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  #1  
Old 02-21-2012, 10:48 AM
mrobertson mrobertson is offline
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Default Tracker 20 Restore

Not a potter - but the price was right and she's in decent shape. 25" transom seems very solid too. 2yr old Awlgripped fighting lady yellow hull and white inside. This will be my second seacraft restore. My father and I finished a full restore of an 84 23 in august of 2011.

This presidents day weekend was the official start of my 20 seacraft restore. I got in a couple of good days of work. Being back in the shop with a grinder in my hand brings back some memories that im not terribly fond of. My whole point in buying this boat is that it would be a quick flip, ready to go in no time and shopping for an engine sooner rather than later. The pics will tell a different story.

To start - here she is day 1. Notice that the hullside paint is in very useable condition. I'm not terribly thrilled about the bottom paint, but i'm not going to be painting this boat. At least not the outside.






And the inside - again youll notice the paint on the inside is also very useable as is. The question is, how much will i destroy it will working on it? If i can skate through without too much mess, i won't be painting the inside either.







And the mayhem begins............

Leaning Post Out -





Console Out - i basically just cut all the wiring, because i'm not re-using any of it. So, it was as simple as removing a few screws and breaking the seal from the console to the deck.





Fuel tank hatch opened up. Revealed the original tank, made in november 1988.....70 gallon capacity. .125 thickness and was coated with some kind of epoxy paint. Orginal fuel lines and clamps as well.





Fuel tank out of the boat (you can see it in the background on saw horses -





The fuel tank was sitting on a piece of 3/4" UNGLASSED plywood. It was wet and heavy so i went ahead and cut it out and started cleaning out the bilge.





Now here is where things take a turn for the worse...............Before buying the boat, i knew i had a squishy place in the deck in the starboard side rear corner of the boat. My plan was to just cut that section, repair it, and leave the rest of the deck alone.

Opened it up - only to find wet wood, which is what i expected





I kept working forward, continuing to find wet wood. I cut 1/4" in, removed the top skin of glass, dig out the wood with a chisel, leaving the bottom skin in tact.





Unfortunately - curiousity killed the cat and i had to open the other side.......only to find wet wood again.





I spent the next several hours with a hammer and chisel. I removed all the old wet wood from both sides, leaving the bottom skin in tact.





At this point, i have already spec'd out a new tank and will order this week. I am going to cut the capacity back to 50 gallons leaving me with a tank about 26 inches shorter. I will move it all the way forward to help counter balance the weight of a new, 400+ pound engine.

Although not really the preferred method of deck repair, for my purposes this will do. I am going to re-core the tank hatch. Jury is still out on the in-deck livewell. Not sure whether it will stay or go. We do alot of flounder fishing and it's nice to have a small baitwell for live minnows.

The original fuel tank was built in november 1988. At almost 24 years old it was in surprisingly good shape. There was pitting on one end and a few small spots on the bottom. No holes in it at all, but the pitting is just enough to make it not worth risking re-using it.

-Mike
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  #2  
Old 02-21-2012, 10:59 AM
jorgeinmiami jorgeinmiami is offline
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I had the same look when I opened up my floor
1 soft spot turned into 3 of them and it looked like yours
If I would have know I would have done the whole floor
later investigation turned up only one side was bad

But it's done and i plan on priming the inside today and paint later in the week
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  #3  
Old 02-21-2012, 11:02 AM
fdheld34 fdheld34 is offline
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Mike...looks great so far..I am going to have to go that route as well..
Cant wait to see how it turns out..your 23 turned out beautiful!
Questions
-Were you able to lift out console by yourself or did you use a machine etc.
-Also- looks like fuel tank popped out without having to cut deck flange...also were you able to lift out yourself?
-what procedure are you going to use to replace the original fuel fill hose...will you cut opening for pie plate cover etc etc???.
Thanks so much
-Fred

Last edited by fdheld34; 02-21-2012 at 11:06 AM.
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  #4  
Old 02-21-2012, 11:17 AM
mrobertson mrobertson is offline
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Hey Fred -

That console is a back breaker. My dad and I were able to lift it out but not easily. It's big, bulky, and heavy. I could get it out by myself if i didnt want to save it. Just tip it on its side and flip it over out of the boat. If you are trying to save it, no way you are getting it out alone.

I had to trim the flange just a little to get the tank out. I took maybe an 1/8" off one side and it came right out. The tank is 92 inches long and although not heavy, you need 2 people to handle it.

For the fuel fill hose, i don't see any way except to cut an access hole. I might try to do a 4" pie plate to make it as small as possible, but yea a cut will need to be made there.

-Mike
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  #5  
Old 02-21-2012, 01:23 PM
Sceptre20 Sceptre20 is offline
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Is there a reason that what look like about 6"X6" blocks of wood are used as a core instead of a solid piece of wood,I would think a solid piece would be much stronger.I have seen the blocks used many times and wondered if there is an advantage to it?
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  #6  
Old 02-27-2012, 09:09 AM
mrobertson mrobertson is offline
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Yesterday was a fine day for glasswork. I drove down to the shop and got the heat pumping in there. I decided to go with polyester resin on this restore. Polyester is a little more finicky than epoxy. It only has a 3-4 month shelf life. Mixing a quart of resin only requires a few drops of hardener to start the reaction process. The epoxy we used on the 23 was a 1 to 1 mixture so this was a bit of a change. Likewise - when the temperature is over 55 degrees, you have very little working time with polyester resin. By that i mean just a couple of minutes before it starts to tack up. Also - if you are only doing 1 layer, you need to add in a parafin wax or the surface will remain tacky. If you don't add in wax, then you can add additional layers without sanding. In any case, the polyester stuff was all a little new too me.


