Filling Craters on the Moon

This is precisely how it felt.  It seemed as if we had drilled a million little holes in the hull, and now  everyone of them had to be filled.  While I have used the West System epoxy and filler before, I have always found it cahllenging to get the mixture and consistency just right without using measuring cups/pumps.  So when I started looking around, I found the System Three Epoxy products, and in particular the QuickFair product.  It go good reviews on the JamesTown Distributors website, so I decided to give it a try.  It is a simple epoxy and hardener that already has the glass beads mixed in with the resin.  It uses a 2:1 ratio when mixing, that I have become quite good at eyeballing when mixing.  The other big criteria for our epoxy filling solution was it needed to be relatively easy to sand.  By all accounts this stuff worked great. Made prep work quick and for the most part worked like a charm.

Initially, we were putting way too much on, and then having to sand it off and continue fairing it.  Finally Peter devised a "skimming" method that used the old contour of the hull to fill just the holes using a large putty knife and paint mixing sticks.  It meant that when the epoxy shrunk down some, you had to come back over and do it again, but it certainly reduced the amount of sanding.

So speaking of sanding, Peter made some great sanding boards of different lengths out of lauan plywood with little wooden handles screwed and glued on a angles that made holding them.  We used some adhesive and attached sand paper to them.  The smallest one was about 30 inches, and the longest was about 50 inches.  These "long boards" allowed us to get really good fairing without creating more divits and ruts, that an orbital sander might create.  The only drawback was that we had to hand sand the entire hull, multiple times (after each reapplication of the QuickFair).  After starting with 80 grit sand paper, we worked out way down to 60 grit,m 50 grit, and finally down to 36 grit.  This 36 grit was awesome.  Tough as nails, and just tore through the epoxy and filler.  I''l try to take some pics of the materials and get those posted.

Needless to say, this took --- FOREVER!!!  It just really did feel like we were never going to finish.  Always a little more to do.  And oh, by the way, when were were done ... we had to flip the boat and do the other side!!!!  Ugh.

In retrospect, I think we should have grabbed the orbitals and just gone at it, and worried about all the detail fairing for later.  But the end result was a hull that was pretty well faired when it was all said and done.

Tearing up the Deck

 When we got the boat, we knew that the deck was soft around the port chain plate.  As a matter of fact, the very first step I took on the boat was onto this soft area, and I almost stepped right back off with the thoughts of just walking away.  Fortunately, the rest of the deck did not appear to have any soft spots, so I figured this one was primarily a result of the poor sealing of special "waste port" just outboard of the port chain plate.  Frankly, we have not idea why one would ever need a wast port on a J/24, but as you can see, it is there.

   

I've been eager to find out just how bad this rot is, and this weekend, we decided to "dig in" and find out.  The idea was to preserve the deck pattern above by cutting out the bottom layer of fiberglass from inside the cabin.  This would allow us to dig out the rot from underneath without compromising the look of the deck from above, or at least that was the thinking.

As you can see the rot was quite extensive!  I could just grab hand fulls of mushy rotten balsa, and just squeeze the water out of it.  It was really bad.  I used an oscillating cutting tool to cut through the fiberglass and then to shave out the balsa core.  I let this sit for over a year (while the rest of the bottom work was being done) in order to get good and dry.  

Grinding Out the Blisters

Remember, the whole challenge with this boat is that it was full of blisters.  It had been left in the water for many many years.  As a result, it had what someone described as having a "constellation" of blisters all over the bottom.  Maybe a better description would have been, it looked like the surface of the moon.  Here are a few "before" pictures.

So I seriously considered taking a planer, and shaving off all of the gelcoat on this boat.  If it weren't a one design I think I would have done that.  The gelcoat was so blistered that it was difficult to see any areas that weren't blistered. We started by sanding off the old ant-fouling paint and then an old layer of what appeared to be Interlux 2000 (gray).  At that point the blisters were in plain sight.  Some had already been opened up by the sanding, but many were not. We discovered that a strong pressure washer did a great job of taking off some of the gelcoat and opening up the blisters as well.

But what in the end proved to be the most effective was to use a dremmel tool, with a 60-grit sanding wheel, and manually grinding out each blister.  It was painstaking work, and took forever.  There were a few sections where the gelcoat had become so delaminated, that it flaked off leaving entire regions bare to the fiberglass.  It was about this time that our wives started referring to the boat as FreeDumb!!  I was beginning to wonder about this myself.  In the end, the entire below water section of the hull looked just like this.

