A Long Time Coming

It was late January 2010 when I first plunged the circular saw into my squishy old decks on Magic, and as of 8pm last night I can finally say that I have finished recoring the decks.  Of course the project started long before that first cut, and will continue long after today, but this is a milestone I hope to never achieve again (at least not with Magic).  Given the ridiculous schedule our family is on right now with a myriad of school related activities and shuttling all over New Hampshire, I pretty amazed that I've gotten this far without throwing in the towel. 

Early on in this project I found myself getting overwhelmed with everything that needed (and still needs) to be done, but I found that by just focusing on the task at hand and working that to completion, I could manage and move forward without wanting to cry (at least during the day).  A few months back I found a quote from Mark Twain that absolutely floored me and literally gave the project a new lease on life.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

Simple and obvious, but it has become my mantra.  I have thrown away my big list because it's too big, and now just focus on the immediate task and those right after.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the aft deck that I completed last night.  I may jump right into the fairing this afternoon while the aft deck is still green and I can avoid sanding, but that will depend on whether the edges of the glass are flat enough and don't need any cleanup.  After that, the boat and shed are in dire need of a top to bottom cleaning before I start the bulk of the fairing.

Aft deck pre-faired and ready for glass.

Glass cut and ready for lamination.

 

Aft deck laminated, bagged, and tucked in for the night.

Looks like the first picture above but now has 3 layers of glass.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

My slow plod toward the finish line helped me complete a big milestone this past weekend.  As of 6:30 last night I officially sealed the entire deck from the elements for a long time to come.  The last push began late last week when I sanded and prepped the aft and starboard side decks adjacent to the cockpit.

On Friday afternoon I cut and laminated biax glass for the pushpit mounting points and the backstay (4 layers for each).  I followed up with thickend epoxy to level it to the surrounding core and let that cure overnight. 

The next day I started by cutting and fitting glass for the aft deck area. At this point my 1708 biax cloth supply was running very low so I opted to gather up all the remnants from previous layups and use them for the first layer.  The first layer looked like quite the jigsaw puzzle, and combined with all the edges and odd corners on the aft deck, there was a lot of extra fitting work before I even began the layup.


For the second layer I used part of my remaining supply of 50" cloth to keep the seams to a minumum.  Once I had everything cut and fitted I layed both layers up at once with 3 - 16 ounce batches of epoxy.  I had a little leftover once everything was saturated so I thickened it up with aerosil and leveled out a few low spots (the previously laminated pushpit mounting points).  I covered everything up with plastic and sandbags and came back the next morning to find a nicely cured aft deck.


Prior to the first lamination of the pushpit and chainplate mounting points, I wrapped the backstay chainplate with a few layers of blue painters tape, followed by a layer of clear packing tape. This allowed for roughly 1/16" tolerance around the chainplate so once I re-bed it, the chainplate won't cause excessive loading on the deck when the rig is strained. I'll pack the area around the chainplate with butyl tape and chainplate cover to keep the water out. Once everything cured, it was a bit of a job freeing up the chainplate, but I'm really happy with the result.

With the aft deck complete, I only had about 7 feet of starboard side deck to complete and I had enough free time to tackle it yesterday. It was a fairly straight forward lamination except I added an additional layer of biax cloth to the already solid glass winch pad area because even with 6 layers it was still a little below the surrounding core. I let that kick for a few hours then did the final layup yesterday afternoon in 2 sections (more jigsaw patterns for the first layer). Again I had some leftover epoxy that I thickened up to level out a few low spots. I sand bagged the area and let it set up.


I know I'm no where near completed, but this is a big time milestone in my head at least.  Next steps are to start sanding the new sections flush to the old decks and to fill in any low spots so the final layer will sit flat and minimize the amount of fairing needed.  Of course all of my estimates for time are off, but I'm getting there.  So far I've used a little over 14 gallons of epoxy and gone through 30 yards of 1708 biaxial glass.  I know I could have gotten by with a lot less of both if I were more efficient, but it's a learning process.

