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A restoration tale (with pics)

dnme

I have been posting on here and getting amazing help from fergal and others. I thought I might make a thread outlining my attempt at a boat restoration. The boat is a 16' fibreglass day cabin. It is in horrendous condition but I think the fibreglass itself is pretty good.

Shopping for a while and looking at various boats. Big, small, cabin cruisers, fishing boats etc. What I really want is a boat that will fit me and my dog and that I can sleep on and maybe run up and down the Erne waterway. This caught my eye on donedeal

I made the call and arranged to go and view it. At the viewing, I bought it for €530 (asking price on dd was €1200). On Saturday 19th March 2011, myself and a friend towed it home (from Birr to Co. Sligo).

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dnme

lignum wrote: »

Great work so far dnme, I'm very interested in how you were forming the windows. Iv seen people use vacuum bags when laminating timber, do you think the same thing would work for your windows?

Windows = disaster. I'm gonna glass up the sides of the window openings and try with a simpler rounded rectangular shape. If that doesn't work I'm gonna attack the boat with an axe.

slideshow bob

dnme wrote: »

Seems they are 10" rims and 10" tyres are pricey. Cheapest I could source were €65 a wheel.

Might be they're heavy duty trailer tyres. Shocking expensive when I looked, and €65 seems cheaper than I could find. But then about a year or so ago I got 2 new 10" wheels with tyres for just under €100 delivered from these guys:
http://www.alcastors.com

Tyres rated for 450kg each iirc which was more then enough.

Boardnashea

Great work and great reading. The electrolosis looks a bit like my attempt at home brew! Keep it up.

Slig

Hold off on the wheels for a while, I'll have a look around the home farm and see what I can dig up, I know there are some lovely warped and twisted 5 spoke alloys with absurdly low profile tyres around there somewhere and there might even be something more "appropriate."

Try get the hull sorted and even just glassed up, I'll bring down the 5HP yamaha the next sunny day we get and we'll take her out on lough Arrow. Even in her unfinished, unpainted, unfurnished state it should still be enough to get you back on track and motivated again, may need to add beer though..or tea, and possibly a fishing rod....and flares.

My point is that right now its just a lump of fibreglass and an endless list of work but when you see it as a boat it will become something completely different.

dnme

Nah, I want to get wheels sorted out so that I can move the trailer around. I've bought 2 wheels with nearly new tyres for 20 quid on adverts as I mentioned earlier. That'll do me.
I can't work on the boat because of the weather. Even if the rain stops (which it has not since May 1st), it's too cold to work with epoxy so boat is on hold.

oscarBravo

I can understand the frustration; I've been through phases like that with my build. Then I have days like today, where I finish a tedious day's work with several hours of productive boatbuilding, and I remember why I started the project.

A wise man once told me: one day, you'll look back on all this and laugh, so why wait? Laugh now!

alexlyons

I agree with Slig.

Get out on her asap, unfitted and unpreped. Make sure she's safe but once she ill float and not be a hazard to your or others, then get out on her.

Once you do this it will be a boat and you can say "today I'll just fix up that seat" then you can take her for another spin with a new seat. Carry on with little bits and you'll enjoy each new bit as it is added.

See it as a boat that you're improving, not something you are turning back into a boat.

fergal.b

dnme wrote: »

Windows = disaster. I'm gonna glass up the sides of the window openings and try with a simpler rounded rectangular shape. If that doesn't work I'm gonna attack the boat with an axe.

As this is a classic boat I would try to keep it as original as possible,the look of the boat will hold memories for some people and help if you decide to sell her and move up to a bigger boat :eek:
You were getting close with your oven and I think with maybe a lighter perspex or lexan you will get there. Here is another way you could try once you have the outer shape formed it should work.
http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/bubbles/hpvbubbles.htm

Also there is a boat jumble sale on in Dún Laoghaire on the 12th http://www.boatjumble.ie/ it should have more than one stall

If you do make the trip down let me know I may have a few bits in the shed that you can have to get you going.

dnme

Guys, anyone with fibreglass experience, tell me, how would you go about tackling this?

