April 29, 2013 - Day 383

Over the weekend we finished installing the four stringers that will support the forthcoming wood for the rear transom deck.  

It started simply enough by gluing together two 1/4 inch pieces of marine plywood together to form a 1/2 inch piece. Then we cut out four pieces about 30 inches in length; the hole itself varies from 23 inches to 24 inches so at this point you want a little extra wood.

Then we test fit each piece and label them according to their slot...certainly would be a fail to let these things get mismatched.

We used a plumb-line and some simple trigonometry to make sure that each stringer fits the slanted back wall of the transom. Here is an example of the fit we are going for:

Once we have a rough fit we encapsulate each stringer in fiberglass matting; an addition to strengthening the wood and making in watertight, this also add thickness that we can grind away until we have the perfect fit.

Here are two of the finished pieces:

Here are all the pieces in place, supported by temporary screws:

The final step is to lay down some fiberglass to lock these stringers into place. There are some tight corners here, and one small mistake can prevent a stringer from locking in properly.

After an overnight cure, we were not pleased to find that two of the four stringers failed to adhere:

Fortunately with fiberglass, you can always grind it off and try again. Here is the fixed result:

This week we will be shaping and installing the top piece, then we will run our top layers of woven roven and fiberglass matting. Ideally this repair will seamlessly match the prior repairs to the side gunwales. Stay tuned!

May 9, 2013 - Day 393

Hey everybody! Craig and Matt are in Nosara this week trying to catch fish, so here are the pics from last week. To finish the major reconstruction of the rear transom deck, Craig ran fiberglass tape around all the corners underneath the deck. The idea here is to create a seal to catch the forthcoming epoxy mixture.

These are very tight corners and it is virtually impossible to create a perfect seal with no air bubbles with a single piece. That's why Craig laid all of these corners with two layers of tape; it's twice the work but is the only way to be sure it will work properly.

With the new plywood secured to the stringers and all the seams covered, Craig proceeds to pour epoxy mixed with phenolic microballoons into the void. This mix should penetrate all the gaps and created a bullet-proof level of strength for this whole section.

You can see in these shots that the back-fill worked to perfection with nary a drop of the red stuff falling through.

All that's left now is to wait 24-36 hours for this epoxy to fully cure and harden, then it is on to finish fiber-glassing.

Meanwhile we are continuing to search for little spots that have evaded our repairs so far with Craig tending to the anchor box and Matty continuing to shape the rear deck, gunwales, and foredeck.

May 30, 2013 - Day 414 

We are back from Costa and fired up to keep jamming on the Discoverer so we can take it on down south for a good old time.

In the last post you can see that the new piece of marine plywood has been laid on the new stringers. After the initial epoxy set up, Craig backfilled around the entire piece with an epoxy/microballoon mixture.  

The week before we left for Nosara it rained everyday and we couldn't pour any fiberglass to encase the top of the marine plywood, which was still raw and exposed to the elements. The last day before leaving we got a break in the humidity and poured a hasty piece of woven roven over the wood.

You can see that there were air bubbles along the edges and that everything is far from level, but at least it is encased and can withstand the rain while we go do this:

So once we returned the next step was to level out the hasty pour from before and get a fresh start at making this thing look right. We used the 90 degree biaxial weave because the ribbing helps it hold tight to corners.

The pour came out much cleaner than the first attempt, and you can see in these shots how well the corners set up. While there are some air pockets and other imperfections that will be ground out and replaced, most of the corners achieved adhesion with no air bubbles at all.

This also allows our first unobstructed view of our marine plywood and we were happy to see no cracks, fissures, or other signs of stress in either the wood or the fiberglass.

After another round of block sanding Matt applies a hot coat of resin and wraps it in wax paper; using a spatula we can work out the air pockets and create a nearly common level in preparation for the final run with the sander.

One trick is to remove the paper as soon as the resin begins to set because if you leave it too long the paper with shred and get encased in resin, which is a pain to correct and costs time.

Next up we will apply the same technique to these fuel covering boards and the central deck cover, as well as a final pour on the nose and foredeck to bring everything to a factory-perfect level. We'll see...

'til next time!

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