Cabin Sole

I needed to fill this gap. I started by trimming the edges parallel with right angles. 

Next I cut this board and glassed both sides with fiberglass cloth. 

We'll see how it looks tomorrow after the edges are trimmed.  If it is not thick enough I'll add another layer or two 

Prepping the cabin sole for priming and paint

Today I did some more grinding. As the floors are almost entirely done with respect to the structure, I am nearly ready to paint. I decided to grind off all the old layers of paint and do the final prep work for priming and painting the cabin sole.  I can do this the same time I paint the port and starboard settees and lockers. 

So on went the mask and goggles and I wet crazy grinding the floors. I also cleaned up, with the grinder, the rough edges on my recent tabbing work and while i was at it, hit the rough edges of the tabbing inside of the starboard settee lockers. I don't want to be reaching in their for something and cutting my fingers on sharp edges. 

Here is a view the port side bulkhead tabbing adjacent to the aft head.  This bulkhead had no tabbing at all prior to this!  It now has a layer of stitched mat, followed by a fillet and then a layer of mat and a layer of roving. To the right is the newly exposed floor--the tan colored bits.

The starboard side did have some tabbing originally, but it was broken and the 'repair' someone made was a thin layer of fiberglass cloth--completely useless except to prevent cuts.  I ground it all off and laid it up like the other side with a fillet to smooth the curve.

In the background here to, you can see the tan base layer of the floor exposed after all the paint was ground off.   The lines are breaks in the non skid for decoration. 

I may add one or two more layers of stitched mat tabbing to these two bulkheads. It would be easy to do now and add a bit more strength.  I will probably overlap them at the elbow so I can both go higher on the bulkhead side and add more thickness to the elbow area. I might have to grind off a little more paint to do this take the bond up higher. 

Back to the cabin sole (floors). There is only a tiny amount left to grind off in the forward cabin and forward passageway--15 minutes work.

I will also need to fill some areas of the floor to fair it some. These would be the areas I repaired which in a few spots are not as flat as is like.  A random orbital sander will identify those areas and some easy sand West 410 filler added to my epoxy mix will fix those. 

It makes sense to me to priming and painting the lockers, at the same time as the floor.  I can protect these from epoxy drips with wax and/or lay down some plastic sheeting covered with paper, which will also make clean up work faster. 

Once painted, I can also use a hose after vacuuming the inside of the boat to eliminate all dust.  One of my goals is to be able to keep the boat clean as time goes on.   It would be nice to overnight on it a few nights a week to save on my commuting and allow me to work longer hours. 

I started grinding the companionway bulkhead. 

There is Kokini wondering what all that noise was. I had this hatch shut while I was working.

I started countersinking the exposed bolt heads that are used to support my two isolation transformers and the engine anti-siphon loop.  I'd lake to cover this with either white laminate, white epoxy paint, or a nice wood veneer.  

The bulkhead on the right will be removed and replaced--probably with 3/4" plywood, and shortened to make the teak hand grip more comfortable. 

I spent a lot of time vacuuming also to control the dust.

My final job of the day was sanding the boards that drop in the floor.  Next I put a coat of epoxy on those I had not finished--the two water tank cover boards, and the two mast base access boards.  It is even more important for these to be sanded primed and painted along with the floor because wood is not as durable as fiberglass. 

Tomorrows plans include cutting one of my 2x12's into dividers for my pickup bed. My truck is full of rolls of wire, tools and boat parts. I want to organize it into three sections placing the things I won't need right away close to the cab, the things I need near the tail gate, and everything else, like tools, in bins in the middle. 

The idea being to get everything off the boat that I am not using so it is easy to keep clean and dust free. 

Also, the area where all the tools and things are stored, the aft upper berths may all be ripped out soon. Getting everything off the boat will make room to work. 

Once the aft bulkhead goes in, I will have to enter and leave that aft compartment from the lazarettes.  I'm thinking about setting up tarps for shade and to protect the deck.  I need a small work bench to allow me to mix epoxy on deck. 

Today I rigged one tarp for shade  I plan to rig a few more.  One forward for shade, and one aft for both shade and protection for my fiberglass materials and epoxy.

More cabin sole repairs

Water coming in through the companionway hatch made it's way into the core material where two pieces butt up against each other.  I decided to fix this and make the floor rot proof.

Since the motor is located in this area, the damaged area is located on either side.  I started with the port side and cut the top layer of fiberglass off and scooped out a bunch of wet and rotten core, along with some god core to make a nice rectangular area.   Last week I bonded the bottom layer of fiberglass together and was interrupted by a week of sailing. 

Yesterday, I added more fiberglass material, bonded some 1/2" core material, and filled in all the gaps with thickened epoxy.  Today, I added five layers of fiberglass, and some of these were double layered stitched mat.  I'll need to fill in some more as the original core material was 1".  I thought 1" would be too thick.  Perhaps I should have used it anyway and ground it down a bit.  It will be fine as is and I'll add a few more layers tomorrow and then fill any gaps to make it level there.  It is coming along nicely.

