Batboat Rebuild: Day 43 August 11th, 2009

I worked 7 hours with breaks here and there for lunch and water. It was extremely hot out and I worked in the direct sun in shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt.

Not much of a pop drinker but I managed to buy several bottles of John McCain Cola months ago. Made of cane sugar it was probably good to drink before starting because of the sugar and caffeine content. It tasted good, too!



Today I fiberglassed the first ply of deck to the hull, installed the below-deck flotation and bedded in the middle ply.

I wanted to move out of my house badly because of bad neighbors and the Batboat was going to be my U-haul, therefore, I was working on it constantly throughout August. Had to get the deck in and dust cleaned out before my stuff could go in!

The first job for the day was to fiberglass the deck, something I never did before. My first time at it.

The deck surface was cleaned by grinding down the excess PL Adhesive over the screws and sanding the surface of the ply with 40 grit paper. The dust was blown out and then cleaned up with acetone in a rag.


The fiberglassing turned out to be a mess. I screwed up. A matching 60 inch by 20 inch section of 1.5 chopped strand mat and 6 oz. Hexel woven was cut. The mat went on first and the Hexel followed. I got so many bubbles in the 6 oz. Hexel because my hand was fiberglassed into my glove. I could not reposition the 6oz cloth on top of the mat until I got my hand out. By then it was almost too late. I did the best I could but have lots of grinding and patching to do later. :(

This fiberglassing waterproofs the deck plywood and bonds it to the hull by running the cloth up the sides.

The 1.5 oz chopped strand mat bonds to the plywood and the 6 oz. Hexel woven goes on top to create a smooth surface and for strength.

A minimum of 8 oz. of fiberglass cloth is recommended for decks. I came up .5 oz shy but this is not a deck where there will be any foot traffic.

Looking at some scraps of the original deck, it looks like Glastron originally used one layer of woven and put a vinyl floor on top. (!!!)

Here is another attempt at 20 inches of cloth. I rolled this on with a few inches overlap on the first layup.

This turned out much better.

I fiberglassed up to near the cross brace screws. After the middle ply is in, the fiberglass will overlap the previous work by several inches plus over the seam in the deck.

Blah.

It is a good idea to have some kind of floatation under the deck in case something happens out on the water. I went the swimming pool "Fun Noodles" route.

This is closed cell foam, the type used in jet fighter wings, will not disintegrate unless in UV rays, are very buoyant, and cheap!

Got 15 of them last year at WalMart's end of season price drop at $1.50 each. Most stores have them marked down at the end of every summer.

Remember to tear off the tags. They can be moisture and mold traps under the deck!

These are easy to tear into sections and down the middle using only your hands.



The round shape of the foam will not trap water if it ever got under the deck. It will just flow out to the bilge.

Only 14 out of 15 would fit under the deck. My niece and nephew got the one left over.

There is now more foam under the deck than what the factory put in back in 1969 and it cost me only $22.50.

My Batboat is an outboard so there are no worries about the foam being ruined by gas leaks from an under deck tank.

Again, this is closed cell foam and won't soak in water unless exposed to lots of UV rays.


I bonded and screwed the middle section in just like I did to the other the day before and vacuum cleaned up.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 42 August 10th, 2009

I worked 5 - 6 hours that day with always the possibility of rain. Clouds came and went. Sky went light and dark a few times, however, nothing came down from the sky and a lot was accomplished.

I got these stainless steel screws solely for screwing the deck plywood to the cross braces. They are also the same sized as the originals used to join the topside, hull and rub rail together.

These are #10 one inch pan heads. I didn't want to use the longer, 1 1/4 inch screws I already had because the thickness of the deck and braces equaled 1 1/4, taking the chance the screw will go through the bottom of the ply allowing moisture into the sealed ply. One inch screws are better. Plus these are thicker.

The 1 1/4 inchers are for the stringers.

Today I started to permanently lay the deck pieces into the hull.


I pre-drilled the holes in the deck plywood and counter sank where the #10 pan heads go. I used a lot of them!


The locations in the deck ply of all the screws going into the stringers were pre-drilled but not counter sank because they were the flat head 1 1/4 inch.

None of the stringers or braces were pre-drilled into. I wanted the screw heads to draw the deck ply down tight and force it down on top. Pre-drilling may cause some holes to get stripped when screwed the second time, I figured.

With the deck ply perfectly set into the hull I checked all the holes with a small drill bit to make sure the screws were not going into thin air or through the sides of the stringers. The bit was moved around at angles feeling for surfaces. Where there wasn't any a new spot was marked and drilled.