Will I leave it alone?
Tackle it from inside?/outside?
Do I grind it out completely or leave some there?
If I epoxy glass from outside, how do I get the glass to stay up on the hull underside without falling / draping down?
What bout glassing around the keel?

Ive never dealt with fibreglass before and I'm worried that this repair is complex and maybe needs someone with experience. It involves a large area, it spreads from flat to the keel, it involves important structural areas etc.

Slig

I'll probably get slated for this but if it were me:

1: mix up resin & hardener
2: hold fibreglass strands against hull
3: Dab resin into glass with a stiff bristled brush
4: leave to set, sand and repeat

Try to get it as smooth as possible before you leave it to set as its a b***ard to sand down after.

5: Spend the rest of the day trying to peel resin off your hands and arms while kicking yourself for not wearing gloves.

(PS the gloves dont work they just immediately stick together and you end up using your bare hands again anyway)

dnme

Slig wrote: »

I'll probably get slated for this but if it were me:

1: mix up resin & hardener
2: hold fibreglass strands against hull
3: Dab resin into glass with a stiff bristled brush
4: leave to set, sand and repeat

Try to get it as smooth as possible before you leave it to set as its a b***ard to sand down after.

5: Spend the rest of the day trying to peel resin off your hands and arms while kicking yourself for not wearing gloves.

(PS the gloves dont work they just immediately stick together and you end up using your bare hands again anyway)

Not using strands, they are not compatible with Epoxy. I'm using woven coving, it's heavy stuff. I have a huge bodge repair as pictured above so my questions above remain

Will I leave it alone?
Tackle it from inside?/outside?
Do I grind it out completely or leave some there?
If I epoxy glass from outside, how do I get the glass to stay up on the hull underside without falling / draping down?
What bout glassing around the keel?

fergal.b

fergal.b wrote: »

I would do this in two parts first remove the keel marking where it sits and just work at cleaning all the isopon filler out right down to the fiberglass leaving a tapered edge all the way around the hole. if it is very deep but not all the way through cut some fiberglass to fit the deepest part of the hole and resin it in then when it is still tacky add another pice of cloth a bit bigger and so on till the hole is filled you can then use resin mixed with filler to finish and level off. If you find the hole goes right through I would clean off all the edges with a grinder and prop some flexible plastic sheet (or cardboard with cling film covering so it wont stick) to the under side of the hull covering the hole and taking the shape of the boat and then start laying down the fiberglass from the inside.
You can build a new timber keel to fit the boat and just bolt and stick it on with thickened epoxy leaving the wood to show or if you like you can cover it with cloth and fiberglass it on.

You can also put the plastic sheet on the inside and build up from the outside like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6EnxtqwBsQ

DOTHEDOG

ok this is how i done a hole in my boat,i know it's not a hole but nearly the same applies

resin with hardener (not to much at one time as it goes hard very quickly)

as i have the fibre glass on a roll i would cut it to just over the size of the area,put one sheet on at a time but do not put to much resin with hardener on it as it will fall of,i turned my boat on it's side to do mine that way you are guaranteed for it to not to fall of,but as i said not to much

just when the first sheet is half dry put another one on it,and so on until ya have about 4 sheets on it,wait untill it is rock hard then give it a sanding but be careful ya don't sand the layers off

after all that mix hardener with gelcoat and brush it on,give it a coat r 2 but not to much,that will seal it all up then just a quick sanding

make sure ya get into all the crooks an crannies before hand,would love to go up and do it for you as time is not on my hands at the moment,maybe in a few weeks if ya want...i only live in galway

dnme

Guys,

I am well researched in applying glass, I have read many articles and watched the youtube videos many times. It's just that what I am dealing with here seems to me to be very different. It's a massive repair, it's poorly done and uses different fillers etc. Also I cannot turn my boat on it's side, it's too big and heavy.

