I started at 8;30 this morning and worked till 5. I have been putting in two hours every night after work. This was where I did my grinding and adding new glass and running the vacuum pump. I didn't need any of that today! I was skimming and long boarding along with a little palm sander finishing. My vacuum bagging was crude. I bought a pump from Harbor Freight. I ran a flex tube to a jar lid, another ran out to the area I was working on. The area was surrounded by a special tape that is just putty in tube form. I lay a piece of drop cloth over that and had the tube run through it. I kept duct tape handy for leaks and did my lay up. I press the plastic over it and start the pump. If any epoxy got in the tube, it was pulled back to the jar. I just threw that piece of tube away. I would usually put up two layers of glass per vacuum set up. I tried to do it with out the pump, but it always filled with huge bubbles. No good!
Anyway, here is the finished repair. Most of the area is the actual fiberglass, I kept the skim coats very thin. Next up is a primer coat and then a polyurethane paint job. I will spend some of Sunday, cleaning up and hauling my tools home.
before....
After...a Picasso
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I opened up a strip to the port side of the mast but it was dry!
Anyway, the mast and the hatch have been completely blocked. The balsa core was exposed at both locations, creating my little nightmare.
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Behind the hatch is a fitting that has to be re-drilled (two actually!) They have been filled with solid fiberglass, no core at all. In the bottom left, you can see one of my test cores. I have drilled a few under the sides, to my surprise, the core is plywood.
I found a damp spot over the TV. It has been open for a month and is dry. It is near impossible to get everything 100%. That said I think I have turned the tide, There is always something to do, something to fix. There are a few boats in the yard with wet hulls. That is a death sentence, it is the reason I always insist on buying boats with solid hulls.
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A couple of more shots. hopefully, I will have a picture of the finished product next week.
So, for the sake of anyone who might be interested, here is a sketch of the method I am using to repair wet spots in the cabin roof of an O'Day sailboat. Step one, I used a Fein tool to remove the inner shell and then the inner layer of the top proper. the damaged balsa was scraped out, the top layer prepped and coated with a layer of epoxy.
I have explained my method of encapsulating every piece of end grain balsa. This ensures that it can not get wet again.
I back fill the void between the actual top and the inner shell and then grind it back in order to get a good bond.
So I keep showing the bad area by the hatch. I have pretty much finished filling, I used a long board to get it straight and now I am at the fine sanding part of the program.
After work I pulled the rails. I want to refinish them. I had two that leaked as the bolt that holds them in place goes thru the cabin top. I bored 1 " holes up to the top layer on those two. The core is dry so the leak must have just ran down the long bolt. I made a couple of guides in order to hold the hole location when I refill. I made them on a lathe today. There is a pin that goes thru the drilled hole in the outer layer. the segment after that is tapered 1 degree (A draft angle) I will wax the pin and locate it. Then using rings of woven glass and epoxy, I will fill the hole back in. I should be able to tap on it from above to knock it out, leaving a core for the new bolt to go thru. Once the fiberglass is built up to being flush, I will grind it back a little and finish with a two part filler. the trick here is to keep that layer thin. I built a long board and have sand paper starting at 80 grit, down to 220. That is going to be fun! Well...onward!
Well, I am back at it. I encapsulated the balsa pucks as I described earlier. I thickened epoxy with Westsystem 205. I used disposable syringes to push the mix up between the pucks. Then came the disk grinding. With that done I vacuum bagged the area and laid on bi-axial cloth. This was followed by two layers of glass mat. Then I had to deal with the gap that occurs between the bottom layer of the coach roof and the inner liner. I found a dense foam strip that is a 1/4 inch thick. It worked well. With that done, another layer of bi-axial starts the outer shell. I've got two of them on so far. In an area I am repairing by the mast, There is no gap between the inner liner and the outer layer. I just built up layer after layer until I have it flush. It added a little weight but it should be strong. I will grind it a little under flush and finish with a filler, long board sanding, then I have to find a proper marine paint. I have learned a lot. Vacuum bagging has a downside. It holds the upside down glue up well but you get waves that are hard to get out. I added a fine chopped glass to the mix and that helped. You get bubbles, you can play with it but they are stubborn. The best thing is to work them into one big bubble and grind it out when dry. I have to deal with low temps, the answer is hot water bottles. You heat up water on a butane stove and fill them. Then place them on the outside. With a paint stripper gun inside I got a read of 75 degrees in time for the lay up. Now the warmer weather is here I should be able to avoid that nightmare. I still have lots to do but it is progressing....I hate winter!
This is the area by the sliding top. I finished with bi-axial. I will grind it smooth and prep to finish.
This one was weird. There was no moisture here. The balsa was pulverized ant the top was soft here because of it. I can only guess that a very heavy individual stood there while raising the main??? Anyway, it is rock hard now!
I headed off to Hawaii. The weather at home was pretty good, while I was away. Now winter has returned. I see 50 degrees next weekend and I will be back at it. Grinding and laying new fiberglass. I hope to be done by May. Hopefully this Good Ole boat will find a new home. ERRR...not the one in the picture!
She is going up for sale in the spring. 10,000 USD
Still at it. I have 6 areas approx, 2 feet by 2 feet opened up. The end grain balsa is in and two layers of woven mat is vacuumed bag under them. I hope to wrap that work up before the big freeze. I will restore the inner layer in the spring. I have learned a lot about fiberglassing upside down. The repair work is great. The sponginess up top has gone and it feels solid to walk on. I am glad the boat will get a new lease on life.
