420 Experts?

Stark Industries

Hi guys, are there any 420 experts here? I have one that just needs some minor touching up and a repaint, but there is one slight area of concern that I'd like advise on from more knowledgeable folk around here. There is a small crack where there is a kind of a cross spar just in front of where the mast sits where it's lifting a little from the deck. There is a slight orange colour around the crack, and I'm wondering if there is some kind of steel reinforcement underneath which might be rusting and causing the orange colour. Basically, I'm wondering if it's OK to just sand down and patch the crack with fibreglass repair, or is it a structural part that might need more work? I have a picture that I'll upload to show people, might help!
Thanks!

Stark Industries

This might help. See on the left hand side there, the crack is quite small, but it has lifted a mm or 2 upwards which caused the crack in the paint.

fergal.b

Hi stark industries and welcome to the forum. I don't know the 420 but from your photo I would say something has given way and needs to be looked at. The cross member is probably made of wood and bolted on to the floor and it's the bolt that rusted away or swollen it also looks like it's starting to go on the other side so I would cut off the fiberglass on each side with a dremel and have a good look, if it is a support for the mast I don't think it will stand up to much more punishment so better to fix it up before you head out on the water again it will be easy to patch back up after you find the problem.

Stark Industries

Thanks for the welcome, and reply! Not sure if it's a bolt, the underside is completely flush and just thin fibreglass so you'd see any attachments. You might be right though about the structure. Balls, thought it might be a quick fix! Lack of a shed means any work is weather dependent, which takes more time than I'd like!
How would I get that shape back into the repaired fibreglass?

fergal.b

The fiberglass will take the shape of the wood or whatever is underneath, here is a link from dnme's sticky above, you will be doing more or less the same thing.http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056217528&page=27 Put a tarp over the boom and make a little tent

Stark Industries

fergal.b wrote: »

The fiberglass will take the shape of the wood or whatever is underneath, here is a link from dnme's sticky above, you will be doing more or less the same thing.http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056217528&page=27 Put a tarp over the boom and make a little tent

Suppose that makes sense alright! Is there any chance the wood under that would be glued to the fibreglass hull? No sign of anything underneath!

Stark Industries

Actually, while I'm pestering people for info, might as well ask if anyone knows of a good place near Limerick for good quality ropes for halyards etc? I think chmarine have a corner in a hardware store in Killaloe for paints, but don't think they do rope there.

fergal.b

Stark Industries wrote: »

Suppose that makes sense alright! Is there any chance the wood under that would be glued to the fibreglass hull? No sign of anything underneath!

It should be glued but as there is a gap and signs of separation I'd say it's come away from the fiberglass somewhere also the wood may be rotten from water getting in.

Stark Industries

fergal.b wrote: »

It should be glued but as there is a gap and signs of separation I'd say it's come away from the fiberglass somewhere also the wood may be rotten from water getting in.

That makes sense alright. Thanks for the info! What's the best glue to use if I'm putting back new timber?
Sounds like a big enough job ahead of me!

fergal.b

Stark Industries wrote: »

That makes sense alright. Thanks for the info! What's the best glue to use if I'm putting back new timber?
Sounds like a big enough job ahead of me!

Use epoxy resin the same stuff you will use to do the fiberglassing you can buy kits from most marine shops http://www.marineparts.ie/paint-and-maintenance/epoxy-repair-kits/

Stark Industries

Legend, thanks for all the help. Will probably be back with more questions before too long!

fergal.b

No problem post some photos when you find out whats going on

Silver Breeze

Hello Stark, 420's are great boats. Yours was built in the '70s by the French builder Lanaverre. There should be a small metal builder's plaque, possibly rivetted to the inside of the transom, with you individual sail/boat number stamped on it.

The thwart in your picture has simply separated from the inside of the hull - glue failure.

There is no wood inside it and certainly no screws or bolts. An easy fix.

Roughen the area with 80 grit sandpaper, lean the boat on its portside to drain out any water (lean it up against the side of your house). When dry, clean thoroughly with acetone.

Get one of these:
http://www.marineparts.ie/paint-and-maintenance/epoxy-repair-kits/west-system-101-mini-repair-pack.html

and a bit of fibreglass tape. PM me with your address and I'll post you with some tape).

Cut tape to size, enough to cover the split, two layers. Mix the resin (RTFMF!) brush it and stipple it into the first layer of cloth, then the second. Take your time, the cloth should go transparent when wetted out. Let it sit for thirty minutes, then take a piece of polythene (zip-lock sand wich bag) and place it ontop of the still sticky repair and press it around the corners to ensure a good stick. The polythene will peel away easily when the resin has cured.

Have a look at this page http://www.sail.ie/maint.htm for some examples.

