john_morris_uk
Well-known member
Having eventually fixed our fridge I looked at the list of outstanding jobs and thought I’d better get on with sorting out an area of the saloon floor that’s gone a bit springy and sagged. It’s been like it for eight or nine months and I’ve put off tackling it.. I’d initially assumed that one of the bits of softwood framing that supports the teak and holly ply floor panels had broken or rotted and so I’d brought a bit of hardwood back out to the boat with me at Christmas before we crossed to Barbados. I’d got the dimensions wrong but fellow Forumite Bajansailor who lives in Barbados very kindly got a friend of his to run it through his table saw to make it the correct dimensions.
Like many boat jobs, this one turned into a bigger job than I expected. I removed some teak trim and found that a section of 18mm bulkhead tabbed to the hull was delaminating. The brass fastenings that held the framing to it had rotted away and the whole thing was a mess.
My initial thought was to wonder if I could get away with injecting glue down the delaminated section and clamping if together? A bit of prodding showed that it was too far gone.
The scraps of wood are where it all started to fall apart when I probed with my fingers.
Out with the multi-tool and start removing the old glass tabbing. This is where I remembered that when we bought the boat 18 years ago, the survey picked up a fault in this area and asked for the tabbing to be reinforced. I was removing not only the original tabbing, but the attempt by the GRP specialist we’d brought in at the time to tab over the top of it.
After a lot of cutting and chiselling I got the old bit of bulkhead out.
The hull area was cleaned up and a pattern made for the new bit of ply. We’re currently in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia so I wondered round to the boat yard and did a deal for an off cut of ply ($EC 10 or about £3).
There are a couple of ways you can cut a bit to the correct shape. Joggling is one but for this small bit a cardboard template sufficed.
I then discovered what I feared. I couldn’t get the new one into place because of things in the way. I had to cut a step scarf in the longitudinal bearer to gain access.
With the new bit of plywood fitted, the edges were coated in epoxy and a fillet of thickened epoxy added to both sides.
Then it was just a matter of adding several layers of woven glass matting to either side to tab the ply into place and secure it properly. I tried to overlap at the ends when possible to secure it to the existing bulkhead.
Todays job is to rebuild the frame and prep for painting. Then there’s lots of teak trim to refit and varnish.
More to follow if anyone is interested?
Like many boat jobs, this one turned into a bigger job than I expected. I removed some teak trim and found that a section of 18mm bulkhead tabbed to the hull was delaminating. The brass fastenings that held the framing to it had rotted away and the whole thing was a mess.
My initial thought was to wonder if I could get away with injecting glue down the delaminated section and clamping if together? A bit of prodding showed that it was too far gone.
The scraps of wood are where it all started to fall apart when I probed with my fingers.
Out with the multi-tool and start removing the old glass tabbing. This is where I remembered that when we bought the boat 18 years ago, the survey picked up a fault in this area and asked for the tabbing to be reinforced. I was removing not only the original tabbing, but the attempt by the GRP specialist we’d brought in at the time to tab over the top of it.
After a lot of cutting and chiselling I got the old bit of bulkhead out.
The hull area was cleaned up and a pattern made for the new bit of ply. We’re currently in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia so I wondered round to the boat yard and did a deal for an off cut of ply ($EC 10 or about £3).
There are a couple of ways you can cut a bit to the correct shape. Joggling is one but for this small bit a cardboard template sufficed.
I then discovered what I feared. I couldn’t get the new one into place because of things in the way. I had to cut a step scarf in the longitudinal bearer to gain access.
With the new bit of plywood fitted, the edges were coated in epoxy and a fillet of thickened epoxy added to both sides.
Then it was just a matter of adding several layers of woven glass matting to either side to tab the ply into place and secure it properly. I tried to overlap at the ends when possible to secure it to the existing bulkhead.
Todays job is to rebuild the frame and prep for painting. Then there’s lots of teak trim to refit and varnish.
More to follow if anyone is interested?
)