On the other side I ran into a problem.  Under the two panels was a piece of steel that had rusted, expanded and was making the joint uneven.  I tried breaking out pieces, and ultimately decided to cut it out completely.  Once I removed that piece I still had a misaligned cabin sole.

Yesterday, I tried to mate up the two sides with several layers of fiberglass mat.  I was only partially successful.  Today I ground out half of yesterdays work.  I used a piece of wood to push the low side up, and later used weight to push the high side down.  I used three layers of stitched mat--so it is really six layers of material, and after pushing out the excess resin, laid a piece of plastic down, put a board on top and weighted it down with everything in sight.  I think it will look great when I pull it apart tomorrow.  Which reminds me, I need more wax paper.

I parallel with this effort, I had cut out the three water tank access ports into one large rectangular access, and scooped out the core on the edges and filled (sealed) those edges with thickened epoxy.  I found a few area with lots of rotten core, scooped out one section and cut away a section leading towards the starboard side panel repair.  I plan to core that section tomorrow when I recore that part of the floor.  I may try and use some 1" foam core I have.  I will have to see how it looks tomorrow.

I'm eager to wrap up this work, as I don't have use of the companionway ladder until it is done.

The plywood that will cover the forward salon bulkhead is cut, and primed.  I will need to sand it lightly, and paint it with flattened two part Perfection paint.  Overkill?  Perhaps, but then it will hold up better with a hard paint and be easy to touch up.

Fiberglass work has been rushed.  The hot spell has means the resin and hardener are already hot.  I found they were cooking off in the pot as I mixed them--even with slow cure.    Fortunately, these were relatively small jobs and I could work fast.

I will be very pleased to see this floor work done on the cabin sole.  I'll have one more job, scooping out the edges around the engine bay, and filling those with thickened epoxy to totally seal the core on these panels.  If I have any other area with damaged core, it will not really matter as the floors are solid and water won't be able to get in or out.

On the plus side, I now am 100% certain that I can smell rotten core.  I've smelled that smell many times--now I know exactly what it is.  Opening up these panels inside the boat make it very clear what wet and rotten core smells like.

I'm guessing three more days to finish off the floors.

A few pictures:

ECHO taken today.

Yesterdays work removing this steel plate.  

Here is the floor before I bonded the two sides together.  You can see the cut out leading towards the water tank opening.  All that area on the right side also needs to be re-cored.

Cabin Sole Repair Nearly Complete

Here is an update on what the sole looks like.  I cleaned up and cut a board to cover the water tank. I will probably need to put a layer of fiberglass on top of that to make the floor more even.

I'll be moving on to a much easier repair aft at a seam between two floor panels.  This will be much easier.  I'll just grind off the top layer back about 5 inches on either side, scoop out the rotted core, glass the bottom layers together, recore, fill and glass the top together again.  The only issue will be getting in and out of the boat with the ladder removed.

Cabin Sole--99% Completed

I set a goal of having this floor finished by the end of day Monday--since I'm pretty much done, that will not be a problem.  I will be done tomorrow when my last session dries.

These photos were taken over the last few days.

Here is the balsa core glued in.  At the time this picture was taken: I was filling in the gaps in the core in the picture below.  The plywood is being used to hold the retaining fiberglass board strips.  Those are being used to seal off the core to prevent water ingress.  The plywood is holding the retaining strips in position.

Below port side glassed in, dried.  Note:  It is clear enough you can see the tan colored filler and balsa through three or more layers of of fiberglass.  I started with two 8" wide layers of matt strips on the outside edges.  I added some extra on the aft edge.  Then I expoxied down two large pieces of matt and the top layer of cloth.  I hoped I could do both sides in one session but that was not practical.  I was nice having a strong dry platform to work on the next day when this all dried.

Today I glassed in the other (port) side.  Again I started with several strips of tape on the edges.  Then I followed up with two layers of thick matt over the entire side, and then covered that with a top layer of fiberglass cloth--so that the weave provides some traction.  Finally there is a layer of tape--stitched matt sewn to fiberglass cloth on top of the outside edge--see the tape on the top edge?

So the floors are just about done except for some touch up.  I've completed the bridge connecting the two sides--in right side of photo above adjacent to the mast.  I will need to complete the section in front (to the left) of the three water tank ports, and to the right of the opening in the floor

All this means that I can start tabbing in the salon furniture as soon as it is built. 

Cabin Sole Repair

I cut a piece of 1/4" thick fiberglass paneling for my floor repair.  Here it is.  While it seems simple, it was a complicated cut and went rather well as I used a cardboard pattern.

Most of the day was spent pulling off the shrink wrap and finishing up emptying the boat, organizing tools and material in the back upper bunks, and locating some pieces of wood which will be used for floor support and as part of a mount for an autopilot.

The three holes in the middle are for access to the forward water tank.  The top will be one long piece of wood, which will rest on the three holes.  This panel will provide 1" of space all the way around such only one board will be needed to inspect the water tanks.