I ordered another 12 yards of biaxial cloth today and will get started prepping for the final layer.  I'm looking forward to this because once the prep work is finished, the last lamination(s) will go fast comparatively.

Woohoo, decks.

A bit dirty eh?

Cored!

Yay! It's all in.

I finally finished laying in ALL the core today.  I'll have to go back and look, but I think I used 16 2x4 sheets (I have 2 sheets left).  I know I'm a long way from done (at my rate it will be years), but getting the core in was a big step. The bad news is that I won't be able to do any more work on the boat for about 2 weeks because we are going to Bar Harbor for vacation. The good news is that we are bringing my 17' O'day Daysailer with brand new sails and have rented a mooring for a week at the head of Somes Sound. The Daysailer is a really fun boat that will get up on a plane with a little wind and really bomb around. I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, I had run out of the 7.5 gallon batch of System 3 epoxy I bought last April with the starboard and stern core layups. I decided to go with Progressive Epoxy for my next order mainly because Merton's Marine is about 2.5 hours away and my truck doesn't exactly sip fuel. I don't like switching product brands mid stream, but the reviews on Progressive Epoxy are favorable, it uses the same 2:1 ratio, and the price is a bit lower than what I could get System 3 for. Add in the fuel costs to go to Merton's and I saved quite a bit (Progressive distributor is 20 minutes from my house).

I'm a bit sad to see all the core in because now that I have done the vast majority of the boat, I am getting pretty good at getting it layed in and making sure there are no voids along the sides and under the beveled edges with thickened epoxy. I'm also getting much quicker at it now that my technique is better and I am using tools better suited to the task. I found a really cool flexible plastic trowel-ly thing at Home Depot that I am really loving. It has roughly a 10 inch flexible edge and comfortable grip and on the perpendicular side it has a 5 inch edge. It works great for this and I expect it will be very good for wetting out the biaxial glass once I lay that down. For the whole port side, I used 132 ounces of mixed epoxy bringing my total to about 8.5 gallons used.  The Progressive epoxy seems good so far, much clearer than System 3 and has a good pot life (medium hardener).  One note: not bad, but different is the hardener for System 3 is more viscous than the resin.  The reverse is true for Progressive.  Once the resin and hardener are mixed however I couldn't tell any difference in viscosity from System 3 to Progressive.  I guess I can't give a solid review of the product until I report back in 5 years that everything on the port side held up, but so far so good.

My new bestest buddies.

Starboard Side Core - Check!

I finally finished gluing in the core on the entire starboard side.  As part of that layup I laminated 6 layers of biax cloth to a 2 foot section where the winches will be mounted.  Now I have just about 15 feet left on the port side and I can start laminating the top layers of glass on the entire aft section.  Unfortunately, we are going away this weekend and next week promises to be pretty busy, but depending on temps, I'm shooting for sometime early next week.  Of course, there are lots of details in addition to the core that have to be taken care of; like putting solid glass (with cloth) in the stanchion and chainplate areas and filling all the nooks and crannies I missed on the first pass.

Once I get that taken care of, I'll layup 2 layers of 1708 biax cloth to match what I've done on the foredeck and forward starboard side, then it it will be time to sand, grind, feather, and generally smooth everything out before I put a third and final layer of biax over the entire boat (except the cabintop which I have already done). 

Chipping Away

With the high temps in the low 60's over the past few days, I couldn't allow myself to squander the good layup conditions so I have been carving out a few hours here and there to get some core layed up.  Of course even using my work estimation algorithm 3x + 2.754 where x = my estimated hours, the area around the cockpit has lots of curves, cut outs, indentations, and generally annoying things that cause my progress to go even slower.

