Aquasport 170 Project - 10/22/07 Update

[Ben87]

I really like the narrative and the pictures along with it.  I look forward to many more in the future.  Keep them coming GW204.

[gw204]

Motor is off....





The outer transom skin was doing some serious moving during removal.   I suspect a lot of delamination.  Hopefully, I can start cutting into it tomorrow.

[JimCt]

Keep the pictures coming.  Looks like a classic transom job in store.

[gw204]

Well, I finally made my first real cut.  :-)

This morning I marked lines on the gunwale, liner sides and floor, broke out the grinder with a cutoff wheel and tore into her.  Things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped though.  My plan was to cut around the under gunwale rod lockers, but I didn't realize they ran all the way up to the bottom of the gunwales and were heavily glassed in place.  Chalk that one up to poor investigation...  :(

So, I had to make a few addl. cuts  before I was able to remove a portion of the gunwale caps and liner sides.  Those came out pretty easily.  Then I moved on to cutting the aft 30" of floor out.  I got through the outer skin easily and that pulled up with little effort as it was completely delaminated and core underneath was soaked.



Then I had to break out my jig and hand saws to get through the core and bottom layer of glass.  I figured they would pop out easily, but that was not the case.  I actually had to pry, peel and break them out.  Reason being, the floor was extrememly well bonded to the tops of the massive stringers!  

Once the floor section was out, I got a good look at the guts of this boat. The stringers are foam filled and are about 6" wide.  After chipping off the glass and bedding compound from the tops, I discovered that the foam inside (accessed via the pour holes) appeared to be nice and dry.  

I removed a big chunk ( about 14" square) of foam from outside of each stringer and they were completeley saturated.  I would estimate each weighed 10 to 15 lbs. :u



After cleaning up a bunch of gunk (including what looked like and old ketchup packet) and small chunks of soggy foam from the bilge, I discovered some of the tabbing on the port stringer had broken free.  No big deal as I plan to remove the stringers anyway and either fill with new foam or replace them entirely with new foam or wood cored pieces.  I also found lots of delamination of the inner layers of glass on the transom.  

I tried to take more pics, but the batteries in my camera died and I didn't have any more on hand.  I'll get some more tomorrow and toss up some more pics.  :)

[gw204]

Miguel,

As for drilling drain holes in those front lockers, I say don't do it based on what I've now seen.  If you drill far to the port and stbd. they'll drain directly on to the foam on the outsides of the stringers.  Sure there's drains in the stringers near the transom, but the foam will soak up all that water before it ever gets to the drains.  

Drill too far towards the center line and you'll end up drilling right into the stringers.  Guess where that water will go then!   :(

[Miguel]

Thanks for the tip.  Good to know.
I will just let them fill with water when it rains, which is about 9 months of the year down here.........I wish the gallery was up an running so i could show you some pics of an amazing waterspout, taken from my window on dec 25th.....  It was very close to shore.

[gw204]

Check the top edge of those wells also.  Make sure they are sealed against the underside of the casting deck or you'll end up in the same soggy boat if they fill all the way to the top.

[JimCt]

Anybody have any theories why the deck cores were made up of blocks of ply instead of single pieces? Only thing I can think of is that it was to use up scraps. I found the same blocks in the deck core of my 240 and I attribute most of the failure of the deck to that.  No strength whatsoever since each block edge is a stress point.  Horrible way to do a deck.

[hunter]

one reason they might have used blocks is that wood expands. If you look closely there is spaces betwen the blocks for expansion. Don't quote me i might be wrong, but that is how we do it here in home construction.





Bill Ray

[RickK]

Thanks for the tip.  Good to know.
I will just let them fill with water when it rains, which is about 9 months of the year down here.........I wish the gallery was up an running so i could show you some pics of an amazing waterspout, taken from my window on dec 25th.....  It was very close to shore.

Do you have a photobucket acct?  Open one (it's free) and you can post pix there and show them here.

[JimCt]

The small gaps between the blocks are filled with resin so if they take up any water there's zero room for expansion.  Once the ply's wet it'll never dry and the rot-clock starts ticking.

[hunter]

That must suck I guess im glad I live in the desert!  The humidity here is like ummmmmm 0%.  The only thing I have to worry about is UV, and maybe thats not as bad.

[Shine]

Ive seen pictures of later model Grady Whites with the same "core".  I can only imagine its an attempt stop water migration.

[gw204]

Ive seen pictures of later model Grady Whites with the same "core".  I can only imagine its an attempt stop water migration.

I believe that is correct.  I have heard the pieces get oriented 90 degrees from each other to try and offset any paths that water may use to migrated from one piece to another.  In this case, it didn't work.  Each and every one was soaken wet.   :(

The new deck will be made up of marine ply or something like light weight Coosa.   :)

[gw204]

Well, I never got around to shooting any more pics before I continued deconstruction.  Yesterday, I jumped in with both feet...

Following Shine's example, I decided to remove most of the outer skin as well.  I marked a line 6" in from each side, and 6" up from the bottom.  Then I went at it with a sawzall I borrowed from my brother.  Much to my dismay, I was having lots of trouble getting through this thing.  So, I reverted to grinder-only operation and just cut through the outer skin and pried that off.  Once the core was exposed, I could see it was completely soaked and 100% rotten.





I will be laminating a new outer skin by setting up a temporary bulkhead across the transom.  I figure the 6" I left all the way around should give me plenty of surface area for the new skin to bond to.  I'll also be adding an addl. layer or two of 1808 to the outer skin and will run that up the sides and bottom a few inches.  Sound good?

Then I started cutting the inner skin and stringers with my grinder as well.  First I popped out the aft 12" of each stringer.  The center wood-cored one was rotten and the two outer ones were comprised of soaken wet foam.  You can see from the first pic that the glass doesn't completely encapsulate the core of that center stringer.  :(





Next I cut the inner skin into sections using the grinder and was able to pry most of those sections out.  Others didn't budge.  Then I realized that when the boat was built, the nuts holding the ski eyes on had been glassed over.  Once I exposed them and removed the nuts, those sections came out easily.

It was during this phase that I discovered part of the reason the core was toast.  About 2" of wood was exposed at the deepest point in the bilge.  It had never been glassed over...  Poor thing never stood a chance.  :(

Anyway, after I had the out skin and most of the inner skin removed, I figured the sawzall could easily get through the core.  But I was again wrong.  I think that because the core was so wet, as I cut through it things would swell and squeeze the blade.  So, I had to figure something else out.

Then it hit me.  I've never had trouble getting through anything with this....  



30 seconds later, most of the core fell out.  :)

I then removed the outer most parts of the core by chopping and prying it out.  The most effective tool (at least that I had on hand) proved to be the claws on my hammer.  Once I had the bulk of it out, I hit everything with a stiff scraper.  There's still a very thin later of wood attached to the glass, but that'll come out when it comes time to begin grinding.  

Removing the debris from the boat was the last thing I did.







Mmmmmmm.....look at all this good stuff.  :)