I was wondering the same thing when replaceing stringers ,,They allways say dont have any HARD SPOTS when replaceing them or your hull could blow apare while you are hitting the waves ,,,I could never understand what "they" meant by NO Hard Spots... Some things i read even says to leave a void between the hull and the bottom of the stringer while others have said lay down a heavey bead od 5200 construction adhes. ,,and i seen also where they dig out all the wood in the stringer and leave the fiberglass sides and fill the strings void up with the same stuff they use for the trasom ,, the hole stringer rebuild thing seems to be very very confuseing to me,,,, I Know we got some real fiberglass pros on here maybe we can come to a "THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO DO IT procedure" like what epoxy,,, what filler,, what mat,, etc ,,,,,With step by step instructions like fiberglass for dummies

I'm no fiberglass pro, heck I wouldn't even make a fiberglass rookie. But I do know that the stringers are the strength in a non cored hull boat. Without stringers the boat would just crack apart to pieces as soon as it was put under any sort of load. From what I know teh stringers should be firmly atatched to the hull bottom to retain max strength and rigidity. I know BERTRAM and some others played around with hollow tabbed stringers, but many have replaced these with cored stringers due to flex and cracking issues with the tabbed stringers.

i have another question for you guys while we are talking about resin thickeners and glueing. Im gonna be use a polyester resin on this project just to get that cleared up. The guy who gave me this boat runs a cabinet shop and rips and planes hardwood for a living. I was in his shop today and the fine saw dust in piles is ridiculous!!!!!!why cant I sift my own "wood flour" from his batches of hardwood fine saw dust? and what should i be paying a yard for 1708? how many layers of 1708 should i put on my floor "deck" ?

Do you think
 

Wellcraft used any special techniques? Or just cut some plywood patterns and throw a liberal amount of glass at it?

There are so many ways to skin this cat, everyone that does any glasswork has an opinion, myself included. Those sites are great Curapa.

Ridge im gonna be honest with ya there wasnt any glass work unnder this floor that impressed me at all!!!!! Huge pin holes in the glass to the stringers, looped glass over the secondary stringers that allowed water to penetrate and hold water since the first day it was splashed back in 1974!!!! anything i do to this boat from this point on is gonna be better than what the heck it was. not trying to knock wellcraft but in the 70's the glass work at factory was terrible unless my boat was built on a friday

I have no idea about wood flour, from the floor or store bought in the can. If it is dry,could be the same stuff. Try it on a test spot??:head: Then buy something you know will work. LOL. When you tally up the bill of materials and sweat you may think better of excursions into the unknown. Out of respect I will allow someone else to help/crush you with pricing.

Glad to see you made a choice on Resin. That topic gets ugly from time to time.. :clap: You could use chopped strand and cabosil for the wood free thickener solution.. What you have done so far is looking good. Keep it up. :beer:

thankyou for the compliments on the project thus far. As you can tell Im addicted to this web site and addicted to this build, I feel like with all my posts that people think im trying to take over this site!! lol!! I have looked and researched alot of other "boat building forums" and your right everybody has a different opinion on certain techniques to use when it comes to glass work.I am very opened minded and always appreciate all info and tips you guys give me on my project. I built a motorcycle last winter and have never even built a bike before i did it as a challenge just like this boat.

i dug up this thread from another website. they talk about bedding the stringers

http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=25844

I understand leaving flex between stringer and floor deck...but he also says keep stringer OFF hull...WHAT??...:head:

Full floating stringers is another method of building Reel. Cut some wood spacers, place under your stringers and tab them into place with some cloth wet out about every foot or so. Let it kick, remove the wedges, touch sand and lay the glass to it. Anywhere the plywood stringer comes in contact with the hull is a potential hard spot. I don't like the void it leaves under the stringer but I would consider this route if the boat wasn't getting any foam flotation, just install the limber holes. I would also coat the stringers with resin just in case water finds its way into the void. Filleting is the same procedure and would need to be done after tabbing.
By bedding, you are putting a small flexible barrier under the plywood stringers. You can use small wood spacers here too to ensure no plywood is contacting the hull. I like it because it fills voids where the stringers aren't conforming to the hull 100%, and it holds the stringers firmly in place. The layer(s) of glass you put over the stringers overlaps onto the hull and distributes the load.
If the plywood stringer is flying in close formation with the hull but only touching the hull in one or two spot 2" long, after glassing it in place the plywood can actually be pressured up against the hull bottom due to shrinkage of the resin. Some small boats have obvious hard spots just looking at the wavy gelcoat but are perfectly safe for what they were intended to do. Hard spots tend to spider crack gelcoat before catastrophic failure and stand as the main reason I don't like bottom paint.(hiding agent)