Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[Myfathersson]

Made some good progress this weekend. Got the tank emptied and all the suspect fuel recycled - it was 25% water. The interior of the tank looks really good, but I'm going to pull it anyhow to be sure since I'll have unfettered access with the cap off.



That out of the way I cut off the top of the splashwell at the transom so that I could get a bunch of chisels down thru to separate it from the transom. Then set to work on breaking the adhesive joining the stringers and the sole. A piece of 1/8"x1-1/2" steel 36" long with an edge ground onto one end made for a handy long reach chisel to get the hard to reach bits between the tank and the transom and the tank and the casting deck.

With everything broken free and disconnected I set to building the support structure that will be used to lift the cap. 2x4 spanning the gunnels tied down to 2x4 under the sole placed in at the bilge, fuel tank and insulated fish box.



I used 12 footers across the gunnels as I originally planned to get a crew of guys to come over and help lift and walk the cap off but now I don't feel that's realistic so I'll be building a gantry to use a chainfall and hoist it off then pull the hull on the trailer forward and set the cap down. I jacked up each section and had the cap 2" clear to make sure that I had released all the adhesive.







Looking in between the halves on the port side from the transom:



and on the starboard side:



2" of clear lift achieved the full length:

[Pipe_Dream]

Looks like tremendous progress. I tip my hat to you!

[Myfathersson]

Today was the big day - lifted the cap off!







And rolled it over:





Just seeing the hull without the cap in place was overwhelming. First thought was "what in the hell did I get myself into..."



The transom has rot up high even though down low it feels solid. This is the port side:



Though the starboard side looks pretty solid but we'll see when I pull the interior skin:





Timelapse video of the lift and the roll over on my Facebook page:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10215784076969907&id=10836330 13

Tomorrow I'll pull out the shop vac and start getting the junk out of the hull then begins the task of chunking out all that foam. Placed my order from US Composites yesterday, should arrive late next week just in time for my vacation the week of the 5th.

[Slightly_Twisted]

Great job! You took your time and did the lift right. It is completely overwhelming when you see it, but it is sooooo worth it! You have room to work, and you will always find a problem you didn’t see before. The form is a *****! The first v20 rebuild I did had from like your, I used an ice chipper and it worked well.
https://www.menards.com/main/outdoor...4445290308.htm

I will recommend if you don’t have a full face respirator get one. They are hot as hell but so nice when grinding.

[Myfathersson]

Thanks Twist! I know it'll be worth it, just an overwhelming moment, partially because I was exhausted and sweating gallons! I got this - just a thousand tiny steps to get to my goal.

Spent 7 hours Sunday chopping out foam. Plenty of rest breaks to let my ankles unkink and guzzle water by the super size Yeti full. I started with a floor scraper which worked great until the final cell on the starboard side when the cast aluminum head of it cracked. Picked up a long steel chipper from Harbor Freight on the way home from work tonight to replace it, along with an air chisel to assist with removing the globs of adhesive. Wish I had thought to bag the adhesive chunks separately - it weighs a ton and there's a massive amount of excess everywhere. Is that really 3M 5200??

I managed to get all the foam on the starboard side out. Port side remains along with the fuel tank. I think I will remove the rear bulkhead from behind the tank and use the long reach chisel I made for breaking the adhesive between the floor and stringers to break the foam from under the tank then tab that bulkhead back in or replace it altogether. Another option is the stringers either side of the tank where they weren't fully capped are mushy so maybe I'll cut those sections out and go in from the sides. Still not sure and it's a couple steps off so I've got time to think and evaluate.

Picture time!
Working on the first cell:




Found this nugget of history encapsulated in the first cell under the conduit:


You can see my scraper in it's handy holster (foam yet to be removed) in the background:


Three cells down:


I must not have taken a photo at the end of the day LOL. Lugging all the tools back down to the basement is enough of a chore let alone remembering to document as much as possible :)

4 lawn bags filled with foam done, so likely 4 more to go. There wasn't as much waterlogged material as I feared there might be. But there was some. Nice how the waterlogged foam releases from the fiberglass of the hull rather easily. I'll go back in with a wire brush after everything is stripped to clean up the remaining residue.

[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.