Classic SeaCraft Community - another transom job in the works -

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- - another transom job in the works - (http://www.classicseacraft.com/community/showthread.php?t=15671)

stoney , warthog, et al...

"easier" is a relative thing... fairing is a bee-itch.

But it's coming.

I installed the new bilge pump / float switch mounting plate, a piece of well buttered ply, bonded in, not screwed like the original. The plate is 10" x 12", I cut 2" wide strips of RW and 9oz cloth, 2 pieces of each per side, wet them up, and made up pads of 9oz-RW-RW-9oz, layed across each end of the plate, flipped it over and installed it in the hull.

And did the final transom wraps, two layers of glass, 1x9oz & 1x12oz, over the transom cap edge and down onto the outer skin.

and faired.

and faired.

and faired.

actually, I was thinking of doing the bilge in grey bilge kote. but white is interesting.

Bill

Re: stoney , warthog, et al...

Quote:

actually, I was thinking of doing the bilge in grey bilge kote. but white is interesting.

I hate gray Bildgecoat. It's dark and dingy and it doesn't clean up real easy.

http://www.classicmako.com/projects/...ges/bilge8.jpg

Re: warthog - points well taken...

I used Coosa Bluewater 26.
It was very easy to work with and didn't dull the router bits at all. It is expensive compared to plywood but I've spent so much on this boat at this point I have to keep it until I'm 90.
This shows how much higher the boat site in the water now.
The pic was taken with 80 gallons of gas in the tank.
My goal was not to have the motor well fill up with water when drifting in our usual 3-6 foot chop.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...retransom1.jpg

I think....

on the white, for the bilge, that is... [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

how to lose track of details - part 37

I was checking the cure on the transom wrap last night, after karate class, too late to do any more work, bumming, and realized that I had put 2 (hmmm... or was that 3) layers of glass inside the inner cap lip, before installing the new core, then 3 more layers over the transom onto the wood core, and then 2 more layers over the transom onto the outer skin - in each case extending the new glass out past the corner, and / or interlocking the flat bottom with the sides of the motorwell.

OK, I think I can stop there.

Might be stiff enough.

PS - in the past annals of this illustrious and very helpful board, I saw multiple discussion over whether or not polyester resin based products, like gel-coat, could be put over West System epoxy successfully. WS assures that it can, so long as the WS epoxy is fully cured. It seems to have worked for me - I have tried some polyester based fairing compound, and it's looking good - clean cure, no fisheyes or other bs.

break time - off to the Vineyard for a few days, with my son, to see if we can scare up a few fish with my brother.

Bill

Quote:

WS assures that it can,

Ringleader has done it to his boat on the stem. I saw the boat 3yrs after he did it. It's perfect.

some fairing shots -

got some work in this evening, before heading out - I think the fairing is just about done -
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/fairing1.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/fairing2.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/fairing4.jpg

be back next week

Bill

an initial color coat -

and a mistake - I tried some pigmented polyester resin - at least on the first coat it's just too translucent - the faired areas show terribly. Looks like either gelcoat or paint will have to be the final finish.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...colorcoat1.jpg

note to you married guys - don't try this at home - I'm already divorced - just want to get this boat back in the water and take my son out bluefishing while there is still some season left - speaking of which, time to split this joint, get him up and get packed, and head for the Vineyard !

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Bill

back from the Vineyard...

some fine weather, boating, and fishing in hand, somewhat restored....

back to the boat - the color pickled polyester resin surface coat didn't hurt me any, just another layer added to the fairing, sanded it down, masked up the boat and got out my spray gear (way back on page 1, the admin has a post on tools you can't live without - being an old hotrodder, I'd say it's my bag of air tools, and a decent compressor !)

so this is after 2 coats -
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...startpaint.jpg

and this is after 2 more coats - fairly good color match
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...nish-paint.jpg

next up, some white for the transom cap area, and get the motor mounted.

Bill

Re: back from the Vineyard...

Bill,
Looks good. Are you eventually going to shoot the whole boat? I would think red is a tough color to match in this case.

red is truly a cast iron bee-itch - I think it is the worst of the colors for susceptibility to oxidizing and looking washed out..

I got lucky on the transom, but I won't be shooting the whole boat, not anytime soon. and not that color.

I may, sometime in the future, go after a complete change to blue, a'la the Seafari in the Hermco page - the blue bottom, white top looks really nice.

and being trailered for it's new future, it won't need bottom paint, but removing the existing will be left, for now, to the "water erosion" process [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Bill

Final Installment !!!

next step was to paint the transom cap and spashwell areas

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...tedtransom.jpg

I liked the look here so well, it prompted the seperate post on transom trim, but I decided the metal edge was goods protection, so installed the trim across the transom

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...medtransom.jpg

and started rigging

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/rigging2.jpg

(having a cherry picker helps this process) located the motor, marked the mounting holes, pulled it back off, drilled the holes, coated/ sealed them with resin, then redrilled to size after it cured. mounted the motor and bolted it down with a heavy coat of bedding.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...edandready.jpg

all right - enough is enough - time to hitch it up and get wet !!!