I guess I'm on my own here, I'll just have to feel my way around it, dig into it a bit and see what's there, see what seems solid and not. Remove as much as I think needs removing and try to come up with a way to repair from both sides.

Now, next question, I have bored into the port keel and it seems that the timber is very wet but not rotten. Is there a way for me to dry out the timber without removing the keel or it's glass surround? Could I drill a few holes and maybe that would dry it out? then just fill these? I really dont want to have to redo the keels if I can avoid it. Any thoughts ?

dnme

Day 20

Today for the first time in a number of years, I stole from a shop, more on that story later in the article. The weather took up yesterday and into today here in the rain sodden north west. It was an amzing feeling to get out and unwrap the boat. It's been a month since I have seen it. It felt like getting out of some kinda prison. So what have I been up to you ask.....

The trailer is coming on nicely. It's stripped down, treated, wire brushed and the entire underside now has two coats of Hammerite. It looks great and when it's finished and reassembled I'll post a photo or two of it. I went to Rochfortbridge on Sunday afternoon and picked up two 13" wheels with almost new tyres for 15 quid. The seller gave me a fiver off cos one of the wheels has a puncture which he declared and marked. So now I have a choice, I can go with 2 x 13" wheels or restore the 4 x 10" wheels but the 10" tyres (being a bit unusual these days) are €65-€70 a piece. Do I really want to spend €250 on tyres for that trailer?

I have been contemplating getting some glass and resin on the boat for ages now. I bought the dam stuff nearly 6 weeks ago now and it's been sitting in a box ever since. The weather here has been so bad that it not only kept me from getting at the boat, but it was so cold here at night that I actually kept the epoxy resin in near the fire to keep it warm overnight (it does not like getting cold).

Today at last, the temperatures rose and the sun came out. Time to try out a bit of glassing up. As some of you know, I went down the epoxy route. After much research, it seems you have to pick and choose your glass carefully depending on whether you go with epoxy or polyester resins. CSM is not suitable for epoxy, it is coated with styrene and really should only be used with polyester. So my choice for glass cloth is woven coving or roving or whatever the chuck it's called. It's only when the glass arrived that I realised what I was dealing with. This stuff is big and heavy, not like those little images you look at when shopping for it on the web. It's another thing to be said for experience, even shopping as a first timer is tricky, you haven't a clue what you are buying really and you get many varying opinions and advice from many folks which can help and hinder in equal quantity. (I'm not referring to this forum here btw).

So today, out with the grinder, out with the gloves, the epoxy, the this and the that. Hitting grp with a grinder loaded with a metal disk was some experience. It works great but you raise some amount of crap into the air and it's awful. It settles on your skin and you breathe some of it no matter how careful you are. As I am new to grp repairs, I decided I would tackle three areas on the bulkhead as they are mainly cosmetic and would give me some experience and a feel for the materials I am working with. I decided I would use a hard backing on the outside to hold the material (like a mould) and glass up from the inside. I ground a tapered edge outwards from the holes and then cleaned with acetone (that's some potent stuff right there). I then cut out backer boards from 5mm ply and lined these with cling film. I needed a release agent to prevent the resin sticking to the cling film so I chanced my arm and sprayed with silicone lubricant. It may work, it may not, either way, if it sticks, it should be easy enough to sand away bits of clingfilm after the repairs have cured up. Ideally I need some kind of wax spray as a release agent buy living near Boyle, you are seriously limited in what's available. There are only three things available in Boyle; Bread, sugar and milk. Anything else, and you have to go further afield to the likes of eh....Ballymote.

