Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[Slightly_Twisted]

Nice work,

You got the right idea tons of small steps. The foam is a huge pain, just from amount of physical labor to get it out! The white hard globs on top of the stringers is not 5200. It’s some type thickened epoxy, wellcraft used as glue. I used a sledge hammer to knock it off where I needed to take measurements and get levels. I didn’t bother with most of it since I was cut out the stringers anyways.

Once you get the foam out you can get a real good idea of how much needs to be replaced!

[phatdaddy]

Great job. Wish u were closer, i d drop mine off for the winter, and pick it up in the spring, all ready to go.

Like skunk said, mines an 83 or 84 and no foam, only in fuel cell compartment

[Myfathersson]

Well Phat we've yet to see if I can get this thing back together or not! Plus without a garage I'm limited to what I can get down to the basement to work on in the workshop over the winter :)

Glad to know that's not 5200 that I see mentioned so often. I thought maybe peanut butter but didn't get any sense of glass content so must have been just a powder filler with the resin. It's for sure hard - using a brick chisel and a 20oz hammer was still a helluva lot of effort to get the overhanging globs clear so I could easily run the scraper down the stringer.

Got the shipment notification from UPS for my US Composites order this evening. Should be here Wednesday if my normal driver doesn't murder me for the 4 hefty boxes coming. So if I get the foam out Saturday and open up the problem spots the first half of next week I should be starting glass work the following weekend. I've decided to go with readily available MDO plywood for the cores in lieu of marine ply.

[phatdaddy]

i wish they d built their transoms as stout as they built the pencils

[Myfathersson]

Excellent progress made this weekend. Got all the foam stripped out. 8 lawn and leaf bags worth:


Then cut out the rotted bulkhead aft of the fuel tank:


Ran the chainsaw down the sides to free the tank from that foam and then drove some 15 deg 4x4 wedges under the back edge of the exposed tank and it popped out nicely:


The tank looks mediocre but there is too much pitting and corrosion for me to feel good about putting it back in so it'll get replaced., The Moeller FT5007 looks like it might drop in with just a slight drop in capacity (that I don't feel I need anyhow) - https://www.oceanlinkinc.com/product...0-25-folt5007/





I did my exploratory holes to evaluate the condition of the stringers and sadly every 12" was at a minimum waterlogged, many spots of plain mush, so I began the work of getting it off the trailer so I can fully support the hull under the stringers:


I'm presently supported at 7 points - keel and both chines at the transom, keel and both chines about 5' to 6' forward of the transom and at the keel at the forward point where it begins to curve up. Tomorrow I'll begin making supports that are directly under the strakes at the stringers.

I always planned to replace the trailer with a stouter tandem axle but here's an example of how poor of shape the rollers are in:


Everything is clean and ready for me to take my measurements and start cutting out the foul wood:


Gonna be a busy staycation this week. I hope the weather holds! My 30 yds of 1708, 7.5gal of slow epoxy and some gelcoat showed up this past week but I don't think that will be enough now that I've confirmed all the stringers need replacing. More demo the next few days than had been anticipated so FG won't get started till late week at the earliest. I'll see how far I get before I order more materials in case I need to modify the set speed for lower expected temps.

[Pipe_Dream]

Excellent progress. And good decision on the tank.

[Myfathersson]

Progress continues, although today was less progress than I wanted. I'll get to that.

First - This was the best tool for removing all the foam. This Fiskars shovel is all steel and STOUT. I originally bought this last spring to lay the low voltage cable for my landscape lighting. It has fantastic prying capacity. I went from taking baseball and softball size chunks out with the ice chipper and floor scraper, to taking out pumpkin sized chunks. Wish I had remembered this puppy sooner!



Since I determined all the stringers needed to be replaced I had to shore up the hull to prevent deformation. First it came off the trailer and supported by concrete blocks and cribbing, then I braced under the strakes which fall directly under most of the stringers.





It's simply a pair of 12' 2x4 sistered together with 2x4 uprights cut to length to rest atop a handful of 2x6 PT I had left in my lumber stock. The beam did have a split for an angle change - I matched the hull's form as closely as I could.



With the hull braced it was into the bunny suit to begin cutting the crap out.





The transom is a little wetter here than it was when the skin came off - I had just hosed down the area when I took this photo:



Here the hull is all cleaned. I am leaving the forward bulkhead and 2 short stringers for the moment. I haven't made a complete call on those yet - they are sound although...moist. I will probably remove but for the moment I wanted to keep a little form to the hull.



Transom skin peeled off relatively easy:



The port side stringer shell and all the bulkheads with their mushy rotten fly attracting cores:



I should have tested my respirator seal - I balked at shaving my beard. As a result today I have been coughing and sneezing like mad. Ordered a full face respirator and shaved off my beard. Today sucked and I didn't get much done aside from flaking the rest of the plywood off the transom down to where I will have to grind the remainder.



But I did get all my plywood. 5 sheets of 3/4" MDO Plywood and 3 sheets of 1/2" MDO Plywood - a $500 trip to Menards. But I am impressed with the quality of this stuff. They had Marine on the shelf for another $10 a sheet but it looked rather wavy so I stuck with my original plan to use the MDO.



Tomorrow I'll putz around with some low impact stuff like color matching my gelcoat and putting together a list of all the hardware I need to start thinking about ordering. Respirator is coming by 9pm tomorrow along with a new batch of Tyvek suits - love how they always tear out in the crotch...the absolute last place I want to have the FG itch manifest...

[randlemanboater]

You are doing an awesome job on this, thanks for sharing with us.

[FL Bill]

I am new to the Wellcraft boats and this site but I just finished your thread. A lot of work went in to this build. I was surprised to see you use wood, but it looked like you sealed it pretty well!


I also wondered if you have drains in the tank well?



And lastly what is the status of this build? Your update on this post was in Sep...? Hope all is well.


Thanks for sharing and I have to say I am a bit envious of you mad skills!


I do think the aluminum trailer would have been better to add wood bunks than a steel trailer, but being down here by the GOM I see steel rust to fast.



Again, thanks!