Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[Myfathersson]

With the priming completed, I laid out how I wanted the nonskid on the foredeck. I elected to hold the nonskid about 3/8" off the bowrail mounting plates which came really close to the minimum curve radius of the 3M fineline tape of 1½", and then left clear areas under everything else using that minimum curve radius. I cut templates out of thin cardboard (like notebook backer), then took a few days of vacation so I could ignore my phone while painting:












I'm using the iBoats Tractor Paint formula and rolling it on. With the layout done I laid down the first coat and coated it with nonskid granules as I progressed:






And once the paint had solidified sufficiently I pulled up the masking:




The following morning I swept up the excess nonskid for reuse and laid down the first finish coat. In hindsight I should have vacuumed up the excess the evening before before removing the masking and applied a coat to lock in the granules right then, as there were enough loose particles still, despite brushing and vacuuming multiple times, that I had particles migrate into the smooth areas. I was able to rectify all those with wet sanding but would have been nicer to not have to worry about that.






Four days of painting and then let it rest to get nice and hard.

More to come! - Greg

[Myfathersson]

While the paint cured up my brother traveled down to Louisville from Toledo to lend a hand for my next endeavor - FOAM!

Did my calculations and arrived at needing 47cf of foam and that worked out perfect to get a 40cf kit and an 8cf kit from US Composites. Set the cans out in the sun first thing Saturday morning to let them warm up and around noon we poured the first lift.

I guess it got a little too warm in the sun as the first cell, pouring in half the calculated amount resulted in a massive overfill. When I trimmed off the excess found large voids in the middle due to overheating. But we adjusted and figured out the best method for us to use.





Later in the week I went back with a handsaw and trimmed the foam down flush with the stringer tops and then coated the cut surfaces with a little thickened epoxy for good measure.


Then began installing the hardware on the foredeck. Since I wanted to through bolt all of that hardware and not rely on just screwing into the wood coring, that was the impetus for the prep work and painting on just the forececk and not the cap as a whole, before the 2 halves will get mated back together:













I'm really please with how the non skid contours around the hardware, I think it's a really slick detail. I'm also pleased with the finish of the paint with only rolling - no tipping or wet sanding or bufffing. It's got a light orange peel like surface but it's glossy as hell and easy to clean. I don't want to wax it until I blend the rest of the cap and sole paint in with this area, so washing the bird dropping and whatnot off it every couple days until it's recapped and can be covered with a tarp again.

More to come! - Greg

[Myfathersson]

Now you might expect the next post to be the cap being married back to the hull...but it's not.

I hadn't figured out my fuel tank plan up until this point, but I decided it was time to solidify that portion before I put the cap back on. In modeling the target tank I decided that while I probably COULD get the tank in through the hatch...it's going to be whole hell of a lot easier to do BEFORE the cap goes on. So, since the stock market and economy have been doing better than I feared they might back in the early spring (I work in the restaurant industry so...), I felt comfortable in ordering the fuel tank, the Oceanlink FOLT5007 I mentioned earlier in this thread. It's a 50 gallon poly belly tank. Less capacity than the original tank but more than enough for my anticipated use. And most importantly it fits within the dimensional requirements of the original tank compartment!

With the tank settled I began formulating a plan for supporting it. I gridded out the hull line from the stringer top, and modeled the hull in Fusion360, as well as the tank. After locating the tank at the height I felt was appropriate I then created a platform which matches the tank profile. That platform will rest on a riser assembly which spans the innermost set of chines. The riser will get epoxied and glassed to the hull, the platform will get epoxied to the riser and glassed to the stringers on either side. There's 1½" of gap between the bulkheads fore and aft of the platform so any moisture that does happen to get down in there can find it's way all the way down to the bilge and out.




At the ends of the tank I will wedge in a few strips of 2" insulating foam to lock the tank in between the 2 bulkheads. I'm fabricating the hold downs which will provide the rest of the rigid mount from a piece of 18ga 304 stainless salvaged from a bar renovation so the tank should be well anchored, fully supported, and last the remainder of my lifetime.

Here's the riser assembly that I started yesterday morning:




And the platform I glued up this morning:




The platform will receive (2) 4" diameter holes matching the tank design which aren't cut yet.

And here's cutting up the stainless for the hold downs:






The flux core stainless wire will arrive at the end of this coming week but no rush on that as the tank has a minimum 3 week lead time - should be plenty of time to get all the glass work done on the riser and platform and get them mounted into the hull, and finally weld the gussets on the brackets.

And THAT catches the thread up! I've gotten a lot more accomplished this summer than I thought I would.

Hope you enjoy! Thanks - Greg

[Pipe_Dream]

Fine work!

[Myfathersson]

Originally Posted by Pipe_Dream

Fine work!

Thank you!

[phatdaddy]

Looks good, i know expansion and contraction is an issue on poly tanks, be sure to factor that in.

Keep up the good work

[Myfathersson]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

Looks good, i know expansion and contraction is an issue on poly tanks, be sure to factor that in.

Keep up the good work

Thanks for the reminder phatdaddy - 3% expansion once fuel is introduced. That's about 1.3" on the length, 0.9" on the width, and 0.37" on the height. All easy to accommodate. Might need to install the hold down brackets after fueling to manage the gain in the length since the threaded inserts are not symmetrical about the axis. Only drawback to that is I can't through bolt both pairs to the stringers once the sole is in place, only the forward bracket will be accessible on the back side. That's a minor issue though, as the brackets closest to the center are the accessible pair which should result in less stress on the rear most brackets. Only other adjustment is I'll use the hot knife to trim the 2" foam blocking at front and rear down.

[Blue_Runner]

Amazing work. Not only on the boat but the documentation, quality photos, etc. Pipe summed it up in 2 words - fine work! Nice job and thank you for posting up this really cool rebuild thread. Can't wait to see your next move, and the final product!