I then spent some time cutting out pieces from my glass cloth. Pieces should be cut and ready before you go mixing resin, cos once resin is catalyzed, you are on the clock. The way I went was to cut and place clear plastic on the ground out repair area and trace the outer shape. Then cut out that shape and transfer it to the glass cloth. Cut out a piece there and then cut out subsequent smaller pieces. I end up with 4 or 5 pieces of cloth each smaller than the last. When I resin up, I will lay the biggest piece down first, wet it up and repeat with each next smaller piece. As a typical novice, I went a bit heavy on the resin dabbing in more than necessary, if you back off a little and dab in less, the glass will soak up the resin underneath, just takes a little patience. By the time I was on my third repair, I was getting the hang of it.

Th resin was a big deal, getting out the containers and re-reading the many safety leaflets and what have you. By the time I was ready to pour my first batch of resin, I realised I had no container to mix it in, literally. You need small disposable containers for this. I searched the house and even asked next door, no one had any disposable cups. I needed petrol anyways so I went to my local shop, the filling station at Castlebaldwin. Now bear in mind that I have been going there for years and am well known to them. I went up to the woman of the house herself who was manning the counter, a woman I have met many times and chatted away with, I explained to her that I was mixing epoxy and needed disposable cups and asked her could I take a few of the paper cups from her coffee machine......You can she replied, and then informed me that they would be 25c each !!!! It made me feel real pissed off that! People wanna charge me for a few lousy paper cups. I paid her for 4 of the dam things. On my way out, I grabbed 5 and kept going - thus my opening headline! There's something wrong when you are treated like that by your neighbours. I used to be a good customer there, from now on I will do my level best to avoid the place. She can keep her fcuking cups.

1. Working on the trailer, this is the underside of the centrepiece. After removing all the rust and paint, look what I uncovered...It says "Pete O' Brian, 7/7/90". He must have been the trailer maker/welder. Another bit of the boats history uncovered. I love stuff like this.

2, Making backing boards for supporting grp repairs. I sprayed silicon lubricant as a release agent, lets see if it works.

3. I tape the boards to the outside of the repair, and wet out with glass from the other side.

4. Here I am cutting out pieces using 280g woven coving. I also ordered some 600g cloth but it's like an aran sweater. Really heavy, I might use it on the floor.

5. After wetting up several layers of glass and using a metal toothed roller to squeeze out any air, I'll leave these repairs overnight and see what the story is tomorrow. I'm told they cure after a few hours but that you need to leave epoxy for about 7 days to fully 100% cure.

johnr1

dnme, your persistence is truly extraordinary ! I have read your entire thread over the last hour or so, and I really hope you can make the finish line, even if it's crawling. Im a boater, but cash pressure is forcing me to sell my beloved Bayliner Trophy at the moment, and I can see myself doing some sort of restoration project in the future if I want to be on the water again anytime this century. Keep the head up, and as other posters have said, get out in this boat as soon as the hull and engine mounting is safe, just remember to put in the bung!

I nearly sank my boat the first day I put it in 5 years ago, and it's a lesson i'l never forget.
Beg or borrow an engine somewhere for a weekend.
I know nothing about glasswork, but a lot about wood and its uses/ properties outdoors and how to work it, so whenever you get to that stage, if I can be of any help then PM me or whatever.
Thanks for the thread.

dnme

Day 21

It was meant to be a nice simple day, do some filling, maybe a coat of paint on the trailer......but something unnerving was niggling at the back of my mind.

I have been looking at the remaining deck seat on the starboard for ages now. It's a wreck, really thin grp, full of cracks and the supporting timbers underneath are either broken or missing. So the seat is almost elastic. Now also bear in mind that it also restricts access to the deck floor right where I uncovered that awful patch repair. I have been thinking for a while that maybe the seat should go. I will build my own seat when the time comes, and I need to get at that floor. So instead of my nice quiet day; out came the recip saw. I cut away that bad boy and trimmed up the remainder with my Aldi dremmel.

Once the seat was out, I decided to have a closer look at the topside of the hull patch. There was delamination around the keel plate so I cut that away and revealed another soaked piece of wood. It was clear that this boat has a very dodgy hull. Time to get brave. I made the decision to pull up the delaminating material. Little did I know what I was about to uncover. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but I will say that I was so shocked that I even made a video or two (links below).

