Boat Progress at Last
Main bulkheads as they were when I purchased the boat. Note rot surrounding port side chainplate bolts in upper left of picture. (For you non-sailors, this is the attachment point of the shroud (cable) that holds the mast up. Pretty important that the wood NOT be rotten.) The leak that caused the rot was where the chainplate penetrated the deck - a common problem on most sailboats. On the starboard side, the wood in the upper part of the bulkhead was sound, but the bottom was rotted from a leaking lower shroud attachment point aft of the bulkhead.
Section of port side main bulkhead cut out and hull ground in prep for new fiberglass tabbing.
Same port bulkhead cut out seen from front side.
Starboard side main bulkhead with rotten section cut out. Also the lavatory cabinet has been removed. Some of the parts had rot so I made all new parts for it.
Bulkhead section of 1/2" Okoume marine plywood ($80/4x8 sheet, Lloyds certified, imported from France - quite hard to come by!) trial fitted into place. Rotted section along bottom of rest of bulkhead also being replaced. Epoxy and fiberglass materials showed up today so it shouldn't be long until this is epoxied into place. (Buying the stuff online saves a ton of money.) Per West System tech support's suggestion, I plan to use a water based stain on the bare wood first to try to match the teak veneer original plywood as closely as possible. (You can't put oil based anything under epoxy.) Home Depot has a line of water-based semi-transparent stain (Lowe's didn't have any). It's only available by the gallon but at $20/gal. that's less than oil based stains. The guy there said he could custom color it to match for me. I'm taking some wood samples of the old finish and some scraps of the new bare wood. We'll see how that works out. Then the pieces will be coated entirely with epoxy. Then I will install them in the boat. Later they will get a coat or two of spar varnish for UV protection of the epoxy.
Bulkhead section of 1/2" Okoume marine plywood ($80/4x8 sheet, Lloyds certified, imported from France - quite hard to come by!) trial fitted into place. Rotted section along bottom of rest of bulkhead also being replaced. Epoxy and fiberglass materials showed up today so it shouldn't be long until this is epoxied into place. (Buying the stuff online saves a ton of money.) Per West System tech support's suggestion, I plan to use a water based stain on the bare wood first to try to match the teak veneer original plywood as closely as possible. (You can't put oil based anything under epoxy.) Home Depot has a line of water-based semi-transparent stain (Lowe's didn't have any). It's only available by the gallon but at $20/gal. that's less than oil based stains. The guy there said he could custom color it to match for me. I'm taking some wood samples of the old finish and some scraps of the new bare wood. We'll see how that works out. Then the pieces will be coated entirely with epoxy. Then I will install them in the boat. Later they will get a coat or two of spar varnish for UV protection of the epoxy.
posted by wingman at 11:33 PM
2 Comments:
Dan, how are you attaching the new piece of bulkhead to the old piece? How will you make them "as one", so to speak, to distribute loads across the whole bulkhead and not stress-rise the joint between old and new?
I'm planning in epoxying it in with thickened epoxy all around the edges and then tabbing the outer edge to the hull. From what I've read the epoxy joint should be stronger than the wood. I could also tape the joint but I'm thinking that would be ugly and not necessary. But I do have some pretty thin cloth that would be fairly invisible but I'm thinking it wouldn't add all that much strength. What do you think?
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