The transom end of the deck goes in first.

The ply is perfectly sitting square in the hull. I drilled two screws through this deck through into a stringer and took them out. These points will be used to align the deck back in.


To bed the deck into the boat a generous amount of PL Construction Adhesive is used. This bonds and waterproofs the join of the deck ply to the stringers and braces.

The guys at the iboats.com forum highly recommends this.

Use a lot of PL Adhesive.

Glop it on good so it spreads over the edges when the deck is screwed on top.


Glop it on up to where the deck ends on the cross brace and no further.

This caulk begins to skin in a few minutes so I had to work swiftly.

Putting the two screws back into the deck ply, I lifted the ply over the stringers, aligned them to their holes and dropped the plywood directly on top of the stringers and screwed them in.

Here is a trick they showed me at the iboats.com boat restoration forum. To further waterproof the screw entries, put some PL Adhesive in the holes. In my case, excess from on top of the structurals oozed up from beneath.

Set the screw in the hole and drill it in. The caulk is greasy and the screws go in smoothly with no heads popping off.


The screw will take in some of the caulk down with it into the stringer and bury its self in caulk. Excess will ooze over it.

When PL hardens it expands a little. I waited a day and ground the excess smooth.

This is never coming out and will out live me.

The second deck ply goes in another day. For now, the PL Adhesive will harden and I checked it out the next day.

It was getting almost dusk anyway.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 41 August 7th, 2009

Only thing my notes say for this day is that I worked for over 6 hours but the photos bring back all the great memories of that day. Finally, progress!

I was very busy getting the boat ready for the new deck.

The excess fiberglass was ground off the stringers where the cross braces get bedded in.


The slots were adjusted and perfectly sized and fitted to their cross braces.


More white fiberglass dust to clean up and make me itch!

Each stringer is completely bonded to the hull. The surface of the cross brace notches are left bare wood which will help the peanut butter bond the plywood together. (peanut butter = polyester resin mixed with wood flower / fine saw dust). This bare surface will soak it in. :)

It is impossible to rebuild a fiberglass boat without an air compressor to blow the itchy fiberglass dust out. Ruth Uhala of Bay City loaned it for the summer. Thanks, Ruth! :)


The shop vac sucks up the most of it and the air compressor blows the finer particles out. (and sometimes in the direction of my bad "barking dog next to my bedroom window" stoner neighbor's house, too. he he.)

Those stringers took forever to put in! On this day I bonded in the cross braces that join and support the deck pieces. Finally, it was time to begin something with the deck!

To bond in the braces, I used the #8 1 1/2 inch stainless steel screws mentioned in the previous blog and peanut butter. The marine plywood used for the cross braces was 3/4 inch thick. If longer screws were used with the smaller stringers they would go through the hull.

I pre-drilled and counter sank all the holes after making sure everything lined up and was perfect....

...mixed up a small, 16 oz+ batch of peanut butter...

Yum.
...glopped in a liberal amount of it into where the cross braces go....

...And screwed the cross braces down.

Excess oozed out everywhere which is good. When the peanut butter hardens, it and the screws create a permanent bond with the stringers and braces. The only way to break it is to intentionally rip it all out with power tools. Or if the boat is hit by an exploding shark!

Back in '69 when Glastron built this craft they stapled the two inch wide cross braces into the stringers, much like a Walmart garden trellis. The braces I made are overkill at 6 inch wide, but it didn't cost me anything extra to do it that way, plus they are bonded in.

Looks good so far! I took my finger and filled in some of the gaps with the excess peanut butter.


As it started to harden, the "glop" was made smooth using my fingers. Look at the weave in that thick 1708 biaxial fiberglass!

The result is two more perfectly flush surfaces to attach a deck to.


All countersunk screw heads were filled with PL Construction Adhesive and ground smooth after it had hardened.


The deck plywood peices were set in the boat and the locations of the stringers and crossbraces beneath were marked. This lets me know where to put the screws later.

These two deck pieces are butt together with lines showing where the braces and stringers are underneath.

Looking under the deck towards the bow for gaps

With the complete deck temporarily set in place with weights I took a look underneath to see if there were any unlevel gaps between it, the cross braces and the stringers. Where there was, light shown through and I lightly ground those high spots down so the deck lay on top of all completely level.

Perfect. Everything went smoothly.

Looking from the bow toward the transom. No gaps.