Commander 147

[Commander 147]

Thanks Carl
 
I have bought a pretty good bit of stuff from Fiberglass Coatings, in St. Pete. I occasionally need to go down to that area and I always stop in to get whatever I'm running short of when I do. I get most of my fillers, green squeegees and glass rollers from them. They are pretty friendly and knowledgeable people.

[Commander 147]

Well we are finally getting a few days where the weather is not carzy hot and it makes working on Destiny a lot easier to do. So I'm starting to get the first area of the recore back together again.
 
The first picture shows my fastener boxes weighting the balsa core down while the tickened epoxy I set it in cured. First I wet out the bottom skin of the deck with unthickened epoxy and then the bottom of the balsa core itself. After that I tickened up some epoxy and troweled it on the bottom of the core with a 1/4" notched trowel. I flipped it over in place and pushed it down first by hand and then with a rubber roller to get it to seat properly. Then I set the full boxes of fasteners on top to hold it in place while it cured.
 
The second picture is how I made the pattern to cut the 1708 biax with. The sheet plastic was clear enough that I could see through it to draw the edges of the pieces of biax I needed to cut.
 
The third picture is how it looked shortly before I put the glass on top. I filled all the edges around the balsa core with thickened epoxy and faired it out so I would have a smooth transition for the glass that would go on top. The area in the center that is solid glass is where the winch riser will bolt through later. I put in 10 layers of 1708 biax in that area which brought it up close to the top of the balsa core and then faired it out with thickened epoxy to make it flush with the balsa core.
 
The forth picture is right after I finished putting 3 layers of 1708 biax on the top. Near the aft end of the work the deck was originally so thick that I will probably have to add a couple more layers in the middle to keep the faring compound thin when I fair it out later.

[carl291]

Looks good Jerry, When I do deck work I bend the balsa core over a piece of large PVC pipe and wet out the scribes in the balsa. In my mind I think it will make the deck stiffer and if it should leak at some time in the future it will slow down the spread of water. Do you see any benefit to my method?  Yes it is a great time of the year to be doing this type of work, that 100 degree stuff was just too much.

[Commander 147]

Carl
 
Thanks for the tip, I can see how that would be a benefit to the final product. I did have epoxy wick up through the core and stick my fastener boxes to the deck so I probably got some of that with the way I did it. But your method does make sense to me so I will try it on the next section. This really is a learn as you go process for me. I've never done anything like this before. I think I will want to do small areas of core at a time with your method because I would be concerned about the epoxy starting to kick before everything was set in place correctly.

[carl291]

Your Welcome, I have never worked an area as large at one time as your doing, Working alone on that large of an area means you certainly have to have everything laid out perfectly to come within the kickoff on the Epoxy. I recored the coachroof on my Electra and set too much weight on it and bowed the roof in on both sides of the hatch. That sure caused a lot more work than I originally planned on, so I understand learn as you go very well.

[ebb]

But Jerry you  wrote the book!
Interesting that you  chose balsa.  Wood rather rthan plastic.
Imco endgrain balsa will conform to the minor deck camber easier than closed cell pvc foam will
But also, you could say, the balsa breathes which may help disapate air that  gets entrapped
when laying it in place.  
I took a little good balsa out of what I did and  found that polyester in the original composit had penetrated the balsa very well - which you won't get with foam.   With epoxy that isn't an issue.  
Sweet water won't find its way into your job for at least a 100 maybe 200 years!

Carl's placing of too much weight outside on his Ensign recore is a good cautionary tale!
Commander's may be different in that the inside glass layer of the composit is not as thin as I found on A-338.  The inner layer after removal of dead balsa and cleanup
would be too bendy to take any weight on it at all!

Not every boat has  this problem.

[Commander 147]

Thanks Ebb
 
I think one thing that has helped on my project is that I filled the toe rail and then laid up 1708 biax and then a layer of finishing cloth on the underside of the area I'm recoring early on in my project. That stiffened it up significantly. Also the way I modified the bulkhead at the aft end of the chain locker made a huge difference in the stiffness of the bow area. So I'm pretty comfortable that all of the areas I'll be recoring will support the process pretty well.
 
As far as the balsa goes, I really wanted to go with the same material that was originally used. On the cabin top where I recored areas for reasons other than wet core (like hardware reinforcement and the new mast step I built) the balsa was in great shape and just as strong as it was when new. I think if you properly protect it from deck penetrations it will last indefinitely.

[Commander 147]

Carl
 
I've been treating the epoxy work a lot like I do my woodworking. I always do a test clamp up when I glue up wood projects and use scrap pieces to test a tooling setup. So I always do a dry run for an epoxy layup also. I find I get better end results with less time (and money) invested by following that discipline.
 
For this project I only mixed 18oz's of epoxy at a time. I poured it straight from my mixing pot onto the deck and used a roller to roll it out. After each layer of glass was wet out I used a thin finned glass roller to roll out any bubbles in the material and then started all over again with the next layer. It went surprisingly well.