Your boat will have a wooden gunwhale / rub rail - mind the splinters! Sand it smooth a apply two coats of Ronseal waterbased wood stain.

Your centreboard is a very high quality no longer available french marine plywood.

Have fun!

Stark Industries

Silver Breeze wrote: »

Hello Stark, 420's are great boats. Yours was built in the '70s by the French builder Lanaverre. There should be a small metal builder's plaque, possibly rivetted to the inside of the transom, with you individual sail/boat number stamped on it.

The thwart in your picture has simply separated from the inside of the hull - glue failure.

There is no wood inside it and certainly no screws or bolts. An easy fix.

Roughen the area with 80 grit sandpaper, lean the boat on its portside to drain out any water (lean it up against the side of your house). When dry, clean thoroughly with acetone.

Get one of these:
http://www.marineparts.ie/paint-and-maintenance/epoxy-repair-kits/west-system-101-mini-repair-pack.html

and a bit of fibreglass tape. PM me with your address and I'll post you with some tape).

Cut tape to size, enough to cover the split, two layers. Mix the resin (RTFMF!) brush it and stipple it into the first layer of cloth, then the second. Take your time, the cloth should go transparent when wetted out. Let it sit for thirty minutes, then take a piece of polythene (zip-lock sand wich bag) and place it ontop of the still sticky repair and press it around the corners to ensure a good stick. The polythene will peel away easily when the resin has cured.

Have a look at this page http://www.sail.ie/maint.htm for some examples.

Your boat will have a wooden gunwhale / rub rail - mind the splinters! Sand it smooth a apply two coats of Ronseal waterbased wood stain.

Your centreboard is a very high quality no longer available french marine plywood.

Have fun!

Excellent, thanks for that update, sounds like you're very familiar with 420's! Pity you're based in Dublin! Here in Limerick myself. You're the bearer of good news so, I don't have to chip away all that section and worry about splitting the hull!
So that Thwart is made up from fibreglass itself? So should I just put a little pressure on it to separate it enough to get some sand paper underneath to clean it up for new glue to make a good purchase on the hull? Or would that risk cracking it further back?

fergal.b

Like I said I don't know these boats and silver breeze may be right but I think you will find timber under the glass that is bolted down and that's where the rust marks are coming from,I may be wrong but I think this is what you will find.

Stark Industries

fergal.b wrote: »

Like I said I don't know these boats and silver breeze may be right but I think you will find timber under the glass that is bolted down and that's where the rust marks are coming from,I may be wrong but I think this is what you will find.

What boat is that from? Looks a bit like what I imagined might be there. I hope Silver Breeze is right though! It'd be a lot of work to rip it all out and break away all the fibreglass around it just for one side.

Stark Industries

There's a few PDF's on this page with build info, but I can't seem to see anything specifying what's underneath.
http://www.sailing.org/27370.php

fergal.b

This is from a 1966 http://www.lepanographe.com/420/ if you want to check the timber just drill a few small holes in through the fiberglass as close to the floor as you can "Not in the floor:D" as this will be the wettest spot, you will be able to tell if the wood is rotten by the bits that come out on the drill bit.

Stark Industries

fergal.b wrote: »

This is from a 1966 http://www.lepanographe.com/420/ if you want to check the timber just drill a few small holes in through the fiberglass as close to the floor as you can "Not in the floor:D" as this will be the wettest spot, you will be able to tell if the wood is rotten by the bits that come out on the drill bit.

That looks like an older one than ours alright, but while the shape of that timber cross has changed and is now fibreglass on ours, there's still every chance that it is timber underneath alright. A small hole might give an insight, seeing as I'll be patching anyway it'll just be an extra piece.
Any sign of Silver Breeze coming back on for further insight or feedback? Maybe I'll just employ both of ye for a week!

Stark Industries

Silver Breeze wrote: »

Hello Stark, 420's are great boats. Yours was built in the '70s by the French builder Lanaverre. There should be a small metal builder's plaque, possibly rivetted to the inside of the transom, with you individual sail/boat number stamped on it.

The thwart in your picture has simply separated from the inside of the hull - glue failure.

There is no wood inside it and certainly no screws or bolts. An easy fix.

Roughen the area with 80 grit sandpaper, lean the boat on its portside to drain out any water (lean it up against the side of your house). When dry, clean thoroughly with acetone.

Get one of these:
http://www.marineparts.ie/paint-and-maintenance/epoxy-repair-kits/west-system-101-mini-repair-pack.html

and a bit of fibreglass tape. PM me with your address and I'll post you with some tape).

Cut tape to size, enough to cover the split, two layers. Mix the resin (RTFMF!) brush it and stipple it into the first layer of cloth, then the second. Take your time, the cloth should go transparent when wetted out. Let it sit for thirty minutes, then take a piece of polythene (zip-lock sand wich bag) and place it ontop of the still sticky repair and press it around the corners to ensure a good stick. The polythene will peel away easily when the resin has cured.

