Topic: My new playtoy; a crusty old boat.

[csendker]

More progress has been made.  Motor be gone.  I fabbed up a stand and (with the help of a friend, damn that thing is heavy) pulled the motor and transported it to my parent's garage (they who have conveniently gone south for the winter).

Now if I can convince my brother to move his beloved ragtop mustang for a while I can use the garage for the glasswork.

[csendker]

I've made it back to the transom.







So now the main floor is out:





There's a ton of glass on the front, it's going to be a pain to tear out.  So too for the stringer removal.  I found a good reference for a transom/floor replacement.  They recommended using marine ply for the stringers with 1" square stock forming a "T".  Looks like this:







Thoughts?  It seems like a logical path, I can shape marine ply to match the hull contour better than if I'm using 2x4's or whatever.  I can also hit the height dead-nuts on.  Then (after ensuring adequate cross-drainage) I would fill the cavities with that 2-part foam, let it expand and trim to a level surface.  It gives 40 #/SF structural support to help stiffen the stringers and hold the floor.  Stringers and floor to be 1/2" A/B Fir marine ply (they only sell 1/2 or 3/4 locally and 3/4 seems overkill).

And one for the "it's a small world" column; I found a Luger Powerboat forum.  It totally inactive, but I have made contact with the forum moderator, a real nice lady that has a Luger Powerboat (so do I), a Luger sailboat (I used to race sailboats) and TWO 1973 HONDA 350-4's!!!  Of course, I referred her to SOHC4. 

[seaweb11]

What happens if you STAB the inside of the transom with a screwdriver?  Is it mushy, or solid?
If it's a bit mushy, drying it out won't change it.

I have never, ever seen laminated ply used as stringer material. I don't see the advantage over 2x4s and a 2x6. 

[csendker]

What happens if you STAB the inside of the transom with a screwdriver?  Is it mushy, or solid?  If it's a bit mushy, drying it out won't change it.

I'll let you know what it's like when I tear it out.  It's slightly bowed and I don't trust it.  There's no fiberglass on the exterior, just blue paint that's chipping off.  Ditto for much of the interior.  Hell, I've gone this far...

How do I maintain the shape of the hull as I tear out the stringers and especially the transom?

I have never, ever seen laminated ply used as stringer material. I don't see the advantage over 2x4s and a 2x6.

I edited my post as you posted.  The advantage I see is nailing the height dead-nuts on and easier forming to the contour of the hull.  Making a curved 2x4 seems like an interesting task.  It's also got to be lighter.  I stole this from a boat-building web site:

http://bateau2.com/content/view/144/28/

Maybe not so good of an idea?

[seaweb11]

I would attack the transom with a router set to 1/4 inch. Start in the middle and start to clear out some material. I have had to do this. I found good wood 1" in and was able to keep it. Then cutting a piece of marine ply to fit, you epoxy them together.  Yours may be completely toast, but working slowly can save you some time. 

You are not making a curved 2x4. The front will need trimming, but it should lay flat on the bottom.
Once you pull the old stuff out you can lay some wood in there and see.

[mark]

Laminated stringers? Why not. I like it.  Has a nice modern hi tech sound to it. Howzabout some carbon fiber while we're at it.
Try getting clear, dry lumber that doesn't look like an airplane propeller.. Good luck.

Transom... Wood on the outside? WTH? I don't see that part.

Normal construction: Boat is built from outside inward.
Gelcoat in shiny waxed mold. Let set some. Add fiberglass to wet gel. Let set then add glass. Wet wood with resin then press in to wet glass. Let set some and add glass as needed. Let dry and pop shiny new hull out of mold.

That looks kinda like what I can see there. so to speak.

I don't get where the plywood on the outside comes in? PO mod perhaps? How is it attached? Bolts? Bubble gum? More info needed! Visual images please! The pix of the back of the boat are small and dark and we can't see what's going on here.

Time.. You now have a project. Next summer you can have a boat. Plenty of time in between. Don't forget to change the oil in the bike.

Steering mounts.. Yes, they look like crap. Pop them off with your trusty can opener and glass on some new ones.


There's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's probably a train so stay out of the tunnel.


Cheers.

[333]

The ply is a great idea.  It has grain going both ways, not just one way.  And it is put together with an epoxy that is actually stronger than the wood.  I would double up on the thickness to 1" though.  And do your best to remove the old wood in whole pieces.  That way you can measure to make sure it's a flat, parallel floor support and not curved.  I would imagine the flooring gets thinner towards the bow(that's the pointy end at the front for you non mariners following this thread).

