Beginning my 1987 Fisherman 20 Restoration

[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!