Headlining re-glueing

davidpbo

davidpbo

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Boatless in Cheshire. Formerly 23ft Jeanneau Tonic
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The foam backing ot the headlining above galley area and cooker had badly perished, I also wanted to replace it imediately above and behind the cooker with stainless steel.

It is one of those jobs you wish you had not started, we are up to about £100 for materials and carriage.

Headlining down, old foam removed (took a long time). My wife had a nightmare sticking new foam back on using Zaff II glue (from Hawk House where we got the foam, which is a contact adhesive similar to Evo Stick I believe. We applied it as per instructions on tin to both surfaces, did we need to? (It was very difficult to apply with a brush to the foam.

We now have to re-attached this to the inside of the cabin roof should we use that glue and put it on one surface?

Any other suggestions?

I also had problems getting wood battons to attach to stick to the GRP to to take the stainless, tried using a building exterior grip fix type product, left them for 12 hours and tried to fix the larger of the panels and the small battons came away. Glue was still soft behind, ended up taking that off and using epoxy which seemed to be taking forever to set such that I had to support the battons and have left them overnight.

Temperature was not high probably 10C or is that likely to be the problem? Using SP 106 epoxy with microfibres and coloidal sylica on the second attempt. I shall see how it fared soon.
 
I re-lined a Westerly Griffin some years ago with foam backed vinyl. The glue I used was a spray-on carpet type glue which was sprayed onto each surface, allowed to dry for a few minutes, and then the lining pushed into place.
Problems: 1] when the glue is ready, as soon as you touch the two surfaces together they stick and you cannot move it if you have not got the positioning just right. Solution is to offer the foam up while still dry, draw a pencil line vertically and horizontally on the sid eof the boat and equally on the back of the foam. Then you can apply the foam in exactly the right place [one hopes!]
2] The fumes of the glue are intoxicating. When I was spraying in the quarter berth I became quite woozy. Make sure that there is good ventilation.
 
Sounds like you've got a bit of a nightmare job there. Try this, bond your battens with dollops of P38 or other car body filler, spread a thin smear on each batten and a dollop on the roof and push batten into dollop, use another springy batten to hold in place whilst you trowel a fillet up the side of the batten at dollop location. This time of year with temperatures up it'll set in about 15-20 minutes. That'll hold the battens for you. What foam are you using? It can't be polystyrene because you say an evo-stik like glue and that melts it so it must be upholstery foam. As I assume you only want it held in place until the headlining is installed to the battens try a mastic gun and a few dollops of NoNails (the solvent type of which the best variant is Gripfil from carpet warehouses). To fix the headlining, use a heavy duty staple gun or trigger tacker as it's often known. I'm assuming here the fixing method of the headlining is by working across the cabin roof stapling down the back of the seams to the battens? Or is your headlining pre-fixed to ply panels later screwed to the battens. Gripfil will also fix stainless steel to most things, wedge in place overnight.
 
The technique I have had most success with, but this has been to reattach old headlining not replacing. This was to apply evostik to the grp then an aerosol spray on the back of the headlining. These seem to stick better than evostik on both or aerosol spray on its own.
Derek
 
A simple solution to stopping inadvertant sticking of contact adhesive spread surfaces until YOU are ready is to insert a layer of newspaper between the (dry) glued surfaces. Because the paper is dry it won't stick to either surface assuming the adhesive has dried first, thus allowing you to guide the work into place , stick one edge and then remove the paper and work across the surface pressing firmly down to remove air bubbles.
 
Having had a few Westerly's in my life, I've bought one or two of those headlining kits from Hawk house in my time.. They're really good, but, as you've probably noticed, are a bit short of info and don't always quite fit.

My eventual solution was to buy some very thin ply.. Cut it out to the desired shape. Check it fits correctly. Fit the headlining to the ply in the comfort of a well ventilated workshop .. And then the finished article to the boat, with some classy upholstry screws..

Works fine, and the extra cost of the ply is more than justified by the fact that you don't have to do the same job twice, and don't pass out from glue fumes..
 
Never tried Visqueen but I suspect that it won't work like dry newspaper does, and if it doesn't - you're stuffed aren't you?

Vinyl onto foam onto grp roof - ouch! I doubt you'll win out on that one without an awful lot of luck. Paraphrasing what the other chap says and what I commented on earlier, insulate and fit the headlining to thin ply panels and screw to battens. You can fit it over a thin foam backing, similar to or the same as that used under hardwood strip flooring, tack and glue on the back for perfect neatness and uniform appearance. I've tried what you are attempting, and it looked a mess and I'm pretty handy with most jobs. Either on panels or by tacking a sewn-in seam to battens bonded across the roof leaves a nice tight and even job, much like the method used to headline trim a car. Your choice however, we only try to help.
 
