New Project Boat Rebuild

[Ike]

I just thought I'd show you my latest project (I must be nuts to take this one on) I bought a 1972 Sea Ray SRV 190. Actually I bought a really good 1994 EZLoader Trailer with a 1972 Sea Ray on it. The hull is sound but the interior and the engine need a lot of work. I am in the process (running between the rain drops here in the PACNW) of stripping out the interior. But I probably won't get much done until the Spring. I have ordered some new lounge seats for it, and started making new rear seats. One of the curious things about this boat (and, I have found, other Sea Rays of that period) is they used Coleman Coolers under the rear seats as part of the structure.



See the rest of this mess at http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...view=slideshow

Fortunately my wife is still speaking to me and very interested in this project!
Please be gentle in your comments.

[PAR]

Hows the transom and sole?

[Ike]

The transom is fine, the sole is rotten, literally. Oddly enough the engine hour meter has only 164 hours on it! I have a feeling that is not very accurate. But I can't do much now because I don't have a covered place to work and it's raining like mad.

This boat is about as original as they get. It still has the old 1970's fuel hose on it. But it does have a PE fuel tank. Even so I will probably move the tank from the bow to under the sole and put in a hatch so it can be checked and easily replaced. That will shorten the fuel hose by about ten feet and it won't really affect the longitudinal CG much.

I am really just in the planning and research stages at this point.

[Ike]

Been thinking about replacing the stringers (and whatever else) under the sole. I have lots of time to think about it since it's raining like mad and I can't work on the boat.

Anyway the question:

I am ambivalent about replacing wood with wood. Is there a reasonable alternative? Of course if I used wood it would be fully encapsulated in epoxy and glass. I know I could fabricate hat stringers with foam cores etc, but is there something available that I don't have to make myself, that can just be cut and fitted?

Any suggestions?

[PAR]

Peter, you can replace the wood with wood, which typically is the economical route, given the average person's skills, tools and experience, not to mention materials costs in regard to things other then wood.

If using something other then wood, it has to be made structural in the vast majority of cases. What this simply means is a lot more laminate work. You can use a pourable core material like Sea Cast (I think they've changed their name), but again it's all about laminate, as it's just a core material, which typically is higher in cost then a hunk of Douglas fir (or whatever), once you count the extra fabric and resin it takes to get the same structural considerations.

Foam, honeycomb, whatever your interest, should be carefully weighed against encapsulated plywood and solid wood. In the end, pound for pound and dollar for dollar, you'll find it's very hard to beat wood as a structural element.

Do look up the cost of things like Coosa board and compare this with plywood.

[Petros]

You can make the wood more rot resistant by having it chemically treated after you cut them to fit as replacements. Should water seep in past your glass job it will take a lot longer to decompose if the wood is treated. You can make it even more rot resistant by cutting thin veneers and soaking them in wood preservative (end cut solution works well), allow them to dry out well, and laminate them together with polyurethane or epoxy glue. The thin verniers will give more surface area to absorb more of the preservative.

[lumberjack_jeff]

Use wood. In 40 years someone will need to fix it again. Who are we to deprive our grandkids of their projects?

[Ike]

Thanks, I have the skills and the tools for wood and glass, but not much experience with other high tech materials. although I know they exist. Anyway I will probably go the encapsulated wood route.

Jeff, as you know, here in the Northwest everything rots eventually anyway. In forty years I'll probably be dead and gone so it won't be my problem.

[Ike]

We finally got a break in the weather, so I managed to get something done. Just to get started I built new rear seats. I bought two new Igloo coolers to go under the seats but I kept the lids on them. This meant I had to make the hole a little bigger and raise the seat height about an inch and half. I also added a back piece to give them more support since the coolers are no longer part of the seat's structure.

Here's what they looked like before;

Here's what they look like. I still need to seal the wood but I wanted to see if they fit in the boat. They need a little shaved off here and there but it's very close. Fortunately, they used really good fasteners and I was able to reuse all of the stainless steel screws. The front of the seat needs to be covered with vinyl and I need to do the seat cushions.

[PAR]

Considering the size of those boxes, why don't you just foam them, lay some fabric inside, a drain and double their volume?

[Ike]

Interesting idea. I wanted to make few improvements but keep it close to the original. At least look like the original. They need to be removable to work on the engine. But the original concept had some problems. The coolers had drains in them that drained onto the sole. Someone had drilled holes in the bottom of them and screwed them down to the sole. I am trying to avoid that but provide the same storage. So the coolers are removable. I can just pick them up out of the seat and all the space becomes available for storage. Since I left the lids on (the originals had no lids) they don't get any dirt in them and stay colder, and as I said can be removed and used elsewhere.

[Ike]

Our PNW weather has finally made it possible to get something done. In the big ice storm a tree fell on the boat but fortunately a fence next to the boat took most of the force and the boat was not damaged, but I had to cut the branches off the tree and move the boat. Anyway here are the finished seats. I put them in and they fit almost perfectly. Plenty more to do though. I am still taking the floor apart.

[lumberjack_jeff]

Recently we've been playing with some material made locally called NewWood.

It's a polyethelene/wood composite material from which we made a bunch of weir boards for an industrial customer (submerged all the time).



I think it would work great for rebuilding the floors in your boat, and it's only $27 a sheet. The only challenge is gluing it.

http://www.newwood.com/

[PAR]

It would work as an applique decking, but not as the structural element most soles and decks are. One quick look at the physical properties on their site (which is incomplete, likely not showing the worst of it) suggests it's heavy (50 lbs. a cubit foot), barely able to support it's own weight, will absorb moisture at an alarming rate (12% in 24 hours!) and doesn't have very good fastener pull out ability.

[lumberjack_jeff]

You misread the water absorption, it absorbs 5% in 24 hours. It also has good screwholding ability at 260# (far better than plywood when screwing into the edge-grain, e.g. if you're building a box for a cooler). In practice, you can put screws in right at the edge, and it is, for all practical purposes, rot, insect, and waterproof.

Yes, it is more flexible than 12mm ply, and at 52# per cubic foot it is significantly heavier than 1088 hydrotek at 38# per cubic foot. BUT, It is also about 70% cheaper than 1088 - comparable to the cost of the 1/2" CDX which is apparently being used for this project (and which will weigh about the same once waterlogged)
The biggest downside is gluing it, but in our preliminary testing, PL premium and thickened epoxy both work pretty well, provided you plane off a bit of the polyethelene film first.

The stuff has many potential applications in Ike's project.

Tensile strength in metric panels is measured in megapascals, right?
http://www.worldpanel.com/Plywood%20Data1.pdf

If so, New Wood has about 60% of the tensile strength of Okoume. That's consistent with our informal testing; secure one end and you can twist the boards in the photo above by more than 90° without breaking.