soft floor question

[Troutkiller2006]

boat in question is a 87 center console with severe rot every where. ive done some transoms and stringers but never floors. not the work im afraid of as much as the cost. that floor is gonna eat up a lot of glass and resin and that stuff aint cheap!

so if you guys could please give me a heads up of whats involved in redoing the floor it would be real hepful. kinda hoping that since its a liner boat and not a rolled gunnel that maybe there is no wood in the floor and its just the stringers and braces underneath that are rotten making it weak. that would be awesome but i know better!

thanks in advance

[smokeonthewater]

Eh nope it's a wood floor and the stringers are almost certainly also rotten... Good chance the transom is at least starting to go... Drill test holes from the inside...

Sadly you are absolutely right... The cost of materials can easily exceed the value of a hull.

[Troutkiller2006]

the stringes and transom are dust, literally. no need to drill any holes. the po installed a hatch in the deck just forward of the console and lined it with aluminium. not a good idea or a good job. i suspect that caused the rot.

whats got me interested in doing this is 1) the hull looks near immaculate! its all there, gel coat is still shiny and hardly a scratch on the boat! 2) the hull is free. and 4) myboy is almost ten and every time i go fishing with a friend he asks if he can go. of course i cant invite him along when i was invited myself. cant just show up like, "i brought a case of bud and a small child".

i have a 25 foot chaparral and i take my kid out regularly on it but cant really do any inshore fishing on it. its good for snapper fishing and running out to deeper water but that stuff is seasonal and expensive to do. nothing sounds better to me than going fishing with my kid! and now that he is finally showing some real interest in it i need to put him on the fish so he doesnt lose interest. i need a small center console. and since im poor, an old fixer upper is the only way im gonna be able to pull it off right now. and i cant think of one better than a v20!

so please, anyone who might know, tell me what i would be getting into with this floor. lids gotta come off to do the stringers, im guessing to come at it from underneath?

[SkunkBoat]

Best way- Cap off, flip it and fix it. Then you also have access to stringers and transom.

The other way is cut the deck out, flip & fix, patch it back in. Easier removal & handling than cap off but not as clean end result. No access to inside transom either.

Both of these ways save the original skin of the deck.

Some guys have trashed the deck and made a new one entirely. Then you have to glass a new skin and make hatches yourself.

[Troutkiller2006]

thanks skunk. after looking around the forum for as long as i have, i was hoping you would chime in. was hoping for more replies too but it that time of the year, most peeps are out enjoying there boats or working on them.

if i do this i will definitely be removing the liner to get at everything. ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.

any idea where i can find some good reading on the floor repair procedures or some guidance? what materials to use and maybe a lay up schedule would be a great help! i like to learn as much as possible before doing or even considering such a project.

i did have an idea earlier, maybe my dumbest ever lol! what if after the transom and stringers are sorted out i didnt even replace the rotten wood in the floor? since corsa and the like are too expensive for my budget, what if i cut out the rotten wood and instead of replacing it and glassing it in i just glued the correct thickness foam board to the underside of the deck so that it reaches the stringers properly and then filled all the voids underneath with foam? i could screw some generic plywood down on top of the deck to keep it from bulging and heaving and fill her up!

[smokeonthewater]

Seacast and the like ARE heavy, but they also ARE very slightly lighter than wood and glass.

A wood deck would be CHEAPER than foam filling... Closed cell expanding foam is $$$

There is no way you can keep the deck from exploding from expanding foam other than cutting plenty of good size escape holes for it to over flow from as it expands.

[smokeonthewater]

Oh and you aren't getting much action because you haven't asked many specific questions...
For the most part you have asked for someone to write you a book with all the details of your project.... You gotta do the leg work and we can help you out when you get stuck...

My V-20 had the stringers n deck replaced by a former member here before I got it..
He went by kamikaze iirc so you could search for his posts here.

