove the bulkheads and glass the lower pieces in, then epoxy the bulkheads to the lower section and fill, radius and glass them in.

[Kelly]

Man that looks great! I'm liking where you're taking this boat, big thumbs up!

[sclapsaddle]

I've managed to find a few weekends that were above 40 degrees and with some small heater was able to lay up some fiberglass over the transom wood, fiberglass and cold weather do not get along, but we are finally getting into reasonable temps now.
I can now move forward with bulkhead construction, I made a template like Helmar instructed with hard board and popsicle sticks, that works great. I was able to cut the lower section to fit nicely along the contour of the bottom, there's a nice small gap all the way across except where it sits on the stringer tops. I then made a template for the rear bulk head and trimmed it to fit with a small gap al the way around. I am planning to glass the lower bulkhead into place and then bond and screw the top to it and glass it in place. The floor will slide under the top bulk head and meet the lower perpendicular. There will be cleats under the floor where it meets the front and rear bulkheads like it had originally. The front I am doing similar to the rear in two pieces tying the lower part to the main cabin wall but they will be flush with a backing board to tie then together. Everything became logical once I started building the bulkheads. I have 4 more sheets of plywood for the floor, cabin wall and splash well, so I should be able to continue decent progress.

[TheBronze]

Stephen,

Sounds like a good plan. A few tips on foaming:

Warm up the foam prior to pouring. You'll get better expansion on it.
Prior to setting the new deck in, snap lines over your stringers and then drill holes inbetween for your fill spots. Jack the tongue up as far as you can and work your way from stern to bow. And work fast!

[sclapsaddle]

Thanks for the suggestions!
The wood strips in the stringers was the only wood in the boat that was good and left in, so I don't believe I will have any problems screwing the floor down.
The hull is supper flemsy with no wood in, it stiffened up some with the transom bonded in and I am sure will continue as I add more structure.
When I took the cabin wall out, it looked to be 1 piece, however I could not tell on the rear bulkhead, their was a big section cutout from just below the splash well to the floor with maybe a 4" strip down both sides. They both did go down to the bottom of the boat with cutouts over the stringers and glassed into the bottom of the hull.
The stringers are the same height except the center stringer lowers 6" or so inside the cabin. I am considering doing similar to what Brian suggests and cut and fit the bulkheads to the bottom of the boat and come up to top of the stringers then put the floor in and continue the bulkheads up off the floor so I can physically get the bulkheads in the boat without taking the top of the boat off.
John, yes I am going to radius the wood into the hull with fiberfill(pre thicken resin) and then layer in the 1708.
I am planning to fill under the floor with foam when the time come.

Stephen

[TheBronze]

Not sure what your original layout looked like to give a competent answer.

However, on the 404, it has a weird arrangement where the main bulkhead went through the deck, but didn't really attach to the stringers. In re-construction, I ran the floor full length, then mated the two bulkhead halves with 1708. In hindsight, I should have probably used a single piece main bulkhead, but the original construction had it in two pieces. It only got rigid when I bolted the top deck to the bulkhead. Prior to that, there was flex in the cabin in chop seas. You could actually see the two sides moving relative to each other!

Fitting the bolts helped, but I didn't get true rigidity until the cabin berths were built. Having them tie in to the deck and then the sides of the hull, and into the forward bulkhead did wonders for the overall stiffness. At the rear, the rebuilt transom along with the splashwell bulkhead made it strong enough.

Your transom looks great, by the way. Am I right in assuming that you are going to use thickened resin and 1708 to tie the edges into the hull? I did that on mine and it is super stiff back there. I have no worries about the 400 pound engine falling off. If you can get your bulkhead down into the stringer area, glass the tabs in, and fill with foam, I'd expect that you'll have a very stiff structure. Getting it all to fit might be a challenge with the topsides attached, though. Is your floor in place in the main bulkhead area?