March 31, 2013

Did my first cuts and made my first mistake.  I now know how the boat is put together though.  I decided to cut a section in front of the forward hatch, as I knew the boundary between the good and the bad was there somewhere  and a loose stanchion base was near there too.  (Forgot to take picture I will have to add later).

The boat deck is like this (from top to bottom)

1. Gelcoat
2. 1/8" Fiberglass
3. 3/8" balsa wood in individal squares
4. ANOTHER 1/8"? layer of fiberglass cloth 
5. Cabin roof liner (assuming this is next layer - I didn't cut this far)

My mistake was I cut too deep.   I was going slow with the multitool with the half circle blade, but the section wasn't coming loose.  So I slowly cut deeper and kept ducking my head in to make sure I wasn't coming through the cabin roof.   I had already gone below the 1/4" which I suspected was the maximum depth of the top skin, so I finally resorted to a wrecking bar to pry up the top layer -pretty much destroing that in the process   I then could see what was going on, and that I had cut through the second layer of fiberglass that I didn't know was there.   

From my probing through that screw hole earlier in another section that second layer wasn't supposed to be there, so now I have to proceed more cautiously.  I destroyed a foot or so of top skin, but it was pretty ratty anyway.  I think now I may just trash all of the old top skin now as it is full of screw holes and doesn't come up very well.  I am going to apply a Kiwi Grip coating anyway so structure is my primary concern.   Some of the core I removed was like little rotten sponges, but a lot more of it was still very good too - so I at least did define that one boundary...

I still have some leads to run down on local fiberglass suppliers.  This stage will hold me up for a while.  It is going to take some time to assemble all of the needed materials (and knowledge).  So the deck is taking a back seat to other things for a few weeks.  

I did fire up my shop vac to pump out a bunch of rain water which had accumulated below decks and I now have the boat under tarps to keep out the weather.   I should have done this earlier, but the open deck skin makes it mandatory. 

While I am getting materials I have interior painting and electrical rewiring to keep me busy.   I really need to get the bilge pumps online again.  These might be things I can do after work this week...