Thread:

Best method for relaminating deck

Looking for advice for the best method to go about relaminating this deck.
What would be the best material to use for a backup molder?
Should I do the lamination from the outside or the inside? Laminating from the inside ,I think, would mean flipping the hull upside down?
The hull thickness is only 1/8". What would be the best laminate schedule to use? I was thinking of doing it from the out side and attaching the molder to the underside and using a schedule of mat, roving cloth,finnishing with two layers of matt, because I know there will be a fair amount of sanding to get the deck straight and the plan is to regell the boat instead of paint. Once the molder was removed, I was thinking of laying up another layer of mat and cloth on the entire underside of the deck for a little extra stiffining support.
Should I include a core material ,such as a thin plywood for deck strength? Did eliminator use wood in the 19 Daytonas deck at all? How would coremat work for stenghening the deck?
I am just looking for advice, on the best approach to this ,from the fiberglass experts out there.
Here is a pic of what I am working with. Thanks.... Hal

Originally Posted by OFFSHORE GINGER

hey guy , i would really love to help you but ..............some of your terms really throw me for a loop ......like moulder , and why would you even want to use a fabric like Woven roving ...considering there are so many fabrics out there that are far more user friendly !!!!! Shoot me a P.M .............if you like , & your phone number .....because i hate typing , long reply's .................

Hey Ginger, What I am calling a moulder,for lack of a better word ,is a backing material attached to the repair area to lay up the glass against.You know just like a mold. I dont know what else to call it.
I was not intending on using woven roving. I was speaking of alternatinglayers of mat and cloth. I think some call it finnishing cloth and I have heard it called woven cloth, but again I am not sure of the technical name for it.
I was just looking for an idea of what materials and weights that I should use.....Hal

I'm with og ,we need more simple explanations on what you want to do? Are you making the deck stronger? Do you need to glass the hull inside?

Take some more pics or draw a small cartoon and rescan. No glass cloth will matter for tooling it's going to be a hard sand either way.

www.bottomsupboatrepair.com

I need to make the hole whole again.
I am not trying to make a mold. I just need to fill the cut out back in with new glass. The repairs needed on the deck were so much that it was better to just cut it all out and reglass the section.
The deck is 1/8"thick. My plan was to use a piece of plexiglass or 1/8 mdf as a back up mounted under the deck to conform to the deck shape, covered with pva mold release ,to lay the glass against for layup to the original deck thicknes. Then remove the back up material. Since the deck is so thin , i was tinking of installing some kind of core ,like a thin plywood for more strenghth and regidity with another couple layers of glass to encapsulate it ,on the underside of the deck. I do not want to use epoxy as the boat will be regellcoated. I will be using polyester resin.
I have repaired many holes in fiberglass hulls before, just not one so big.

I need to make this



Look like this again.



.......................................Thanks..... Hal

If you still have the original piece removed, use skrimmed balsacore or other coring material, laminate it to your cut out piece on the inside. Leave the edges run past the cut out, trim it once cured slightly bigger than the cut out, and push it up from beneath, and resin in place. Do your lamination work inside first, then grind back the edges 2-3 inch bevels on the seam, till you get into the balsa. Glass in as desired, block, gel, and block again. If you don't cut thru the glass on the outside, chances are the cut out repair will apear at a later time.

DAM

If done with a kind hand. Make a three inch butt block of pure fiberglass using a pane of glass from the hardware store as you mold. Make flat section of glass and line the outside with a lip bonded to the underside. If you have the old section bond it in and glass the top seams. If no old section make anew one from the same pane of glass using it as a flat mold. Then you can fit the part like a quarter panel on a car. Then bond it in. I would use 6/10 west system from west marine for bonding parts on. During install clean up all excess material or you will grind it.

In a nut shell bond some sections of glass on the underside of hull to stop new part from falling through. Done right it works great I use this method on blind pwc repairs and it works great not one failure and been doing it this way for years.

Hope this helps..

Thanks Guys That is the info I am looking for. The old piece is so distorted and badly damaged that it cannot be used.
I like the idea of making a flat piece of raw fiberglass, that way I can leave it as part of the laminate. I also need to make the two ribs that run up the deck in the picture with the good deck. I think I will grind the top side of the deckperimiter to a 12/1 bevel. Then I will make a pannel of fiberglass and attach it to the underside of the dec, so that it conforms to the right shape, then make two wood pieces that represent the ribs and attach them to the fiberglass pannel, lay up the fberglass laminate on top of the fiberglass panel, working out ward. The wood ribs on top of the fiberglass pannel will give me the shape of the ribs that i need.
What would the bennefit be for using finnishing cloth on the very last outerlayer? Could I jus make the last two layers CSM,or for that matter can I just do the whole laminate with CSM?...Thanks.......Hal

Originally Posted by TRG

Is that the old Gambler boat? (JP's deal?)

Yes Todd, partially.

Originally Posted by flat screwd

Hal why dont you make up a deck design that all your own? Maybe like a Sanger rib deck or a scalloped design intagrated into the dash. Afterall at this point anything goes. We know you have the skills !

I had thought of customizing the deck before, but really I would just like to keep it as original a possible.....H

I think I am going to lay up a thin sheet of glass that is flexible enough to conform to the shape of the deck and glassit in from the underside.Then atatch the ribs and layup from the out side.
After I plan on flipping upside down and relaming the entire under deck,maybe adding something like core mat for some light weight strength. I would add a thin piece of ply but think it might be too heavy. The deck is only 1/8" and had core matt in it before.

So I did a little experiment today. I did a burn test, on the section of the deck that was cut out, to see what laminate schedule was originally used. You set the fiberglass on fire and the resin melts away and what is left is the layers of fiberglass material used in the laminate schedule.
What I found was kind of intresting. I apears that the laminate was comprised of Gelcoat, two to three layers of CSM( unknown what weight) and one layer of cloth or fabric. I was surprised that there was not any other material between the CSM. The deck is made up of almost entirely CSM.
The deck thickness is only 1/8" thick, with glass and resin.
Here are a few pictures of what it liiks like. ...Hal

Hal and at this time i will not offer an opinion other then out !