After discovering a huge hole in the hull, and a perfectly rectangular man made hole at that, I knew that I was looking at rotten side keels. They too have to come out. Even crawling under the boat it's so obvious. The delamination around the side keels could only mean one thing. So again out with the dremmel and I cut away the grp covering from each keel. I then prized the keels down using a tyre iron. They dropped relatively easily actually.

Once I picked one of these keels up in my arms I knew that I had done the right thing just by the sheer weight due to the amount of water in them. They are saturated and in the early stages of rotting. Just seeing the keels reassured me that I had done the right thing. Leaving them as they were, I would have a boat with limited structural integrity, rotten keels and probably bad leaks. What I did today had to be done, I have been burying my head in the sand on these issues if I'm honest. I think today I have revealed how bad the boat truly is.

What I have now in the garden, is a boat with a whole new set of problems. I don't know if this boat is repairable now, I don't know if these keels and their replacement is beyond my skills or not. I am also worried that the main centre keel may be bad although there is no topside delamination along it's length to hint at this. Nonetheless it's a worry. I purchased this boat on the understanding that it had a good keel. It was a point that I covered with the seller more than once and he assured me it was good. At this stage I think I may drop him a line and initiate a little chat.

1. Should I stay or should I go. GTFO! This seat has to go. It's badly broken and it's supports are missing. It prevents me accessing the floor beneath where I need to investigate a rather bad botch hull repair.

2. Did you ever regret starting something? I can't believe how bad this is, surely it can't get any worse...can it?

3. Lets see how things look from the hull underside. If you look at the second frame in this image, you can see that I have unvovered a huge hole, and it's man made at that. Someone cut this out. What in gods name went on with this boat?

4. The keels have to come out. Time to face what I have been dreading for ages.

5. Keel timber is saturated and rotting. The timber is so wet that it weighs its weight in steel.

6. Just realised today that my humble Canon Powershot S2 does reasonable video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6y7rkF4SK0

7. See how bad these keels are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Gv1o8iIb4

fergal.b

You did the right thing, if you are going to keep the boat it's better to do the job right on the plus side removing the keels should make it easy to repair the hull.
You have a great voice for TV and I would love to see a documentary of this restoration on RTE/TG3/SKY. If business ever picks up you would be top of my list for employment.
Keep up the good work you have a lot of admirers who wan't to see this through and would would love to be at the launch of this boat she is like part of the family.

It BeeMee

dnme wrote: »

Day 20

Today for the first time in a number of years, I stole from a shop... On my way out, I grabbed 5 and kept going

You're going to hell, lad.

Good to see you're back at it again, dnme. Keep up the good work. Make sure to let me know when you're taking her out...

On the wheels : are the axles far enough apart to take 4x13" ? Using 4 wheels will help weight distribution for towing (and no, I don't have spares lying around) but from what I remember they would run very close together?
Might be worth a try, just to see.

Alkers

fergal.b wrote: »

You did the right thing, if you are going to keep the boat it's better to do the job right on the plus side removing the keels should make it easy to repair the hull.
You have a great voice for TV and I would love to see a documentary of this restoration on RTE/TG3/SKY. If business ever picks up you would be top of my list for employment.
Keep up the good work you have a lot of admirers who wan't to see this through and would would love to be at the launch of this boat she is like part of the family.

Likewise, LOLed when I heard your voice first, had a DNME voice in my head before I heard you spoke and the real one is gas. keep up the good work!

dnme

Simona1986 wrote: »

Likewise, LOLed when I heard your voice first, had a DNME voice in my head before I heard you spoke and the real one is gas. keep up the good work!

