Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[Pipe_Dream]

I think it's tremendous. You're making great progress.

[scook]

I think you’re going to end up with what the V20 could have been if they’d taken more care in the original builds. It’s a great hull and I love mine but the build could have been better executed and yours is going to be rock solid

[Sangster]

Read from the start today, nice! Any update?

I did see someone mention no foam from the factory in 1983 V20's? Is that true?

[Myfathersson]

Originally Posted by Sangster

Read from the start today, nice! Any update?

I did see someone mention no foam from the factory in 1983 V20's? Is that true?

I can't speak for the foam in other years, or variants - my '87 Center Console definitely had foam. Still undecided as to whether I will replace it.

Last Friday I finished off the glassing of the new structures in the hull:



I still have to get in there and cut away the excess glass at the different shapes, and glass over the screw heads where I anchored the members to the stringers while their adhesive set up.

Then had my brother in town for a music festival last weekend, then had to trek up north for a funeral first part of the week so progress has been minimal. I spent a little time the last several evenings with the grinder and welder reworking the trailer so that once I finish the sole up this weekend I'll be ready to replace the bunks and slip the two halves together next weekend.

Cut off the forward bunk supports - they angled in too tightly and wouldn't have aligned to where I need them to lie. Found a nice little collection of wasp babies that thankfully weren't viable:



And cut out the too short tongue member:



And got the cross members all cleaned up to accept the new locations of the bunk supports:



And welded the bunk supports into their new positions:





Welds aren't the prettiest but for the first welds I've done in close to 10 years and on a new welder I'm pretty happy. They're solid.

All the bunk supports in place and the welds dressed:





And the tongue ready for the new member:



A 72" long piece of 3x4x3/16" tube steel:



I guess I didn't snap any photos down in the shop last night of the prep on that piece - drilled the holes for the hydraulic brake coupler, the cross passage holes for wiring, drain hole, passage hole for the brake line, and tapped the ground connection hole. Here it is mostly welded in place:



I need to jack up the trailer and get it flipped at least on its side if not completely upside down so I can weld the bottom of the connections - I could NOT get a bead overhead. If I can't get it flipped I'll fabricate a piece of 3/16" plate to join the three members and lap weld that in place. For the moment I laid on a coat of Rustoleum primer and called it a night:



Tomorrow and Sunday will be gluing the plywood pieces to the sole and glassing them in. I also need to glass up the two plywood panels that sit atop the stringers near the rear for the batteries and oil tank. Then I'll pick up the new bunk wood and get the carpet that's sitting on the floor of my spare bedroom on. I ordered the hot dipped lag bolts from McMaster Carr today - even with shipping still going to be less than half the cost of grabbing them at Home Depot or Lowes. If the glass work scheduled all goes smoothly I may start on wet sanding and buffing the hull. I've got a gallon of gel coat for the scratch and chip repair that I need to use before November so I at least need to find out if I can bring the existing gel back to life and color match that restored gel so I can do those repairs and I want to get the new stainless thru hulls installed while the hull is split instead of working through the access holes to torque them down, so the hull needs to be semi complete cosmetically.

There's a long long list of stuff left to be done before I can even think about finding a new motor or rebuilding the '89 Yammy. Winter will be long, if summer ever lets go of its hold, so still focused on getting the hull ship shape before I'm forced indoors for a spell.

[SkunkBoat]

Originally Posted by Sangster

Read from the start today, nice! Any update?

I did see someone mention no foam from the factory in 1983 V20's? Is that true?

only foam is around the fuel tank on 83

[Myfathersson]

Hallelujah! All the recoring is done! Saturday morning I cracked the whip and got rolling about 7:30am. Started mixing up some peanut butter and gluing down the new cores on the sole and clamping it in place with as many clamps as I could, 80# bags of Quikrete and some screws through from the underside:













Then once that was rigid enough to remove the clamps and concrete, I set to glassing. I used 1708 but it would've made more sense to order more 17oz Biax and use less epoxy:









All in all it took 11 hours and 6 gallons of epoxy, and in record high heat (I think we hit 98) I cooked a couple batches of epoxy, one thickened, one laminating. I panicked on the laminating batch and ended up with a section of glass on the starboard sole that didn't penetrate, so I went back tonight and drilled some holes and with a 2oz syringe was able to pump in enough to permeate the glass and adhere it to the ply. Then I was able to finish off catching the fasteners I needed to cover and some exposed corners I didn't like in the previous work in the hull:





Now it's decision time - since the 2 halves are essentially ready for a test fit it's time to decide if I'm foaming or not. If I do foam it's gotta happen between the test fit and the final reassembly of the 2 halves. Tomorrow night I'll try and get a firm idea of how many cubic feet I need if I choose to foam. And since I've got to let funding catch back up it might be a little bit before the final decision and the reassembly happens. I've made my milestone of being ready to reassemble before winter so that's a load off my shoulders. Stay tuned!

[phatdaddy]

Fill the cavities with ping pong balls

Saw it in a Donald Duck comic book!!

[Pipe_Dream]

Looking awesome.

[oteps]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

Fill the cavities with ping pong balls

Saw it in a Donald Duck comic book!!

I used to roadrace motorcycles. One race organization said we could only have a fuel tank that holds 4.5 gallons for endurance races. We filled the tank with 4.5 gallons of gas and the rest ping pong balls.