[Destroyer]

thanks skunk. after looking around the forum for as long as i have, i was hoping you would chime in. was hoping for more replies too but it that time of the year, most peeps are out enjoying there boats or working on them.

if i do this i will definitely be removing the liner to get at everything. ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.

any idea where i can find some good reading on the floor repair procedures or some guidance? what materials to use and maybe a lay up schedule would be a great help! i like to learn as much as possible before doing or even considering such a project.

i did have an idea earlier, maybe my dumbest ever lol! what if after the transom and stringers are sorted out i didnt even replace the rotten wood in the floor? since corsa and the like are too expensive for my budget, what if i cut out the rotten wood and instead of replacing it and glassing it in i just glued the correct thickness foam board to the underside of the deck so that it reaches the stringers properly and then filled all the voids underneath with foam? i could screw some generic plywood down on top of the deck to keep it from bulging and heaving and fill her up!

Ok, now you're starting to think out of the box, and that's good.

I'm sure that others besides me have redone their floor, but here's what I did. The story: The previous owner never vented under the floor, especially in the winter months with the boat covered.. so the floor rotted out but the stringers were still fine. Thank God he sold the boat to me before they did. The fix: Cut out the floor leaving a 2" border around the seats and in from the hull at the transom. Take out the floor, turn it over, pry, scrape, remove and clean all of the rotted wood off the underside of the floor. Then glue (Liquid Nails or equivalent) and Stainless screw irregular pieces of plywood to the underside. (Use irregular pieces so they don't make a continuous joint line like a box shape would). Then SEAL (something Wellcraft never did) the wood. I used fiberglass, but I don't see why you couldn't just use a good brand of wood sealer or epoxy. (Note: I had to remove all the old foam in the voids as it was waterlogged). Then I made a shelf out of scrap plywood and glued and screwed it to the underside of the 2" border that I left when I cut out the deck. Foamed the voids over the top so they would meet the bottom of my new deck. (Let the stringers be your guide for that part, and you'll have to cut and scrape the foam to properly shape it before you put your deck back onto it. But it's soft, and, while messy, it goes pretty quickly). Then I put the floor back onto the shelf, with glue and screws, and finally I covered the entire deck in U-Pol Raptor Truck bed liner (like Rhinoliner). I used the liner material because it's tough, has a nice soft rubbery feel to it on bare feet, is a great non-skid, cleans up easily and, because of it's thickness when applying, it filled all the joint lines and screw heads, making them completely invisible.
So your comment about filling the voids to the bottom of the deck is valid. I did it and my deck is solid as a rock.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l111/Destroyer511/photo6.jpg (http://s94.photobucket.com/user/Destroyer511/media/photo6.jpg.html)

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l111/Destroyer511/photo7.jpg (http://s94.photobucket.com/user/Destroyer511/media/photo7.jpg.html)

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l111/Destroyer511/photo9.jpg (http://s94.photobucket.com/user/Destroyer511/media/photo9.jpg.html)

[SkunkBoat]

ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.


Consider CarbonCore pourable compound(aka Arjay/Nidacore). It flows much better than Seacast. I haven't calculated how many buckets are needed but it will be a lot. The full Transom was 3 buckets.
Whatever you do will be $$$$$.
Since Carbon Core is self-leveling, it can be used to pour a deck. I saw a video once that showed that...

[phatdaddy]

You can spend as much or as little as you want. I did like D did except, my hull had no foam to contend with. You don't have to foam it back in, so don't. Repair stringers and transom with skunks pour method , then replace deck with Ds methoud,.

[Troutkiller2006]

thanks smoke. and sorry for the vague questions. guess i dont really know the right questions to ask, just trying to get an idea of what alls involved. and youre right, foam would be a lot more expensive, except for the +/- 30 gallons of resin and 100 gallons of isocyanate ive got sitting in my foam rig right now. its a little old but im sure i can kick it and its wall foam but there really is very little difference. and i think that even though i dont spray much anymore, just a side gig since the economy collapsed and i went into composites for a big company, i still have some contacts and might could get some "samples" from some of the manufacturers. they use to send me that crap all the time and it would just set in the shop and ruin.

theres always something new to learn about poly's and i dont consider myself a guru by any means. but i do know that the biggest difference between pour foams is the force they excerpt when expanding do to the different surfactants used. and trying something like i described could be a really good way to screw up a boat!. but overfilling and shaving, i dont think, wouldnt be as firm as cast in place under pressure

whats expensive right no, and has been for a long time, is resins!!! foam, fiberglass... it dont matter. if it says resin that ****s expensive! every time oil prices go up, resin goes up with it. but when oil prices fall do the resin prices fall with it? hell no!

