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Aquasport Boat Rebuild by Florida Inshore Angler.com
Tear Down
Welcome to FIA's Project Osprey boat rebuild. We've looked for several years to find this exact hull, and when we did we found it in excellent shape with no spider cracks at all in the gelcoat, no stress cracks on the transom, and it appeared to be barely used, however, the Aquasport Osprey sometimes comes with a hidden secret that not many people are aware of. When the manufacturer pressed the topside cap to the hull, they foam in various areas between the two pieces, and what may become of this process will land you in our shoes.The expanding foam runs to free spaces, and in our case, this free space is a 2x2 cavity on the port side about 2/3rds forward just before reaching the step up on the topside. Within this cavity is a PVC drain to allow any water to drain into the bilge. Well, the foam dripped down covering drains on both sides and sealing them, thus causing retained moisture in this area. Apparently, over the years this moisture penetrated the underbelly of the deck and rotted both port and starboard sides in the same areas.
The moisture then expanded to other areas of the deck and created various rotted areas, so we decided to rip out and rebuild as much of the deck as possible. Below is the project details:
Boat Type / Size - 1994 Aquasport Osprey 22/5 (24 ft true centerline)
Deck size being replaced: 7x7 section
Reason: Soft deck due to manufacturer defect
Click the tabs on the top of this page to visit each section and follow along as we tear into this beast.
Before even putting a little more than a moments thought in what to do about the rotted deck, we stripped the deck of it's components. Now, after a few long hours of probing and changing our minds, we figured the best thing to do is just cut out the entire deck. The good thing is that the rot only extended under the step up area near the port side bow by a few inches, so we did not need to remove that part of the deck, which would have entailed removing a very big part of the boat that also plays a major role in support.
As you can see, we cut along the edge leaving a 2 inch lip, which was the original smooth drain channels. I used a skill saw with a hardy board blade for the stright cuts and a small top mounted cutoff air tool with a mason blade for the tight angles. Be sure to set the depth so you don't cut into the stringers, and with airtool, well the blase barely cuts deeper than 3/4 so that wasn't much of an issue.
As seen on the tank, there was water still in the boat when we removed the deck. There was also a lot of fresh mold and some really old dried up stuff, which tells me that this boat has been filled up a few times and always remained wet. Once the entire deck was cut along the edges, we still ran into a laborious task, as much of the deck was still epoxied to the stringers. With a lot of muscle and some kicking of the deck we managed to muscle it out, and let me tell you this piece was heavy. The deck consisted of a 1/4 glass bottom skin, 1/4 inch glass top skin, and a 3/4 ply that was saturated with water.
With so much muck in the boat we decided to giver her a pressure wash and see if we had a gem or some major headaches on the horizon.
To our relief, the hull cleaned up like new. As you can see in the picture, the glass looks as if it had just been laid as it's still got that new orange color. You can tell a lot about the condition of the glass based on the color. Keep in mind that not all glass will be orange, but may be green or gray, or some other shade. Regardless of the base color, if it comes out like this then you are in great shape, as it hasn't been weathered, rotted or chemical saturated. We further inspected the glass for texture and found it very smooth. Again, this is a good sign, as rough glass indicated deterioration. Now that she's all cleaned up and has a good bill of health, it's time to move on to removing the top skin non skid from the rest of the deck that we cut out.
Now this was very time consuming, and thanks to Reggie putting in some non-stop man hours, we managed to clean the 49 square foot section in a solid day. The original wood was block chunks, meaning that they simply used 6 x 6 cut sections of 3/4 ply and glassed them on. My thought is that they did this because the deck has a pretty decent crown to it, and the blocks were probably laid while the skin was in a mold, at which point they slopped in lots of resin to fill between the blocks and then covered it in cloth and more resin. The only way to remove all this mess was to chisel it out inch by inch, and then use the grinder as you see I'm doing in the pic to remove the glass grids that filled between the blocks. The finished product was nice and flat, yet I chose to use 40 grit sanding pads to give it a rough finish, which will later bond nicely to the deck. Now that we finished this area, it's back to the boat and prep it for bracing and decking. More on the next skid when we install it shortly. One final note: Be sure to cover over the skin with a 40 grit slow speed belt sander to really rough it up. Do not use a high speed grinder for the final prep, as the high speed, while it will rough it up, it also has a slight polishing effect and this hard glass.
Brace & Glassing Deck
After looking this boat over, we came to the conclusion that this boat is built like a tank! The entire stringer and rib setup is a solid mold wrapped in 1/4 inch biaxial and chop, and filled with foam. There are plenty of cross member ribs, and deep molded pockets that give this boat a very rigid structure. I've cracked a few boats open over the years and never have I been this impressed with structure design of a hull.
There is very little wood beneath the deck, in fact, the only wood we found was the wood just below the tank, which sits about 4 inches above the bilge and between the 2 stringers. I personally would not have put any wood in this area, as this is the wettest part of the boat. Even though they did use wood here, it is wrapped in biaxial glass and appears to be about a 1/4 inch of pure glass/cloth on top and then 5/8 ply covered by a thin layer of glass/cloth on the bottom.
We thought long and hard about replacing this area, but decided that it was currently in good shape, and if the wood does rot later, there is plenty of strength in the glass to compensate.