I just got the word we are going to the Outer Banks over next Mothers Day.  We will be on the sound side, and will have a dock.  This means I will have to start my own Boat project soon.  Details to follow!

[csendker]

I just got the word we are going to the Outer Banks over next Mothers Day

Went to Cape Hattaras earlier this year, but headed out on the ocean side.  I found a friend...



67# Yellowfin Tuna, yum, yum, yum.

[csendker]

Back to my boat...the transom.  Ask and ye shall recieve, here's the full size pics:

Inside:











Outside:





And the top:



I thought it was just blue paint on the outside as it matches the color of the paint on the fiberglass.  Maybe it's not paint?  What do you use to "paint" a boat??

As for the stringers, I doubt I would consider the ply version if I didn't include the expandable foam in the conversation.  It does have some structural capacity to help hold everything in place.  Actually the flooring screws and expoy glue/resin should hold things together, but the foam would just add to the mix.  Don't know though...

[csendker]

Remember this was a kit boat, truck drops off monster crate and in "one enjoyable evening", voila you have a boat.  I believe there were three primary components:

-the base hull (white bathtub)
-the upper hull (blue rear & gunnals)
-the decking (blue front)

Here's a small, crappy part of the instructions for a 1962 model (mine is a 1970):



This pic shows the base hull & upper hull joint:



Which, by the way, provides a perfect ledge to support the boat off the trailer. 

Anyway, it looks as if you set the transom in the lower hull, secure the upper hull (there is overlap kinda locking the transom in place) and glass it in from the inside & caulk it from the outside.  If you look carefully at the exterior shots, you can see the transom sets on the outside of a flange-type molding in the lower hull, yet the inside pics clearly show it inside on the lower edge.  m. c. escher?  or is it sandwiched on a flange-type-thing in the lower hull?  I'm getting a bad visual of 50 HP thrusting on a transom that is merely glassed into the rear of the boat, the home-made joints aren't that strong.

And I'm also 99% sure the packing crate is now my subfloor.  I thought it was when I saw the shipping address and have semi-confirmed it with someone who has seen the instructions first-hand.

By the way, the steering is out - I just gave it a good yank - and I'm on the prowl for a sealed cable rack-n-pinion-ish system.

[seaweb11]

Please give me a couple of shots from the rear of the boat "complete full transom" 45 degrees. 90 degrees etc. I am still trying to figure out how it is attached.

[csendker]

Here's the best I have for now:









Tomorrow, I'm taking the family and heading off to Toronto for the weekend so if you need any better shots, it will probably be early next week unless I can slip them in somehow. 

The two-piece sandwich is making sense.  In the close-up's you can see the fiberglass behind the transom from both the inside and outside shots, and the wood isn't as thick as at the top, only about 1/2 as thick I'd guess.  I wonder if they are identical pieces or if the exterior piece is as big as the fiberglass cutout and the interior piece full width?  How the load is transferred to the rest of the boat is anyone's guess.

[seaweb11]

Looks like the transom was a single laminated piece bolted to the sides from the inside.
Can it be removed in one piece again? If so , duplicate it in a warm environment and bolt it back in

[mark]

Refer to these 2 images:
http://www.fiberglassics.com/luger/lugerb62010.jpg
http://www.fiberglassics.com/luger/lugerb62003.jpg

It appears that the transom is part of both upper and lower hull. or. Part of the transom is part of both upper and lower hull, with the wood inside and out - glass inside.

damn. weird as hell. but it can't be that hard to fix if you could build the boat in an evening, right?

I guess you just turn it back into a kit, fix the kit parts, then spend an evening building a boat.

I'm wondering how well the two halves are bonded together. Was our kit builder the kind of guy who scrapes off the chrome when gluing up a car model or do his bumpers pop right off?

Cheers.

[seaweb11]

Was our kit builder the kind of guy who scrapes off the chrome when gluing up a car model or do his bumpers pop right off?

LOL

It's all good fun!

[333]

There's a chrome scraper if I ever saw one!

[csendker]

I found this:

http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?t=11294&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[csendker]

I'm back after a weekend of traffic jams and food poisoning.  Toronto has not been good to us this year (last time up there it was a stolen wallet...).  Anyway, I started to tear out the stringers today:





I'm pulling out the extraneous stringers that appear to provide little or no real structural support to the hull, and leaving the two main cross-stringers that actually go from side to side.

I'm looking into devising an exterior support system using the handy-dandy flange as the bearing surface.