[Troutkiller2006]

thanks man, thats really helpful! so underneath the floor is just some wood bonded to the bottom of the floor? its not encapsulated? i was thinking it would be cored in with many layers on the bottom. this is good news from a budget stand point. doubt if my ole lady will see it that way but... good news, lol

thanks man

[SkunkBoat]

No, under the floor is wood between glass. Actually, lots of little plywood squares. You can find some pix here if you look around. What you want to do is save the outside deck skin and fix from the bottom.
If you take the cap off and flip it (easily said...) you can cut out bad wood from bottom. The cap is "glued" with a poly resin filler/adhesive. Much of it has probably already broken loose and is probably blocking the drains in the bilge.

Make sure your repair is not thicker than original because the cap has to fit when it goes back on.

[smokeonthewater]

The overfill and trim method is THE method used for all foam filled boats BUT I would do anything I could to avoid foam in a wood stringer boat...

No ventilation equals a rotten hull.


MAYBE you could use that spray foam for a couple side jobs to fund the materials to do the boat... Then you can tell the wifey it was all free!!!!

[Troutkiller2006]

boy could i use a side job or two right now! or some overtime at the shipyard! how much you pay me to cut your grass man? frickin doctors bills... i use to have good health insurance but now, thanks to obamacare, i have expensive insurance that sucks. at least thats what the doctors tell me

thanks for all the good advise guys. im leaning more and more towards doing this, just gotta get past my fears of the unknown and of the time its gonna take

[smokeonthewater]

I suppose I could sell you my v..... I dunno what to charge tho... I have about $250 cash and about $10,000,000 labor and swap equity in it lol....

[smokeonthewater]

Plus you could mow the grass while ur here LOL

[Destroyer]

thanks man, thats really helpful! so underneath the floor is just some wood bonded to the bottom of the floor? its not encapsulated? i was thinking it would be cored in with many layers on the bottom. this is good news from a budget stand point. doubt if my ole lady will see it that way but... good news, lol

thanks man

Yes, underside is just wood glued to the underside of the deck. No encapsulation. That's why it rots so fast. If Wellcraft has spent just a few more dollars and put a thin layer of glass over the wood it would have saved countless boats from premature deaths. Just remember to use irregular shaped pieces of plywood when you replace it so there's less chance of a structural weak spot like there would be with square pieces.
You're welcome

[Kracker Jack]

My personal opinion is that wellcraft did a absolute horrible job building these boats. On My 74 restoration i found some of the worst layups in my life. It almost seems like they were made to be disposable. I think you have answered your own question....the boat is in great shape with out a scratch correct? I say lift the liner...repair the sole ( floor core) from the bottom side..remove rotted stringers(grid) and replace with marine ply or comparible material and layup with resin.i built my boat with poly resin and have beat the crap out of it and it is soli as a rock. Im not gonna sugar coat it for you..its a long row to hoe but its so freaking worth. What ever you decide we are all here to help.

[Troutkiller2006]

Plus you could mow the grass while ur here LOL

took a vacation day today so i cut my own grass,and it still might not get done!

[Troutkiller2006]

Plus you could mow the grass while ur here LOL

My personal opinion is that wellcraft did a absolute horrible job building these boats. On My 74 restoration i found some of the worst layups in my life. It almost seems like they were made to be disposable. I think you have answered your own question....the boat is in great shape with out a scratch correct? I say lift the liner...repair the sole ( floor core) from the bottom side..remove rotted stringers(grid) and replace with marine ply or comparible material and layup with resin.i built my boat with poly resin and have beat the crap out of it and it is soli as a rock. Im not gonna sugar coat it for you..its a long row to hoe but its so freaking worth. What ever you decide we are all here to help.

there are so many really good designs that were horribly built. companies hire help as cheap as they can and when they have a hot seller they they hire those guys buddies and cousins and push them out the door as fast as they can. the shop motto quickly becomes "cant see it from my house", but in spanish. thats why hi dollar boats are almost always of much better quality, youre paying for craftsman and a good quality control program.

my boats definitely get beat to hell. we dont get big seas here in my part of the gulf, but 2-3 footers 3-5 seconds apart is a rough wet ride. and running anywhwere from 6 miles to cat, 10-20 miles to the marsh or 40 miles to chandelieur... i am a bitnervous bout seacast or arjay. but the time it saves makes me wanna believe in it. my ole lady is not exactly onboard with this project. so when i get started i gotta be working faster than a pack of kenyans on crystal meth

[smokeonthewater]

I've used seacast... That chit is BOMBPROOF .... Ya gotta see it to believe it..

