My Transom Rebuild
 

Yet another rebuild. I was fortunate that I have a friend in the industry and the only material I needed to pay for was the marine grade plywood ($150 a sheet). My friend gave me all vinylester to work with; resin, fill, faring putty, had the gelcoat matched and four types of cloth...i may have enough to build a boat. And yes the cloth was fine after getting it wet and dying it in the attic.

I was able to get away with using one sheet. I started in the beginning of the year but my buddy who has done a few ended up with a hernea so he was out of commission for a while.

Since my buddy couldn't help, I found someone on craigslist to help with the repair, I didn't want to f it up and even think about a redo. Guys name is Rob and he is very knowledgable, been in the industry for many years.

We started by cutting the back of the transom, leaving approximately 4 inches along the bottom and both sides. Then the outer fiberglass skin had to be pried off. Not easy work. We used some chiseled 1*3s and banged down from the top. it split.

These are geat boats but the fast bang'em out production quality shows when you pull'em apart. I didn't expect to find so many areas not tabbed together. Well I dont plan on pulling the clam shell apart so I tabbed everything together for extra stength.

One thing different, most people here seem to always reuse the outer skin. Rob did not like he idea and seeing as we have so much material, opted to rebuild it fresh with new cloth...

well here are some pics
First pic is with all the wood removed from the boat. I used an electric chain saw in the bottom channel, it took along time to get it out, but I got it ALL out.

Seond pic is the outer skin, yes I spent the time to clean it because originally I was going to reuse it. the pic has wood on it, but now it is down to the glass. Maybe a good coffee table top?

As you know the transom is divided into three section port, center and starboard. it is made of two sheets of 3/4 inch ply wood , totaling six sections all together.

In order to get the wood to fit super tight and right we made a template of the inside of the transom. We started by drawing it on plastic, cutting it out, then tranferred it to 1/4 plywood because it was easier to work with. Once we got all three pieces to fit in tightly across we knew we had the right dimensions. We then traced the 1/4 inch onto the marine grade 3/4 inch.

Here are two pics of the first laye of ply wood fitted in. It is a much tighter and better fit then what the boat originally had.

So upto now my buddy George was with me, but due to the surgery he couldn't help much and I found Rob to help.

We started by tabbing in the weak areas. For strength and to hopefully keep water out

We put the first three sections in and screwed them through the thin inner layer of fiberglass to boards on inside to pull them in really tight and to spread the putty/fill resin really well. We also used the boards that you see to tighten things up.

We also tabbed in the both sides of the engine compartment that was surprisingly not tied in at all from the factory. This should add some strength.

the last photo needs to be rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees . that is an inside shot of what we tabbed in. Hard to understand, sorry. I did cut out the port side bait well to get better access. Plan on building to fiberglass removable buckets, like the plastic one tht came with the boat. I will have more storage now underneath.

first three pieces went in very nice. Next three were going to be really tight and we didnt want to slam them in to hard with a sledge . So we measured the four inchches off the sides and the bottoms and ground off three of the eleven layers of plywood those four inches to get them to fit tight withour forcing them.

We removed the screws from the first three pieces and used then to pull the two 3/4 inch sheets together. I bought good stainless screws and decided to leave them in for extra strength. they should be fine seeing as they will be buried in fiberglass.

Here is a pic of all six pieces of wood in. the fiberglass is also beveled about 3.5-4 inches out for the new glass.

Here are some pics with the fiberglass on. I went the route that many of you did and wrapped the cap, that was just inviting water into the hull. It is shaping up pretty good and feels really solid. the plastic is the template we used to cut the cloth. we started with the outside layer and went in cutting the template about 1/2 inch for each layer of glass.

And we are now working with the faring putty and should be getting the gelcoat on this weekend. As I type, I just got a call and the gelcoat will be at my house in about 10 minutes. Don't know how to thank these guys for all their help with the materials but they will be getting alot of fishin out of me this year, thats for sure.

I will keep you guys posted on the outcome. Thanks for all the help and the past post that i refered to frequently.

Looking good! Nice work.