I had a kind soul from the fiberglassics website stop by to take a look.  After swallowing his vomit from looking at the stringers, he turned his gaze to the transom.  It is a two-piece thing, sandwiching a flange on the hull.  The interior piece goes gunnal-to-gunnal while the exterior piece is narrower, going in between the rear 'fins'. He thinks the exterior piece is sound & salvagable while the lower half of the interior piece is shot but the upper half ok.  Now I'm in a quandry; do I replace it or rebuild it??  Ugh.

Oh, and it appears that the hull joint is done up very nicely.  At least I have that to go on...

I also have tentative confirmation that I have the proverbial white albatross; apparently this is not standard operating procedures for the assembly of your typical Luger kit boat.  A testament to the seaworthiness of this that it actually still floated.  I think I've cut the weight in half, I can now lift the tongue of the trailer by myself to drain it.

[seaweb11]

this is not standard operating procedures for the assembly of any typical small boat

Keep at er.....................

[mark]

Agreed. You have some.. um.. interesting design features here. This boat is... well... er... uh... different.

It would be nice if the topsides:
(a) Didn't have half of the transom built in..
(b) Didn't form half of the hull..
(c) Weren't #%&$ing bonded on!
A pox on Luger for all of that.
Those darned pods don't help much either. (might be a good place to squirt some polyfoam later, though?)

Aren't boats fun?

 

[seaweb11]

I mentioned earlier that the upper gunnel's, or "pods" would be THE place to add what ever flotation foam you want

Thats. what I did.  Spayed foam up in the bow but I still have the gas tank in the bow from an old Datsun 510




End of the day, the foam is in case you flip over. If there is foam in there it will float. It does not really matter where it is.........not under the floor, not under the floor,not under the floor,not under the floor. ................At least not down the center

Just my 2 cents.  Backyard job..keep it simple,  keep it water tight,

Great progress, and I look forward to seeing it come back to life

[csendker]

So here's my current plan of attack, in loose order:

-continue to rip out the stringers and clean up the old glass/resin smegma
-ponder what to do with my transom
-rip out the flooring crud up in the bow
-ponder some more about my transom
-construct some sort of protable drydock hull support system
-ponder even  more about the transom
-construct some hull supports (bracing across the top) to maintain the shape when/if I (probably) tear out the transom
-(probably) tear out the transom
-clean up the last of the cruddy supports, braces, blocking, etc.
-now I should have just a hull & deck
-dry, dry, dry...
-fab up & dry fit all of the new stuff; (transom), stringers, floor, bow & deck supports, etc
-resin the crap out of everything (especially the edges), probably at least two coats?
-dry fit the finished stuff just to make sure
-wait for a break in the weather and start to glass everything in...

...but that's pretty far ahead.  I like the idea of adding floatation foam, but I really don't like the thought of under the floor.  I've been thinking about in the back behind the transom inside the two end 'wings', and in the front bow/floor box thing:



because that shouldn't get too wet and it should drain out pretty good as it's on the front 'slant'.  I also like under the gunnals, but I'm thinking I would want to add some conduit there first and that's where all of the control cables, wiring, etc goes and it may be more of a mess and in the way than I want.  Besides, wouldn't I have to flip her over to do that?

[333]

Have you put any thought in to the transom?

[csendker]

Have you put any thought in to the transom?

Yes.  I believe the inside plate must be replaced no matter what as it is saturated and the lower half is shot.  My quandry is the outer plate, it seems to be OK.  My gut says to replace it also, just do it all and be done.  But, it's sealed in and I don't know what sealant was used, or do I glass it in?  Also, when that part comes out, the whole hull form becomes unstable, which so far it's been rock-solid even while pulling out the stringers.  Of course, this all assumes that I can successfully separate the two plates without any damage...

And speaking of the stringers, if I replace the existing mess with a 3-stringer set-up, do I mount the center stringer directly on top of the keel depression (the channel down the center of the hull)?  I'm thinking yes as I want it centered. And do I need something along the perimeter or does the glass hold the edge OK?

[333]

I would definitely put the center stringer over the keel.  In using a 3 stringer design, what is the distance between each stringer?  In regards to the outer, is there a lip or something that will support the flooring?  If not, maybe an outer stringer might be a good idea.

Now the transom.  Is it just one piece of wood with glass on the outside?  I wonder what strength is gained by the glass?  It seems to me that the glass keeps water in there and rots the wood prematurely.  Can the wood be removed, and then glass around the mating surface and put the wood in place with a sealant.  The wood could be natural or stained with a polyurathane finish.

Just so you know what motivates me, I'm one of those wooden boat types.  I help out at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation (www.alexandriaseaport.org).  Our current Tuesday night project is repairing a 100 year old Adirondack Guide boat, and in the main shop we are building a 18 foot electric boat called Tiger,