Another 25 Seafari goes under the knife

[Blue_Heron]

What kind of diver are you, tank, freediver, gun, sling? Ever done the rock piles off Bayport, 30-60 ft?

Connor

Hey Connor,
Any diving I do off the Seafari will be tank diving. The only snorkeling we do is during scallop season, and the Seafari ain't suited for the grass flats. I can't equalize fast enough to free dive deeper than about 15' anyway. Just getting too old for that stuff, I guess.

We dive the keys during mini season every year, and that has been my main diving focus for the last 15 years. I'm not familiar with the Bayport area, but I started spear fishing for grouper out of Cedar Key a couple years ago, and I'd like to do more of that. There are quite a few artificial reefs off Levy and Suwannee County, and some of them hold grouper if the Jewfish haven't crouded them out.

I expect to use the Seafari mainly for fishing; grouper at home, and offshore trolling in the keys, but I do want to have adequate storage for gear regardless of the mission. I'm planning a fish box like strick's, but with a bigger lid, and it should double for gear storage when diving or cruising.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the swim platform. I've always run outboards, so I've never had a full beam swim platform. It didn't occur to me that waves astern would cause slamming, but it makes sense. I may build a replacement swim platform that "breathes", but I'll probably go with the one I've got for now.

Dave

[Blue_Heron]

I’m working my way gradually up to the fabrication of large parts. I plan to do a fish box and live well similar to strick’s, but I want to be familiar with the materials and how to work them before I get there. It’s been 15 years since I’ve worked with polyester resin and fiberglass. I’ve worked with epoxy resin more recently, but not in any volume.

So I’ve started with small patches and worked my way up to a mold and resulting fabricated part; one of four swim platform brackets. My rule of thumb for this restoration is to use epoxy resin if it’s below the waterline, or if bond strength is critical, or if I’m using styrofoam as an insulation, and use polyester resin if it’s a new part. The fish box, for instance, will be fabricated using polyester resin, but I will use thickened epoxy to bond styrofoam insulation and then epoxy/glass to encapsulate the styrofoam.

I’m also experimenting with a patching technique that I hope will reduce the amount of time and effort required for fairing but maintaining a good bond. Instead of grinding out a patch area, I’m using a router to cut to a uniform depth, but reducing depth incrementally in concentric rings. So the inner patch may have four layers of 1808, the next will have two layers, and the outer patch will have a single layer of 1808. I pulled the through-hulls for the original head, and used this method to patch the holes. Here’s what it looks like:

Routed and ready for patch



Patch in progress



Peel Ply over patch to keep thickness uniform.



And the completed patch ready for sanding and then fairing.



Although I haven't sanded it down yet, it's very flat and it looks like the plan is coming together. More on progress as I have time to post.

Dave

[Blue_Heron]

I wanted to start small with part fabrication so if I screwed up, it wouldn’t be an expensive mistake. My patching got me comfortable enough with the glass and resin to move up to the next step.

The swim platform brackets that came with the boat were heavily corroded and the wrong angle for the transom. The P.O. had shimmed the platform so it would sit level. I made a template of the correct angle before stripping the platform and brackets off the boat. I thought a platform bracket would be a good small lay-up project, and a good break from sanding.

Step one: I made a plug out of wood. I sprayed it with lacquer sanding sealer and sanded it to a smooth finish. Then I waxed it and used sign board to create a flange around the plug that would act as a form for the two part mold.

The plug:



The plug and sign board sprayed with lacquer:



The sign board in place around the plug and the contact surface waxed and sprayed with PVA:



I layed up glass/polyester in both sides of the assembly. When it had cured, I trimmed off the excess on the table saw.



And then removed the sign board strips and popped the two parts of the mold off the plug. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. The reason the two sides are different colors is that I sprayed gelcoat in one side and not the other to see what the difference would be.



The side with the gelcoat had a smoother finish without surface voids. Should have done both sides. Did a little sanding, filling, sanding and was ready to make the first bracket. The layup involved using a layer of mat and two layers of 1808 on each half of the mold before clamping the two halves together. I didn’t think the 1808 would be too happy about making the almost 90 degree angle from the web to the flange of the bracket so I decided to vacuum bag the two sides until the resin kicked and then put them together. This is a dry run without resin to see how it would work.