Westerly owners know all about this. Fixing the new headlining direct to the GRP requires the surface to be absolutely cleaned down from any glue residue, which is a b**** of a job. You will still get bumps and lumps anyway. The best long term solution is to go the plywood panel route. It does require a bit more work,but the end result is far better and once the panels are made up, and covered they are easier to fit ( and remove if you need access wiring).
 
Totally agree! Used thin ply which we suck the vinyl lining to with PVA glue. Then glassed in some battens then fixed each panel with short brass screws in brass screw cups or you could use the white plastic screw cups. I made the battens 25mm thich then before fixing the headlining panels I put 25mm polystyrene between the battens. Very effective, and the unbacked vinyl is so much easier to work with.

Had to alter a panel some years later and the PVA glue had worked so well that it tore the ply apart as I tried to remove it.

I'm surprised Hawke House Marine didn't offer you their vinyl already backed with foam.
 
I'll be tackling this job next year - oh joy.
I've been thinking of using ply panels affixed to battens; however, I'm loath to give away any cabin space in my already cosy Corribee, particularly in the quarterberths.
Have any of you tried fixing light panels with velcro? If so, how did it work out?
Otherwise, has anyone come across a novel or clever solution to this problem, beyond the usual vinyl/carpet/paint options?
Thanks,
Declan.
 
When i replaced the headlining on my Moody I used a spary glue - STAB from TGP, very effective and as it is spray on not at all messy - I ended up buying a case of 12 cans, much cheaper than buyings one at a time
 
Ply lining not an option for this panel. It it is on the side of the boat, a lot of it is cut out for a window, it drops down then curves back under (The side deck). Fortunately there are the screw holes for the window to aid correct alignment.

I won't say we have cleaned off absolutely all the glue but we have done a good job with most of it, a combination of scraping and light sanding.

We have attached the foam to the vinyl and now need to glue this back to the fibreglass, it certainly going to be spray glue on to the foam and probably on to the fibreglass as well. Panel does have a reasonable ammount of mechanical support as well, top edge by ply roof panel, window frame in centre of much of it, and stainless steel and ply panels on much of bottom edge.

I have used Copydex in the past to stick up decayed foam fairly successfully would that be a solution? the fumes are a lot less of a problem.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Fixing the new headlining direct to the GRP requires the surface to be absolutely cleaned down from any glue residue

[/ QUOTE ]

We have to start doing smaller patches pf droopping headlining on our Westerly Oceanlord. Most of it is OK, it is really only the bits at the edges especially in the lockers that are falling back becasue the foam has disintegrated. I had assumed that a messy job of scraping off all the bad foam from both surfaces, then sticking back with good contact adhesive such as EVO STICK. You mention I must get rid of the old glue as well......... How do you do that, Solvents?
 
When we were fitting out super yachts using covered panels velcro type material was very common.You can get a lightweight bendy ply from trade suppliers which will do curves.The velcro type material we used was a 3M scotchmate product from memory.I would think that if the panels were not too big velcro would do the job.How well the velcro sticks to the surfaces is the governing factor as the hook to loop join is surprisingly strong.
 
To conclude.

The mistake we made when sticking the foam to the vinyl off the boat was to "paint" the glue on the back of the vinyl and the foam (Painting on the foam was a nightmare). We should have done a test and ignored instructions on the tin and put glue on vinyl only and stuck foam to it whilst still wet. Alternatively we could have painted glue on vinyl and used a spray glue on foam, as both surfaces were good and clean spray foam on both would probably have worked.

To stick the foam covered vinyl back up to a reasonably cleaned surface we painted glue on GRP and spray glued foam. Went up OK.
 
Re: Headlining re-glueing, Chris_Robb

I have an oceanlord too and removed drooping vinyl from lockers and the walk-thru cabin. I used wire brushes to get rid of most of the old glue and grey-grown disintegrated foam. Rather than re-line with vinyl, I used inexpensive natural pine/cream colored felt-backed, short tufted carpet. It's easy to cut and stick in place, looks absolutely fine and is warm to touch. This last point got me thinking...I ripped out the vinyl lining in the fore cabin at bunk level (below the shelves) and replaced it with the same carpet. The result is tactile heaven - no cold plastic to roll against in the night, just cosy, skin-friendly, warm carpet.
A big added bonus is it eliminates any possibility of condensation.
I have a project to replace all vinyl covered surfaces - except roof linings - with the same carpet. It costs about £4.95 a square meter and is sold in 4meter widths by CarpetLand and similar outlets.
 
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