Re: Restoring a hand-me-d

Posted by Laszlo on Jun 11, 2007

Mark,

Exterior scratches - your dead on about sanding and re-glassing.

Interior finish - It only needs to be water-proof since it's out of direct sunlight for the vast majority of time. Sand down and refinish to completely solve the problem (though sanding & finishing in cramped quarters sucks), ignore it if there's enough finish material to stand up to some wetting or make it part of:

Deck removal - If the builder used nails, forget ever saving the deck. Even without nails, as Dave points out, it's going to be pretty difficult to save the deck. You might be able to get it off by heating the joints to where the epoxy softens & pry, but better you than me.

If it was my boat, I'd get with CLC, order a replacement deck, bulkheads and hatch sills and just replace them. Sawing the deck off should not be as bad as Dave concludes, especially since it has no glass.

I'd use a bonsai saw for maximum control and saw along the edges of the shear, bulkhead, endpour and beam joints. I'd also cut out the old bulkheads but leave the deck beams. Couple of hours max, closer to 1.

Then I'd grab my handy-dandy power sander (ROS or belt) and some #60 paper and take off the deck wood & epoxy glue.

Finally, I'd clean off the joint surfaces with maybe #100 or so paper. Another couple of hours. Call it absolute worst case 1 day to get rid of the deck. Now you get to start with a complete hull, clean deck wood and easy access, including for refinishing the inside.

Don't forget to save the coaming to reuse (and you can even smooth the sides before you put it back on).

Good luck however you go,

Laszlo

In Response to: Restoring a hand-me-down by Mark C. on Jun 10, 2007

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