[Chance]

Jerry,
    Simply EXCEPTIONAL! Your recore process on Destiny's Port and Starboard quarters are some of the finest I have seen.  You continue to impress me with your high caliber work, attention to detail and craftsmanship! Thank you for imspiring others to attempt to do as fine of work as your bestowing on your beloved Commander.

[Commander 147]

Chance thank you very much for the kind words. I try hard and it's nice to know others appreciate the effort I'm putting into Destiny to make her the best she can be.
 
Well as of today the first area of the recore is ready for high build primer. After the paint goes on nobody but me and all of you here will know she was ever tore apart and put back together. Now it's on to the next area.

[Commander 147]

While doing the second area of the recore and at a point where I needed to mix up some thickened epoxy anyway I decided to do the cutout for the water tank deck fill. I was pleasantly suprised to find solid balsa in this area but that meant I needed to figure out a good way to dig out the balsa around the perimeter of the opening back approx 1/2" so the screws holding the deck fill in place would not be in balsa.
 
I came up with a slotted cutter on the trim router that worked like a champ as you can see below.
 
The last picture is the area I'm currently working on.

[ebb]

Jerry,  That's indeed a gudun!  Slot cutter on the trimrouter.
Don't want to hiccup undercutting that hole,  you must have nerves of fiberglass.

Most if not all trimrouters are 1/4" collet.
And you had to have  used a cutter with the bearing on top of the blade.

And you had to have first cleared the hole out with a topbearing plunge cutter inside a pattern.
(think that's how aye would have approached it! )  Holesaw?

Catalog time of year....
a current MLCSWoodworking.com, don't recall ordering from them....
BUT they haven't got anything like you must have used there.  Nor does an old Eagle catalog.
So you must have a Whiteside or one of the big boys.  Can't be Freud, Bosch or Grizzly.
Just found an old CMT(OrangeTools),  but their topbearing slotters are all 1/2" shank.

So, tell us what the bit is........pulease!:cool:
What's your trim router? ( I have a Bosch with a catchy name(?)   It has an alternate opensided base that has come in handy for close work  (get to SEE the bit going round!).   But with a slotting cutter?:eek:)

[Commander 147]

Ebb
 
I have had these slot cutters for so many years I don't even remember where I originally bought them. So here is a link to Freud's assortment of slot cutters some with 1/4" shanks and some with 1/2" shanks.
 
http://www.freudtools.com/p-191-slotting-cutter-sets.aspx
 
Most router bit manufacturers make similar bits.
 
The bearing for the one I used is just below the nut in the picture of it. The bearing rode on the edge of the lower layer of glass.
 
As far as the trim router it's an old Porter Cable (I know they are not your favorite brand) that I have had for several years. Amazing how often I use that thing.
 
Actually I did the main hole with a hole saw and the smaller hole (that allows the vent portion of the deck fill to go in) with a drill bit. I just happened to have a hole saw the exact size I needed. Years of collecting tools has given me several options for most jobs.

[ebb]

Jerry,  Loved the old PorterCables, still have and use a couple D-handle routers.
My crabbing came about because I really liked that mini Portercable beltsander that came on the scene, what now, two/three years ago?  
It looked like a PorterCable.  And initially worked like a well designed cord hand tool should.  
It all must have changed when BlackandDecker bought out PG, don't know.  

All  my working life BlackandDecker were the worst by experience and worst by rep.  
Somehow that cheapside B&D got into the inside of that real nice beltsander.  Other guys on tool forums complained about it.  
It was a $100 tool - I choose to let it expire when it broke down, not to fix it.  Beltsanders are a kind of tool that don't breakdown.  
Maybe they eat belts, don't track, get hot - but they don't die!  Screw BlackandDecker  (EVERY B&D is made in China),  not in my shop!
Don't know how long the routers have lasted without incident, brushes maybe replaced, but I don't remember that - 30 years?.  They're round tops.

Thanks for the expo on the bit.
litlgull has criminally thin inner glass layer to her deck composite.
So I'm saying that Ariel's could use your method as well.
Like you say, if you happily find  solid balsa in a hole, I figure (not having done it)   that you wouldn't need to clean out the wood all the way to the glass (if you couldn't) because when you fill the donut with epoxy and choppedstrand the bit of balsa bottom of the ring will soak it up if not already filled with ancient polyester.   And would work pretty good, too.

The top bearing 1/4" slot cutter just doesn't exist.  Live and learn.  I've got some holes going in the deck.  Great tip!
What you have in that photo does show a nice beefy cutter.  I've got a bottom bearing slotter with a set of interchangeble bearings,  hope there's a 9/16" capable in there - sounds good.

[Ariel 109]

Looking good Jerry.  You'll be sailing that baby in the not too distance future I bet.

Ben