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/timetogo.jpg

SPLASH [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...er/splash1.jpg

really just a trial run in a local lake - boat runs great, gets on plane easy even with 3 in the boat, even though it's only a 115, and I even managed to land this boats first fish. But man, do I ever feel blind without a depth sounder ! Time for some electronics shopping.

Bill

Re: Final Installment !!!

Glad to see you got her back in the water.

Give Jim a shot @ ByOwner on the electronic's.

Re: Final Installment !!!

Looks good, nothing like those Seafari lines!

Reflections / Epilogue

Well, she's been out in the big water a couple times, now, after the initial splash in the little mill pond - as a matter of fact last weekend we were rockin thru some nice 2 - 4's (hah NOAA phhht) and now I know what everyone talks about in the Sea Craft ride -
This boat can flat out Do It !!!

and I've now had the pleasure of seeing my son catch his first striper - he's an avid fisherman, and he was psyched beyond belief. This whole exercise was worth it !!!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...risstriper.jpg

On the job as a whole - as others have said, it is awful easy to under-estimate the work involved, and the time it will take, for the non=pro, to do this.

It appears the inside / outside discussion will continue forever - IMHO there is no "one" correct way - it varies with the boat, the design, and the condition - the difficulty being, for the layman, that you won't truly know the condition until after you cut it open and get inside. I think, at least on a sea craft, that if you -only- build it back to stock, that you're probably better doing it from the inside - but I would strongly recommend the addition of one or more knees. I grant that the prospect of cutting a piece of the cap off is probably enough to scare most off, or lead to doing it from the outside - again, I think that either can be equally strong.

To put on my engineering hat again, for a moment, this boat lasted 32 years as built, which was probably well past it's intended design life. But in my fix, I wanted to get more than just another 5 years or so out of her - that would have just been an aluminum plate, a weekend work, and back in the water.

also the question on epoxy vs polyester resin - again, knowing that many pro's do just use the polyester, or vinylester if that's the original hull material. All the resins have two distinct properties, primary cure strength, and secondary cure strength - the primary occurring in the original layup, and secondary being what we face when we go back, years later, to reglass something.

Numbers I've seen suggest that secondary cure strentgh of a patch over a crack, only yields around 80% of the original item strength, and also that epoxy is significantly stronger than polyester in this application.

So where I'm going in this long ramble, is what my thoughts were, which I must state are specific to this boat / design, the 20' Seafari, which had a transom, and an inner cap as a supporting structure to the transom, with low stringer heigth, and no knees.

Let me give the transom, as built, a strength value of 1, and the same for the inner cap -

so we have transom = 1 + cap = 1, as built stregth value of 2

now with a soaked transom core reduce that to .5, and with a serious crack in the inner cap, reduce that to .7, and now we're at .5 + .7 = 1.2 ... a serious strength reduction.

Now go back to the secondary cure strength topic, and at best, repaired, we are only going to get .8 ... an improvement, but not able to return to the full as built strength, if repaired as built. (.8 + .8 = 1.6).

So now lets add additional reinforcing structure - in my case the knee, and redoing the inner cap, transom connection, and because this is secondarily bonded to the hull, I will only give it a .8,

but now we have (repaired transom + repaired inner cap + added support) .8 + .8 + .8 = 2.4 ... which is now better / stronger, than the as built configuration.

I can also see why many pros do use the polyester, and do it from the inside - as both will save some time - polyester from it's much faster cure time, which would not be a drawback to the pro, used to working with it and doing this stuff, and from the inside saving that miserable job of fairing the outer skin smooth - and obviously, being more cosmetically appealing to the paying customer. Time is money - but given the nature of resins and secondary bond strength, I don't think I can agree that putting it back just the way it was made, will yield as strong as when it was originally made.... but still better than that aluminum plate.

I was out in some stuff, last weekend, 2 - 4's with quite a few 6's thrown in, and the boat is as stiff and responsive as you could want - and now I finally know what you guys, and others that had input to my buying this thing, have been saying....

the Sea Craft ride is truly phenominal. At one point I pushed it up to about 24 mph, cruising home at the end of the day, slamming, no, knifing thru this stuff at a rate none of my previous boats could have done without slapping and shuddering... but this boat can do it, and likes it - smooth and soft. Truly Impressive.

So if you see a red Sea Craft Seafari out off the NH / Mass coast, stop by and say hello.

Bill
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/headedin.jpg