A small sample of it just laughed at my 20' sledge hammer

[Troutkiller2006]

I've used seacast... That chit is BOMBPROOF .... Ya gotta see it to believe it..

A small sample of it just laughed at my 20' sledge hammer

just in your transom or transom and stringers? how much of it did it take to do it? i think im gonna start ordering stuff next thursday. gonna try and have most all of the materials before i bring the boat home. guy im getting it from needs a couple weeks to get his motor off of it. maybe i can get it done before the wife even notices it,lol.

[Troutkiller2006]

pic

[SkunkBoat]

http://www.carbon-core.com/carbonbond-transom.htm

There is a volume calculator here and there is a Product data sheet pdf.
My V20 25" transom took three buckets $185 per 5gal bucket

When I tried to buy Arjay, I could not find anyone selling it. A chain of emails lead me to Carbon-Core CarbonBond Transom compound. It is the same thing as Arjay & the old 3M NidaBond pourable.

You need to try and find a local seller because shipping will kill you. Use the Contact Us and ask them for info

[Troutkiller2006]

i wonder if that stuffs anything like seimens putty. when we were building the almost 900 foot carbon fiber zumwalt class ddg1000 destroyers we used a lot of that stuff. hundreds and hundreds of tons of it, literally. the navy was/is in love with that ****. and i dont blame them. we would spend millions and millions to build scale models for testing purposes. we would load 20-30 foot tall balsa core carbon fiber deck houses that took over a year to build onto barges for the navy to take out into the gulf and try to destroy them. the results were extremely impressive!!! and we learned a lot. proved a lot of theories that our mad scientist came up with that the industry will still call bs. like the proven fact that quarter inch step backs in a layup are twice as strong and ten times less likely to delam than four inch step backs! same designs failed at 20 g shockloads when 13 mil stepbacks survived 40 g's which was the max they could go. but most guys brains cant accept that. but i worked with the team that invented the VARTM process, whats commonly known as vacuum bagging. these guys were determined to do what the industry said couldnt be done

sorry, im rambling. it was just so cool to be a part of that project. even as a worker bee. point was that the seimens putty we used was unbelievable. and i think like $2800 a pail. something stupid like that. but unbelievably easy to make. a coworker there worked for seimens and his job there was making the putty. navy wouldnt let us make it though, they funny that way. was basically peanut butter with hysol, 8084 and a couple other things mixed under vacuum??? i shoulda payed attention, or at least stole a bunch of **** when obama closed the yard down. truck load after truckload of materials went to the landfill

[Troutkiller2006]

so hard to post pics

[smokeonthewater]

A buddy of mine used seacast for transom and stringers on a little cimmeron bass boat...

He had a little left over and poured up a test sample n also another buddy used a little to fill a void in a rotten 4x6 stringer in his 26' cruiser... He didn't even scoop out rot, just sopped up standing water w a towel dumped the seacast in the hole....

When he closed the hatch the pneumatic strut stuck into it....

Later it was a nightmare trying to get the hatch back open and we never did manage to get the end of the strut out of the hardened seacast... It just wasn't worth the blood sweat and tears of trying to cut, grind, and break that stuff.

[smokeonthewater]

http://www.transomrepair.net/pages.php?pID=10&CDpath=0

"......Seacast tm uses chopped reinforcement recycled fiberglass where others use ceramic spheres. In comparison fiberglass strands provide superior tensile strength better than ceramic spheres. Pound for pound, we dropped a 20 lb. weight from 10 feet creating 200 ft lbs of force. The difference is we dropped it once on the competition and they split and broke on the first drop. We dropped it 20 times on the Seacast tm, which resulted in just minor cosmetic damage."

EDIT:
Btw while 200 ft/lbs sounds impressive... I figured the force of impact for their test at 60759 lbs of pressure at assuming very little (.001 meters) compression upon impact...