It’s a lot prettier than the mess I made with resin involved, but in the end it worked out. After I pulled the two halves out of the vacuum, I layed a piece of saturated 1.5 oz mat between them and clamped them together. Then I layed up the flanges all the way around. I used alternating layers of 1.5 oz mat and 18 oz roving, I think it ended up with six layers of each. I wasn’t able to take any pics of the layup, but here’s the mold assembly after it was all clamped together:



And here’s the first part popped from the mold:



And after trimming along with the plug for comparison.



I have no idea how to engineer the scantlings for a part like this, so I took a wag and went with a ¼” web and flanges tapered from 3/8” down to 5/16”. I wanted each bracket to be able to support 350 lbs at the aft end. The only way to see if it would hold up was to do a load test.

I didn’t have enough weight to load it to 350 lbs, so I used a 2x4 bolted to the top of the bracket to extend the moment arm farther out so I could use less weight to apply the same load. The bracket is 24” long. I placed 60 lbs of fertilizer, plus about 20lbs of lead 72” out along the 2x4 to simulate a 240 lb load at the end of the bracket. That was about all the weight the 2x4 looked like it would handle, so I stood on the bracket to get over the 350 lb mark. I couldn’t get the picture I wanted while standing on the bracket, so here’s the partial load test:



I couldn’t see any deflection in the bracket, so I must have made it stiff enough. The fiberglass bracket weighs 3 lb 11 oz, the aluminum bracket is just a hair over 5 lbs. All in all, I’m pleased with how it turned out. Now I need to make three more.

Dave

[floorboy]

wow cool stuff. Keep it coming.

[Bushwacker]

Nice work Dave! You're right to keep an eye on deflection . . . stuff usually starts to look pretty wimbley long before it breaks! Looks like it passed the deflection test with flying colors!
Denny

[seafari25]

Hey Dave

I have some 30 year old wood wedges that my platform brackets are mounted to. I give them the 260lb test every spring. If she holds me, I let her go for another year But seriously, I could use 4 of those brackets...maybe a new transom..

Keep up the good work
Brandon

[strick]

Have not used lacquer sanding sealer since my cabinet spraying days when I was a kid. Did you use an airless to spray that? Looks like they turned out real nice. The brackets that came with my boat are a little small and I thought about making some bigger fiberglass ones at some point....now I have a tutorial to go by.

One of my best buddy's is a structural engineer and when I made my first fiberglass engine bracket I asked him how I could load test it to make sure it would not break. His answer was to bolt it to a wall and get 2-3 big fellas to jump up and down on it...All that school for nothing I thought

One of my favorite pictures:



Keep up the good work

strick

[Blue_Heron]

Thanks for the encouraging comments, guys.

Chuck,
First, I want to say thanks again for posting on all your restoration work. This is the first fiberglass part of any size I've ever made. The fact it was a success is a testament to the information you have shared. Until I started following your posts, I had no idea how to use PVA, for instance. Your willingness to share your experience made the difference between a pretty decent part, and what could have been a solid block of fiberglass that wouldn't part from the mold.

If you're interested, I'll ship you my mold and a lay-up schedule after I finish with my brackets.

BTW, I spoke with a guy at a local boat manufacturer the other day and he said to avoid the lacquer. He said polyester resin could bond to it even if you use wax and PVA. My plug separated easily, so either I'm lucky, or it's not a problem when you use enough wax and PVA.

Dave

[strick]

Dave-

Most of what I have learned is from others on these boat forums. When I started restoring boats back in 1988 there was no internet to look for help and I made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of money. My first boat was so heavy it rode like a tug boat even though it was a planing hull. I had filled every little nook and cranny with expanding foam because I wanted to make it like a whaler (something I wanted but could not afford at the time)...I still cant believe someone bought that boat from me

Duratec is probably best to use for mold surface. Their sanding primer has lots of uses and tooling is one of them. Also the clear duratec works great if you want to make a semi smooth surface even smoother as a mold surface. Enjoying your thred.

strick