1971 Flatback

[LilRichard]

So last night was not so good.  I had some pretty heavy gelcoat crazing/cracking I found when the bottom paint came off.  I knew the stringers in the inside were cracked, so attributed it to that.  However when I started grinding into the cracks, I found that I had some VERY serious de-lamination in the hull.  The most serious area was around the keel pad - looked like whoever laid up the hull did not grind the skin coat before laying the keel pad down - because as I ground away more glass I kept finding voids where there was actually shiny glass.

Needless to say this is yet another setback in this saga.  It is an easy fix (prolly 10 hours of work total) but the fairing is going to be impossible.  I basically have a four foot wide strip down the middle of the boat that needs to be faired in.  In addition, there was some more deflection cracks that occurred randomly around the keel.  I have some pics, will post up soon.  Just a little disappointed that what should have been a month of bottom work just turned into a really big deal.

I am really frustrated with the way this boat was built - shame.  However I am not going to half a$$ this thing and have to go back and do more work later.  Sorry to vent.

 :(

[RickK]

...The most serious area was around the keel pad - looked like whoever laid up the hull did not grind the skin coat before laying the keel pad down - because as I ground away more glass I kept finding voids where there was actually shiny glass.

Rich, just what is a keelpad - I read that in a lot of rebuilds but have no clue.

[LilRichard]

I am referring to the glass (inside the hull) which serves to cover the keel.  It is basically a 6-8" wide strip of glass that is flat when viewed from the inside of the hull.

I highlited it here on the inside of my hull... it runs in the direction of the arrow...





The actual keel is directly below that.  When they laminated the hull, that joint was flawed - and there is significant delamination at the joint.

I ground it all down (finished tonight) now it's time to rebuild.

[slippery73]

Lilrichard: What ever happened with the tower you were getting from travis? I was in last week and i didn't see it in the shop, you end up getting it or he sell it to someone else?

[LilRichard]

It is still there - I told him to take his time on it because (obviously) I am in no rush.  Spoke to him last week and they were finishing it up... should have it this month.  I just didn't see any reason to have him hurry through it when it's just going in my garage for a few months.

[Shine]

Richard, that really stinks.  We found the same thing in our demo.  We ground a lot out and added quite a bit of new glass.

At least you have the boat upside down and you can make some repairs

That keel really takes a beating and should have been made a little thicker (they should have known these boats would be re-built 40 years later   ).  Ours still had a solid, but waterlogged, piece of fir in there.

Off the top of my head I cannot think of an easy way to make the repair.  A sure way is to grind the keel down until its very thin, and use it as a form to lay new glass.  You would have to lap it down onto the hull be about 6" on each side, which would require some faring work.   :cry:

[John Jones]

I hate to hear that Rich.
Keep your spirits up.

[LilRichard]

Shine - that is exactly what I have done - I ground out 6" on either side of the keel the entire way down the hull.  My keel however is solid glass so far as I can tell.  I did a few test holes in it and I think it is solid polyester/fibers.  I just need to reglass the keel to the hull - which is easy.  Fairing is hard.  

Plus the delam of the keel combined with the cracked stringers led to some pretty heavy crazing/cracking - so I ground that out too.

[Shine]

My keel however is solid glass so far as I can tell.  I did a few test holes in it and I think it is solid polyester/fibers.  

Im sure it is.  

 What I was referring to was to basically make a new keel from the outside, using the old keel as a form (after you ground it down thin).  So if the keel is a couple inches high and wide, then you would lay 18" wide strips over the ground down keel, building up the new part.....  this is the more drastic option

Im sure the new tabbing will work also as long as the glass in the keel is in decent shape.  

All in all its not too terrible a set back, I know its frustrating because you were probably mentally past all the glassing and grinding  

[LilRichard]

Gotcha.

The old keel is in OK shape - but I was planning on adding a few layers of 1808 to it - most likely 2 or 3, and carrying those layers out onto the hull in increasing widths.  That should cure nay issues (hopefully).

And yes, I was VERY over the grinding/glassing stage.

[LilRichard]

Ok, here is a great shot illustrating the delamination and subsequent craking along the keel:



Not very pretty.  As you can see, some spots were worse than others:



Here I am looking silly applying glass to the keel.  As you can see, there is a layer of 1808 laid across the keel that overlaps where the bad glass was - there are 2 layers of 1808 total.  This picture is after I had already patched some of the deeper areas I ground out:





Time to grind again and start fairing.

[Undertow2]

...may the Schwartz be with you....

[LilRichard]

[LilRichard]

Started the fairing process last night.  Here is the Stbd side window (recall I removed them and glassed this area in):



Here is a shot of the glasswork around the keel being faired:



More to follow after this weekend.

[LilRichard]

Alright - another weekend gone and I am closer to priming the bottom.  

The front of the keel was not in particularly good shape - even all the way up to the stem of the boat - so I added a little structural putty to fill in some voids and layed a new layer of 1808 all the way up, followed by a layer of 6oz to reduce print through.





That was obviously all faired out too.  Thanks to my good friend Jake for giving me a respite on the DA:





Looks a little better now:



There were some areas along the chine which I repaired a long time ago - but never faired or got the edges right - here is an example before any fairing:



Then it was time to move back to prepping for paint.  Where I had done glasswork already had been faired out - but the some of the gelcoat still had some deep scratches from the high speed I took the bottom paint off with.  So I started with an 80 grit and removed the deep scratches.  Then I "tiger striped" or guide coated the hull with cheap spray paint.  Then hit the hull with 120 grit.  It took us a few hours of work, but the hull is now SMOOTH.

I forgot to take shots of the "finished product", but will toss some up laer this week.  Also started fairing the transom - it looks nice.