Batboat Rebuild: Day 30 July 5th through 8th, 2009

I didn't get much done during this time period. All work was focused on laminating the braces to the stringers. The heat and dehydration from being in overalls also convinced me to take a day off.

The work was slow going. There is one set of saw horses here so there was progress on one set of stringers at a time, one side at a time.

Joining the two ends of the longest stringers and didn't take much time to figure it out. This was easy. I placed them in the hull one at at time, lined them up with the remaining fiberglass layups of one of the originals and clamped them with a brace. I pulled the stringer out and drilled holes for stainless steel screws and screwed them in.

While demolishing all the old rot last year I removed all but three small sections of one of the original stringer's fiberglass from the hull. This was so I can clamp a new stringer, giving support to the others when they are bonded to the hull.

I flipped them over on the saw horse and laminated a brace to the other side using 1.5 oz chopped strand mat cloth.

Here they are steadily held in place.

The next day I did the other side and the day after ground the excess fiberglass off.

I finished up joining the braces to the small stringers I started on the 4th Of July.

The below photos shows how they all fit in the hull with the cross braces. Everything is perfect so far.




Now that they braces are permanently laminated to the large stringers, holes are drilled for more stainless screws for the other side. These things will be joined together long past my years.

The small stringers get less screws than the large because there is not much room.
The large got eight stainless screws on each side and the small have four. All positions were predrilled and counter sank.

All went in good and tight to the point where several screw heads broke off. All stainless that I couldn't drive in beneath the surface of the wood were ground flat. There is no way these are coming out! lol.

The lamination gave way on one of the small stringers when I was putting in its first screw. The holes I drilled were not big enough and the torque broke the bond! What a pain in the a*$.

Rebonding this added a couple more days of delay in fiberglassing them into the hull. This time I did it with peanut butter resin! lol!