You should hear the language outa me, seriously!! Let me put it this way, my favourite word begins with c :cool:

thereitisgone

Been following your adventure from the start and have found it the most interesting thread i have ever read on Boards , in the middle of my own repair job over here in Finland at the moment repairing a hull and hopefully start on the engine in the next few days. Its noting as epic as your battle but i can empathize with your feelings. What started as a small job turned into something bigger as i found more and more faults, am nearly there now on the bodywork but it is so disheartening to discover new problems as you go along, but there is a point zero when you have found all the problems and i suspect your there now or very close and it really only gets better after that because your days only yield positive results. Remember nothing is impossible there is always a way.....always a way no matter what anyone says.

JamBur

Superb thread, just read though it in one sitting. DNME, you are a an absolute inspiration, and your passion for this project really shines through! Good luck with it, and I will be eagerly awaiting on updates.

blackiebest

Delighted to have found this thread. I am not far from you and am pretty well tooled up so will be happy to help if I can, great inspiring job you are doing. I have a nice camper that needs this sort of love. Mabey I get at it now...

dnme

Weather here is awful again, infact we only really got about a day and a half of sun from the recent "fine spell". It's back to wet, windy and bloody cold here. So boat is back under wraps and going by the weather forecast, it maybe there for a while. In the meantime, here's a very quick update.

1. Trailer frame. Stripped, wire brushed and left in the rain for 3 weeks to develope a new layer of rust. This gives the Hammerite "straight to rust" black paint a great key. I have found recently that Hammerite does not take terribly well to clean metal, thus the above experiment which worked a treat. Even the second coat was well keyed without any extra work.

2. When you are lying on the ground under a boat, you crawl out on your belly and there's your sidekick lookin in at ya. She's not much help but cheers me up no end. If only I could train her to make coffee.

dnme

Guys,

If you were undertaking repairing this size of hole in a hull, how would you go about it? Is there anything special I need to be doing?

Also I need some clarification. When laying down cloth patch repairs, do I place the largest cloth piece down first or last? There seems to be two trains of thought on this, many of the youtube videos show smallest first and then build up your layers with each next biggest piece. This would make sense to me as it means each piece of cloth would have contact with the original grp whereas if I lay down the biggest piece first, then that is thonly piece to contact the original grp.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

fergal.b

Yep go with the small bit first,cut it to fit the hole and then a bigger one and so on like you did with the cardboard and clingflim to hold the first one in place. I find if you use very thin sheets of plastic or veneer you can get a good smooth finish, B&Q do some quite cheep or you could cut up a big plastic bottle and open it out to cover the hole once it's smooth the epoxy won't stick.

dnme

fergal.b wrote: »

Yep go with the small bit first,cut it to fit the hole and then a bigger one and so on like you did with the cardboard and clingflim to hold the first one in place. I find if you use very thin sheets of plastic or veneer you can get a good smooth finish, B&Q do some quite cheep or you could cut up a big plastic bottle and open it out to cover the hole once it's smooth the epoxy won't stick.

When I did the cardboard and clingfilm, I went the other way, large piece first as per West System's manual. But in the back of my head it made more sense to go small piece first and let each subsequent piece have some contact with tapered edge. On youtube, it seems that it's 50/50 as to which way to do it.

I wonder why are there two ways to do this? what are the advantages/disadvantages of each ?

fergal.b

If it's a deep hole and you go with a big piece first it might make little folds around the edge that could trap air like trying to poke a flat sheet of paper into a round hole if the hole is not too deep I think either way will work fine.

dnme

Request for help

1. I am wondering if there is anyone near me (Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo) with a table saw that I could use for 20 minutes. I need to mill some 2-1/2 x 3/4 softwood. I'm finding it a difficult size to source in hardware / builders etc so I may as well mil it myself.

2. I removed the old side keels from the boat recently. I would like to replace these and get the project back underway. One of the old keel timbers may be workable and recyclable, but the other definately needs replacing. So I need either 1 or 2 pieces of hardwood 1200 x 50 x 90 mm. If anyone has any scrap lying around, even thinner pieces that I can biscuit join or whatever I'd be very grateful.