Have a look at this page http://www.sail.ie/maint.htm for some examples.

Your boat will have a wooden gunwhale / rub rail - mind the splinters! Sand it smooth a apply two coats of Ronseal waterbased wood stain.

Your centreboard is a very high quality no longer available french marine plywood.

Have fun!

Forgot to update this. You were correct indeed, there is no timber frame under this in our 420. So it was just an adhesive failure. I'll post up some pics to follow.

Stark Industries

So at the beginning of the summer (and I use that term lightly this year!) some may remember a good weekend at the start of June. I followed the advice given here by Silver Breeze and fergal.b and started to get the boat ready for sailing.
You can see from these pics the boat with just the timber gunnels sanded, and the existing gelcoat finish looking a little tired.
Then my preparation picture, sander and sustainance at the ready!!
Then the post sanding pics.

Stark Industries

First I used the International Pre-kote, see the first pic, then topped it with some blue Toplac.

fergal.b

Pringles,beer and fiberglass dust nothing like it

Stark Industries

Then to fix the little crack!
First pic shows it sanded a little and a screwdriver prizing it up a little so I could sand underneath where I was going to put some extra Resin with hardner to help hold it when I matted on top.
Then I cleaned down the piece from all the gelcoat to give a good surface for the fibreglass matting and resin.
Then you'll see my not fantastically neat repair job with a big rock in a plastic bag keeping weight on it for a few hours.
Last pic shows it repaired, sanded and toplac over it. I did finish it a little more neatly with a final Interdeck coat where I was more accurate with shaping the paint around it, so it doesn't look as bad now! No pic of that though.

Stark Industries

So here is one pic that I took of it the day we got it and rigged it to see what was there or what we needed to get, and the following pic is a quick snap I took of it on Sunday after 3 hours racing it in our club Regatta with some newer sails rigged!
In the end I got the boat in the water by the end of June, have been doing little jobs and bits of clean ups since, but it's sailing very nicely and although I didn't perform the best paint job or repair job in history, (due to time contraints and lack of shed to protect me and it from Irish Summer weather), it's still fairly good looking for a boat that's older than myself!

Stark Industries

fergal.b wrote: »

Pringles,beer and fiberglass dust nothing like it

So true! Fibreglass dust adds to the flavour!

Mr.Boots

Nice job
I want the 420 more now.

How do you find it for just cruising about gently on a light day?

Stark Industries

Mr.Boots wrote: »

Nice job
I want the 420 more now.

How do you find it for just cruising about gently on a light day?

Very easy-going in light winds. Easy to manage and nice and responsive. It's a little hard to sail close to the wind in lighter conditions, but that could be down to just having and old rig. Newer 420's with better and tighter rigs might do better, but our brand new club Visions seem to manage to get closer.
It's a simple boat to rig too.
We have club Fireballs, which are great quick boats, but to be honest, I'm a bit fond of the 420 so I'd actually love to find a 470 to move to now! But that probably won't happen!

Mr.Boots

Cool. As you saw from my thread I'm currently dinghy shopping.
If I had €5k I'd consider a laser 2000 but the 420 looks like a good cheap start.
Even though I have sailed a lot on cruisers I'm new to dinghys and afraid of getting something to "racey"

Stark Industries

Mr.Boots wrote: »

Cool. As you saw from my thread I'm currently dinghy shopping.
If I had €5k I'd consider a laser 2000 but the 420 looks like a good cheap start.
Even though I have sailed a lot on cruisers I'm new to dinghys and afraid of getting something to "racey"

Yep, saw that from your thread alright, which is mainly why I recommended the 420. Our club has a GP14, which I was sailing while I was working on ours, but it's quite boring, and it's a heavy boat. Lots of timber to mind on it too. All that would put me off them. They are a great solid beginner boat, but if you're used to cruisers then you'll get bored quickly. Anything too racey will also put you off, but you don't want to be stuck at level 1 either.
The big advantage of the 420 is that it's easy to sail in light winds, capable of managing heavier winds when you get more experienced, and trapeze and spinnaker mean you'll always have something to progress to before you finally end up getting speed hungry and upgrading!
Myself and my co-owner have progressed well over the summer considering we're really only out once a week at most due to young families, but we can now manage high winds and gusty conditions without too much difficulty. We may not be sailing fantastically, nor are we winning races, but we're learning lots, not capsizing and having fun!
Lasers are fantastic boats too, and would probably be more competitive in races, but pricey!

Mr.Boots

Thanks for that.
Yea for me it's not about racing (yet anyway) .....just going out enjoying myself and learning from mistakes.