If you do this yourself, please be sure to wear eye protection and a good respirator, as the fluid in the blisters is nasty and the dust certainly would not be good for the lungs.

Getting if Off the Trailer

So the first challenge was to get it off the trailer.  All of the deck hardware had already been removed (remember we were planning to flip it).  This is what it looked like on the trailer.

My friend Doug suggested a method he had used on his J/22 before.  It involved building building some beams and using concrete blocks to build 4 pillars (by stacking the blocks) on the outside of the trailer.  Using a large 10 ton jack, we could then gently lift the boat off the trailer, and add a block under each beam.  Once the boat was high enough we just pulled the trailer out from under the boat, and began the process of letting it back down.  Here are some pics to illustrate.

 The boat now is off the trailer, and dangling in mid air.

Time to get the boat down on the ground. Notice that Stbd front stack leaning slightly in the picture above!!  We had to take extra precaution to try and get the initial ground pretty level so that the stack wouldn't be leaning too much in any direction.

We had to go block by block all the way around the boat on each stack, until the boat was more or less laying on it's side.  Seem like a lot of work, but in reality, it only took a couple of hours.  If you are tempted to do this yourself, my recommendation is that you get the big concrete blocks, and that you just pay attention to the stacks, as they will try to lean.  Would I do it this was again?  Probably.  It really did make the work a ton easier.

Wow - This really is late

Time has flown by, and the boat project took a back seat to other events for quite a while.  But I want to provide an update on the progress, as we have really worked hard to get it going this summer.

So the short story is we abandoned the idea of flipping the boat completely upside down.  We realized that it was going to be extremely difficult to get the keel up once we had the boat on its side without the use of a crane or hoist.  So plan B!

Plan B was to lay the boat on its side.  Why?  Because it was going to save our shoulders and our backs ... the idea was to do one side, then flip it over and do the other.  This would mean we would need a way to get it up and down and off the trailer.  So with Plan B in place, we started the process.

Clearing the Deck

I think we mentioned in a earlier post that we were considering flipping the boat upside down to work on the bottom.  Others have done this http://2842j24.blogspot.com/2009/08/bottom-fairing.html, and it looks like it could make working on the bottom of the boat a lot easier, both to do, and on our shoulders.  We've talked with Doug M who has some experience in getting his J/22 from the horizontal position back upright, so we are planning to give this a shot (more about  how in a later post).  But before we can flip the ol' boat, we need to clear the deck.  So this past weekend, we took off all the hardware that (1) either we weren't going to use anyway, or (2) would get in the way when we go to flip her.  This included all the stanchion bases, bow and stern pulpits, and a variety of other hardware.  Below is a picture of 2762 ready to roll!

The remaining question is once it is flipped, where should the support beams be placed?  There is a nice flat spot fight at the stern (aft of the lazarettes) that we think would work for support at the back.  Our main concern is up near the front.  The deck curves, and we are not sure how best to support the full weight of the keel.  Another option is to take off the entire main hatch (slide and cover) and build a post to help support the weight of the keel directly.  But we still need to choose where to locate a cross beam on the bow.  In addition, I think we will build some small supports to hold up the gunnels of the boat right where the bulkhead attaches, as that will both help to support the weight of the keel, and provide some side-to-side stability.  Feel free to add suggestions!

The Trailer Pads are Done (almost)

Several posts back we talked about making the new brackets and pads for the trailer we are refurbishing for this boat.  The plywood pads were painted and prepped, and then we used 1/4" stainless carriage (or step) bolts and stainless nylock nuts to bolt the brackets to the pads.  Here is what they looked like with the hardware on.

After that, we discussed a couple of options for padding.  One was the double D rubber dock fender molding http://www.taylormadeproducts.com/dockprod.html, and while nice, the price on this material just wasn't going to work.  Next option was to use some of the trailer bunk board material, which once again seemed like it would work just fine, but was a bit pricey for what you get.  After thinking about it some, we decided to use some indoor/outdoor BeauLieu Perfection Gray carpet from Home Depot (SKU #591529).  At ~$0.60/sq ft, the price was just right. While it isn't the softest material, it should work fine for the boat, at least for now.  Ended up using a hot glue gun to glue it down, just along the edges.  We didn't want any water to get trapped behind the carpet being held there by glue beads.

Used some clamps to make sure we were getting good tight adhesion to the edges of the pads.  Here are a couple of the final pads with the carpet glued on.  So the Trailer Pad and Bracket project is almost complete.  Just have to go out and mount them to the trailer posts.