- Page 7 -
Installation Part II
With the new core now being complete, and a few days of setup time now gone by, it was time to finish off the hump that the seats would be mounted to. I sanded all the fiberglass off with the belt sander until I reached the plywood. When I fiberglass the lid back onto the hump, the bare wood would create a solid bond. From my experience, fiberglassing over old fiberglass creates a week bond and doesn’t fuse together too well. When the hump was completely sanded, I vacuumed all excess dust and used mineral spirits to clean any unseen dirt and grime. With the surface now prepared I cut the matting the same dimensions as the hump. With these pieces I would wrap the hump like a present, with single strips, doing the sides first, then the top. I would run the side pieces 1" from the top on all four sides of the hump, down the sides and fuse them into the floor. Then I would use my top piece of matting to lay over the lid, leaving some extra length to allow a few extra inches to fuse into the sides of the hump and make a bond with the new matting that was there now. I would also cut 6" wide strips and lay them over where the lid piece would be fused to the rest of the hump. This would create an extra strong bond and keep the lid from popping off when the seats were bolted in. After so many years of boating, I’ve noticed that a lot of people do not sit in the seats, but jump in them and stand on them, so the reinforcement would be needed. When this was complete, I then used a 3" wide paint brush, and brushed on a layer of resin. This would seal up any cracks or old screw holes that could let water pass through into the hump.
I was almost done, with one little project to go, that being where the bracket for the ski pole rotted out the center section of the floor. The bracket measured 8" x 5" and was screwed into the floor with six wood screws. The center section of the floor consists of one long piece of 3/4" plywood that goes from the front of the boat, back to the small splashwell at the back of the boat. This is the splashwell where you would mount the bilge pump. The plywood lays elevated about 6" above the pad, and underneath the plywood it’s hollow down to the bottom of the boat. The plywood was only rotted where the bracket was, so I decided that I would cut a pattern from another piece of cardboard, measuring 10" x 7". This size would sufficiently cover the rotted area that would be cut out. I took the cardboard and laid it over the rotted area, centering the pattern so it would cover the area with a 2" overhang on all four sides, then I outlined it with a marker.
With the 2" overhang I would actually be cutting away some of the good plywood to assure that there wouldn’t be any wet rotted plywood left. I then used a sawzall with a bi-metal blade (18TPI) and cut the 10" x 7" pattern completely out. I used a bi-metal blade, because a wood blade has much bigger teeth and tends to rip the wood apart instead of cutting it. The pattern that I cut out of the floor would have to be perfect as I would be cutting a new 10" x 7" piece out of new plywood and fiberglassing it in place of the old rotted piece.My next step was to use the belt sander and sand down the entire area of the floor that I had just cut out, this again would expose clean plywood around the area to prep the new piece to be glassed in. I also belt sanded all four sides of the 10" x 7" hole in a 30 degree angle formation. My plan was to also belt sand all the sides of the new piece on a 30 degree angle that I was installing. Going back to what I said before, that underneath the plywood is hollow, so angling the cut floor hole and the new piece I was filling the hole in with, would enable it to hold itself in place when glassing began.
With everything set to go, I mixed up a small batch of resin, and with a 3" paintbrush I soaked the freshly cut areas in the floor and completely brushed the new piece to be installed, again, this would keep water from entering the new plywood. With the pattern piece and the hole in the floor soaking with resin I laid the pattern piece in the hole that I cutout for a perfect fit, then I placed the fiberglass matting over the newly constructed area, leaving plenty of overhang to allow the matte to fuse into the existing floor. Since the area was small, I used three layers of matting to ensure a super strong bond. A lot of times when people enter the boat from the back, they jump from the transom/splashwell area onto the floor in one step, putting a lot of pressure on the floor. I was now assured that nobody would be going through the floor of the boat. The core is holding up great, and the job I did actually lightened the boat from factory specs. The best thing about the job is that it’s not noticeable that a new core has been installed.