When I tore up the mess aft of the cockpit, it appeared that the old recore job had replaced the top skin, the core (with plywood), and at least part of the bottom skin.  Unfortunately, the bottom skin was not very sturdy and appeared to be some sort of matte that was very porous and not particularly strong.  There was also an old deck blower vent from when the boat had an atomic 4 that I didn't want anymore, so I decided it would make sense to reinforce it with a layer of 1708 cloth prior to installing the core.

I left the section directly aft of the locker opening to give a little rigidity to the structure while I was laying up the core.  Otherwise I ran the risk of the entire deck sagging under the weight of the sandbags while laying it up.  I could have reinforced from the underside, but thought that this would suffice (it did). 

After I cut out the cloth, I did the same with the balsa core then taped up all the deck holes from the underside and mixed up a 24 oz batch (16 resin, 8 hardener).  I wet out the deck then the cloth and layed it in.  When I was satisfied that it was fully saturated, I wet out the underside of the balsa and then added Aerosil to the remaining epoxy in the pot and thickened it up to spread.  I layed the balsa in, seated it and then mixed up a 20 oz batch and added Aerosil to make a peanut butter mix that I used to fill the gaps under the existing deck flange and around the balsa.  Finally I covered it all with plastic, followed by sandbags and let it kick.

The next day I went back and cut and ground out the area aft of the locker opening and repeated the same procedure as above.  While prepping this section I pulled the backstay chainplate and made sure that there were no issues with the area where it attaches to the stern.  It appears that the chainplate isn't original because it seems to be a different type of metal and not as thick as the shroud chainplates.  It doesn't look like stainless steel, nor bronze.  I don't know my metals very well, but it almost appears to be galvanized.  In any event, it looks to be in good shape, but I think I will be replacing it to be on the safe side.

Yesterday I only had about an hour (my son set his watch to keep me honest), so I set to work on the starboard side along the cockpit to see how much I could get done.  I ate up a good 30 minutes prepping the area with the grinder and sander to ensure a good smooth mechanical bond to the bottom skin (this area still had the original skin intact). 

Because the winches will be located in this area, I decided to do a solid glass layup on part of it to accommodate the large loads it will be subjected to.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure exactly where (or how) I will be mounting the winches - the old winch bases were rotting and I am considering using bronze pedestal bases like these.  So I cut out 6 layers about 2 feet long and cut them to the shape of the area in question.  Next I cut out balsa to fill in the remaining area forward of that.  I laid everything in place to see how it fit and at that point my son popped his head up from the ladder and told me my time was up.  The next few days are going to be busy, but I hope to get this section laid up before the weekend (no work this weekend, going to NY). 

I'm reaching the point where I can break the core job up into smaller manageable pieces that I don't have to spend as much time on.  It also works out fairly nicely because I am doing this after work when the temperature is on the downslope so I don't have to worry about the epoxy outgassing.  Ultimately it may take longer, but given how busy my life is right now, it's tough to block off full days.  With that said, I think if I were able to get one full day in, I could probably get the rest of the core in. 

Puzzle Time

I cut out most of the remaining deck areas alongside and aft of the cockpit.  Found the same soggy plywood mess as on the port side.  Even the pattern was the same.  I don't quite understand why the plywood was cutout in a jigsaw like pattern, but I'm sure there was a reason.

Puzzle anyone?

It was clear that the top skin wasn't as thick here and I am wondering about the bottom skin as well.  When pulling up the plywood, I pulled out several sections of the bottom skin (small silver dollar sized holes) and it appears that the bottom skin in this area is only 1 layer of matte.   A note on the matte; I'm not sure what the previous owner's layup schedule was, but it really seemed brittle, the matte was tearing quite a bit.  I'm glad I went with 1708, it seems much tougher.  I ended up leaving the section right in the middle because I don't want the aft deck to depress due to the lack of supporting structure.  I'll get the core in place in the adjacent areas before I tackle that small section. 

