Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[Myfathersson]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

Nice job

I was watching Florida Sportsman Project Dreamboat on YouTube. This guy was rebuilding a 261 Mako and put a wood transom back in. He left out small section of wood around the drain hole. Said most failures start there and it doesn t do much structurally.

Funny you should mention that phatdaddy. I have been unhappy with how much offset there is between the drain hole and the keel as I've been spraying down the dust to save my shop vac, so my plan has been to redrill that more flush with the bilge, and when I do I plan to oversize it and pack the perimeter with a slurry of chopped strand and epoxy.

[Myfathersson]

Today's post is light on pics as my hands were gloved and mixing/spreading thickened epoxy today. But I finished up all the grinding yesterday and today set to placing the first layer of the transom:



I think I'll grab some larger mixing tubs from Home Depot on the way home from work tomorrow. Mixing up the thickened epoxy in quart size tubs is a chore. It takes a lot more material than I anticipated to thicken up a batch. Time to do some math and see if I have enough Cabosil and milled fiber to do all the peanut buttering I have left to do.

Also need to order another 20 grinding discs to cover the grinding I'll have to do on the sole as well. For anyone embarking on a similar project a word of advice - don't think that 24 grit is too aggressive like I did before starting. After grinding out the hull, if there was a lower grit I'd jump on it. I went through 20 discs and I was pushing thru with discs that should have been swapped out much sooner. If I had 40 to do the hull grinding I would have used them all and had no regrets. This isn't a cheap endeavour and just like FG and resin, grinding discs are not a place to skimp if you enjoy your sanity.

[phatdaddy]

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-inch...isc-67642.html

Have you tried this style

[Myfathersson]

That's the style I'm using. These specifically:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GHY5G3S

[Slightly_Twisted]

Damn you’re moving along fast! Nice job!

[Myfathersson]

Originally Posted by Slightly_Twisted

Damn you’re moving along fast! Nice job!

Things will slow down a little bit now Twist. Being on vacation last week and devoting most of that time to the project helped make some major progress happen :)

Got the final layer of the new transom core epoxied in place after work this evening:


Tomorrow evening I'll work on the gap filling and fillets. Climbing around the clamps wasn't the most attractive thing and frankly my legs are sore from climbing in and out over the last week. I ain't as young as I once was...

[Myfathersson]

Yesterday evening I got the gaps filled and filleting in place on the transom. Went much smoother than I thought it might. I used a few PVC pipe fitting as my forms for the different radii that I was after. I may still add a little more filler at the strakes and chines to help the fabric flow better when I lay it this weekend.



This evening I cut the sheets of 1708 I'll cover the transom with. And in doing so I came to the realization that I ordered the wrong line item...instead of getting 50" wide biax I only ordered the 38" wide. Still works for the transom but is too narrow for how I'm planning to lay the stringers. So instead of the plan to place an order for 18oz roving for the back side of the sole, the sole will now get 1708 and the stringers will be getting 2 layers of 17oz Biax without mat. I'm sure that won't be my last hiccup of this adventure! I didn't get to working out the cuts to match the patterns as my frustration with the mis-order had me too worked up. Better to walk away for a day and come back refreshed and clear.