recoring, again.

[jfdubu]

After reading the threads on recoring rotten hulls I had no intention of looking for any problems in my deck. That job just looks like it sucks.
But, Sunday morning started with the simple project of rebeding my bow stantion and refilling some old holes not done right by the PO of the boat. I have pretty good access to the bolts thru the anchor locker and with Butly tape in hand this was going to be a 1 hour project.

Ok, stop laughing now,, I did. As soon as I looked at at the underside of the fore deck I had an ah sh%& moment. The underside of the hause pipe was all cracked and the bolts on the furling fair lead and deck cleat had rust. I need more tools.

Long story short, The core in this area was soaked. I cut away the bottom skin, about 18" by 12" and pulled all the balsa out. This ranged from dripping wet to dry. This job does suck.
I then added two layers of glass to the cut out panel and the underside of the deck under the deck cleat. I wanted it to be stronger. I then cut and glued (west w/co silica) foam panels cut to fit in place, then glued the panel back in place. I had drilled a bunch of holes in the panel to find the wetness earlier so I then injected foam into all the holes. This was to done fill any voids between the foam panels and core. Two days so far. Right now everything is curing. Tomorrow I go back and grind everything smooth, Fill and tab all the seems and add a layer of glass on the whole area for good measure. Did I mention this job sucks? Upside down in the anchor locker? Anyway, the plan is after the last glass cures drill and pot new holes for the cleat, fairlead and hause pipe. I figure four more evenings before the job is complete.

I left out some of the details, cleaning w/acetone, etc but I think I did things the right way. I'd welcome any comments on the procedure I used.

John

[mbetter]

If you don't mind me asking, why did you decide to go with foam for the repair over the balsa that was in there before?

[jfdubu]

The reasoning behind the foam is
1) Access and price of the material. I used the blue styrofoam panel, $8.00 and I had it in 15 mins
2) foam bonds the epoxy very well
3) the foam forms a very light weight beam section (very strong) between the skins.
4) Foam won't absorb water.

[eherlihy]

What kind of foam did you use? A potential issue would be the compressive strength of the material. I have used MacroCore for this type of application.


Here is a pointer to where you can read up on MacroCore; Custom Syntactic Systems Designed & Produced by Engineered Syntactic Systems

[jfdubu]

I used the Dow styrofoam board from lowes (5 minutes away). The only place compressive strenght would be an issue is at the deck cleat. That'e one of the reasons I added layers of woven glass to that area on the underside of the deck skin and the inside of the underskin. Between that, potting the bolt holes and addind another tab layer on glass to the underside I'm quite certain the fix will be stronger than the original.

John