Someone's Already Been Here

I had a few hours tonight and decided that instead of grinding bevels in the remaining side deck in preparation for the new core, I would get started cutting out the decks adjacent and aft of the cockpit.  My reasoning is that I just don't think I have it in me to do more than one full shed vacuum before I finish the core job.  So I am going to cut out all the remaining deck area at once and just have one big marathon bevel grinding session and accompanying cleanup.  Then I'll cut and install the rest of the core.

So I broke out the skill saw and vibrating cutter and got started. It's a little tight in the areas adjacent and aft of the cockpit so it was fairly slow going.  The bright side was that having the cockpit to work from and stand up in was much easier than crawling around the foredeck.  I cut out a little less than half the remaining deck before light started to get scarce and pulled up the top skin only to find... plywood.  It dawned on me that the previous owner had told me that he had re-cored some of the aft deck, but I didn't realize the extent that was done.  I haven't gotten to the starboard side yet, but the port side ran all the way aft from the winch pad location.

Mmmmm, old smelly plywood.

Halfway there!

Unfortunately, all of the plywood core was soaking wet and poorly adhered to both the top and bottom skins.  In other words; junk.  It looked like the previous owner had not taken too much care to over-drill deck hardware holes in the stern rail, winch pad and a number of other items.  The result was not good.  Oddly enough, the plywood didn't hold up as well as most of the balsa that was at least 25 years older.

Next up... the starboard side where I expect much the same.  Then onto the dreaded bevel hell.

Actually Moving Forward

When I bought all the supplies last week, I felt like I had reached a turning point where I could actually start rebuilding (even though I still have to tear up the decks after I finish the cabintop). I spent the week getting a head start on the recore by setting up the roll of 1708 biax glass for easy access and getting the core cutout and ready to go. I also ordered and received a ridiculously nice (and huge) pair of Wiss Scissors recommended by one of the folks over at Tim Lackey's Plastic Classic Forum. I got them at Bodico.com and I am astounded at how well they cut the biax. No effort whatsoever and perfect clean cuts. Definitely shouldn't run with these.

Joe at Mertons was nice enough to tightly wind the 30 yards of 50" biaxial glass on a big tube so it could be hung and rolled out easily. I decided that the best place for it would be up near where it would be used so I would have to drag it up a ladder every time I needed a piece. So I managed to wrestle it up into the rafters and hang from the bows on an old steel bar I had lying around the yard. Other than humping a 5 foot, 70 pound roll of fiberglass cloth up a ladder and hang it over the bow of the boat, it was reasonably straight forward. It ended up a little crooked, but as long as it rolls smoothly I could care less how it looks.



Next up, I took a roll of carpenters kraft paper and cut out templates for the core and glass parts of each area to be recored. So, once finished I had a numbered template for each core area and each glass area. Since I'll be using 2 layers of 1708, I sized the glass templates for the largest area to be covered and will cut the first piece to that size and the second piece will be approximately 1" smaller in size around the edges.



Once I had all the templates cut, I grabbed a few sheets of balsa core, put them scrim side up and traced each of the core templates onto them with a sharpie marker. Then it was a simple matter of taking a box cutter and following the marked lines. The balsa is really easy to cut but you have to be a bit careful so all the little blocks of balsa don't come unfastened from the scrim while cutting or handling.

I laid all the core pieces in place and made a few cutting adjustments to get all the pieces to fit properly. Finally, I measured the locations of any thru-deck fittings (handholds, hinges, etc...) and cut out areas where they would be going so I can put solid glass plugs in once the core gets glued in.




















Last but not least, I had decided last week to simplify things (even further) by removing the chimney vent altogether. Realistically, I have never really needed anything more than a kerosene trawler's lamp to keep warm during my sailing season (May - November) and I just can't justify the added expense and complication of a woodstove.

So I had to rebuild the bottom deck skin where the chimney stack was located. I was able to take a few pieces of the old balsa and wedge it in between the headliner and the bottom skin that was still intact around the chimney stack. Then I cut out two circular layers of biax cloth to fill the gap. I will lay that up with unthickened epoxy and then do the core on top while still green.