I bought my material from here. Heck of a nice guy to deal with and you can pickup your order if you're local.

http://www.fiberglasssite.com



Here's a tip if you ever do a floor the way i'm doing this one. Go to harbor freight and spend $15 and pick up one of these :





I chiseled out the wood in the boat by hand the old fashioned way, with a hammer and chisel. I had enough of hitting myself in the hand with the hammer so after some research i came up with the air chisel. I still had to remove the wood from the top skins i cut up out of the boat and it worked like a dream. Quick and easy :





I decided to use a regular exterior grade plywood on this deck. The original plywood was only 1/2", 4 layers, and had plenty of voids in it, so i do not think it was a marine plywood. It lasted a long time and was not taken care of, so i think this should work perfectly fine. Polyester resin doesn't like cold temps so i first started by heating up the inside of the boat.





I cut some cloth and layed it up on any holes through the bottom skin. The screws used to hold down the console were pretty long and went through the bottom skin. I patched the holes before laying down the plywood.





I taped everything off because im trying to avoid hours and hours of sanding spilled resin :





I mixed up some resin and thickened it with cabosil to a peanut butter consistency. Spread it on my bottom skin then laid in my new plywood. I cut solid pieces of wood instead of the 5x5 squares that came out. I hope this will tighten up the floor and make it stronger. Weighed it all down and let it set up :





Other side done as well (buckets filled with water)





With the extra thickened resin, i went around the edges and seams and made a nice fillet to seal it all up





I left everything to set up and took my old fuel tank to the fabricator to have a new one built. I'm looking at about 3 weeks to get the new tank. In the meantime i hope to get some bulkheads in and slats for the tank to sit on. I need to order new fuel lines and hopefully by the first of april i can re-install the tank. My next trip home i will glue the topskins back down to my new plywood, grind out the seam and then seal it up with some 2 - 3" wide cloth and resin.

One thing to note - all of this was so much easier the second time around. It almost feels natural and not even a big deal. I remember the first boat everything was so much slower because we stopped at every increment to think things through. If i didn't have to drive 100 miles to work on this boat, i would have it done and ready for power within 2 months.

Oh well - til next time................

-Mike
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  #7  
Old 02-27-2012, 12:38 PM
Blue_Heron Blue_Heron is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sceptre20 View Post
Is there a reason that what look like about 6"X6" blocks of wood are used as a core instead of a solid piece of wood,I would think a solid piece would be much stronger.I have seen the blocks used many times and wondered if there is an advantage to it?

In cored laminates, the core doesn't need bending strength, it acts to resist shear (sliding) force. The early Potter hulls had end grain balsa cores in the deck and it has almost no bending strength.

The most important factor is the bond between the core and the laminates on both sides. It's easier to get a 100% bond with small tiles of plywood in a wet layup than it is with large sheets.

Dave
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  #8  
Old 02-28-2012, 10:22 PM
Sceptre20 Sceptre20 is offline
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Thankyou for the information on the core materials Blue Heron.
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  #9  
Old 03-05-2012, 09:12 AM
mrobertson mrobertson is offline
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I got in another good day of glasswork on the 20 yesterday.

I pulled off the weight to reveal the new, dry plywood. It seems like i got a pretty good bond and i could walk up and down each side without any flexing.





My previous trip home, i had already cleaned up the top skins, so i went ahead and glued them down. We had it roasting in the shop so i did one side at a time because we were short on cinder blocks.





While that side was setting up, my next order of business was the fuel tank hatch. This thing weighed a ton.





I set the depth of a skill saw to 1/2" and ran down the hatch in cross hatched lines, and then we started chiseling it all out.





It was extremely wet (not rotten) stinky, heavy plywood in there.





Once the hatch was all cleaned up, i set it by the wood stove to dry out for an hour or so. I hit the underside with the grinder, then some 40 grit sand paper to scuff it up. I cut out some new plywood and glued it down





AFter a couple of hours i pulled off my weight to check out my new deck. Seems like i got good adhesion and the deck seems nice and tight.





I filled the seams with thickened resin





I got both sides glued back down, let them sit for a couple of hours and pulled the weight to check it out. Here's my new deck







At this point i have used 3 gallons of polyester resin. The deck project came out pretty well. My next trip i need to grind the seam and i will seal it up with a 3-4" tape and glass it down. After some sanding, fairing, and fresh non-skid i don't think you will ever be able to tell it was done. I hope to also get my tank hatch underside glassed. As much as i don't want to do it, i think i am just going to have to bite the bullet, sand, prep, and shoot the inside of the hull with a fresh paint job. It's just going to be much easier with it taken apart. The boat is so much smaller than the 23 it shouldn't be a terrible job.

I have to imagine that i've gotten rid of 100 pounds of wet plywood on this boat, possibly more. The tank hatch weighed probably 100 pounds before and i could pick it up with 1 hand after. Same story with the deck.

I've got a week off at the end of the month and i hope to make some big strides on the project. Be nice to have the boat in the water by summer.




-Mike
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  #10  
Old 03-06-2012, 06:44 PM
Mikem8560 Mikem8560 is offline
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nice thread, what do you have in mind for bait if you eliminate the in floor tank i hate an infloor tank and need to decide myself
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