So now it's on to supporting the new deck. I think we spent a day or two looking at different options on how to install this deck. The issues come from the fact that the deck had a very pronounced crown, which was done to shed water to the sides of the boat. The crown is approximately two inches in height from dead center to the port and starboard bulkheads, gunwale walls, or inner freeboard, whatever you want to call it cause I'm not really sure!
The second issue was that we had to install the floor at the current height, as we did not remove the entire deck. There is a section of deck near the stern that has molded in live wells (shown below) that we were not about to remove, both because they were sound and because it would have been a big task. Our only option was to align the deck as is.
As you can see in the photo to the left, the crown is somewhat visible, and the two stringers with white putty on them sit higher than the sides, which means a solid piece of wood would need to be bent into shape, which wouldn't be much of an issue, but take a look at the fact that the deck also needs to slide between the upper and lower skin, as well as under the port and starboard lips! This is where it had to take some real planning. Obviously, a cut piece of wood is never going to be as strong as a solid piece, unless you do it right, as glue bonded joints have shown to be stronger than the original wood in many cases.
After a lot of thought, I decided to do the deck in 5 sections using lap joints and bracing below each lap joint. Basically, that means making one solid piece to run the length of the boat from port to starboard across the back section, another solid piece to run the length of the boat from port to starboard across the front section of the boat, and two pieces to run fore and aft on the port and starboard sides, and finally a solid piece to cover the tank area.
Each piece would need a two inch lap joint and would have to align over the stringers. Well, this created another problem, as the port side stringer, for some reason, was not aligned equal to the starboard stringer, which means that I'd have to account for that in my cuts. Because of the tight fits, dry fitting pieces was very limited, as I wanted them as tight as possible and we managed to get a few stuck that we thought were never coming back out.
Before doing the deck, we had to take care of a rotted storage area in the front of the boat. The entire area was rotted and literally flaking off as the wind blew, so we cut this area out leaving a small two inch lip of glass to rest the new deck on. We wanted to go light here, as this area doesn't have anyone standing on it, so we used two pieces of home depot lauan door skin, basically it's the top layer of a plywood sheet.
I know this area may get some of you that don't have a lot of experience in wood working, and the first thought is to make a template as my fishing partner Reggie did. Well, it's often harder and more time consuming to make a template then it is just to take some accurate measurements.
In short, I measured the overall length and the widest point of the opening, and cut the wood as such. Then, simply take a measurement every foot starting at the widest end. Make your marks along the wood and write the measurements on those marks. Being that this area has some forgiveness, one foot increments are fine, but if you need more precise cuts then take a measurenment every six inches. After you have your marks, simply connect the dots by using a straight edge ruler. As you cut you can round the cuts with the saw.
Next, you'll want to wet down the backside with a mixture of styrene and resin in prepration to glass the underside. Once you have wet it down, allow it to set up to almost a tack free surface (about 10 minutes depending on what you kicked it at). Mix up another batch of resin with no styrene and glass one side and set aside to dry. We used chop for this application From there we took another skin cut the same and laminated the two pieces together using System Three's Silvertip 2/1 fast cure epoxy mix. We used glass microspheres to thicken the epoxy to more of a putty type mixture, and then laminated the two pieces. One thing I like to do is use a 1/4 notched trial to rake the epoxy around. This allows for less epoxy to be used, and also allows for a better lamination in my opinion.
Somehow the pics of this process got lost so I don't have any to show you, but it's very simple to do. To be safe, we set that piece aside and continued on wetting the rest of our pieces in preperation for glassing the bottoms of all our pieces in one shot.
Rather than doing individual pieces and wasting time and material, it's best to have everything laid out and glass the undersides. Don't get in a rush and try to glass both sides too soon or you'll have a mess on your hands.
The following day we dropped the double laminated, fiberglass backed piece into place over a bed of System Three's Silvertip fast cure epoxy and glassed in the top side using chop. We did let the epoxy set up for about an hour before glassing it in, as I always like to let things harden up a bit. I'm not sure if this is necessary, as I am by far no glass or epoxy expert, but the end results are a rock solid floor that we stood on and jumped on with no flex or cracking sounds.
The final step here is to use some putty filler to bring up the low areas and then coat the glass with a good quality paint. Now that we got that out of the way, it's on to cutting our decking sections, adding in support braces, glassing in the braces and dry fitting the cut pieces.
Our goal above was to utilize the gap between both upper and lower deck skins by filling the gap with excessive amounts of epoxy. We hollowed out about 6 inches of wood on the ends and as deep as we could go in front of the two hatches, which was about 3 inches. We cut the wood to follow the curve around the hatches, and butt tight where it meets the two hatches, and extends under the port and starboard lips to make coontact with the hull. To say the least, this piece was cut with precision and made to go in tight, as this is the key to securing the actual deck.
This gets a little tricky because we only had one chance to dry fit this piece, as once we drove it in it did not want to come back out. We drew a line across the wood and then spent 20 minutes pulling it back out. The line showed us how deep we went, and then after measuring we knew that we had a one inch gap on the sides and pretty tight in front of the hatches. We also did a bit of drilling with a 3/8 bit into the wood between the tw skins, as well as cross drilled holes in the back of the wood so when we drive it in with force the epoxy will fill the cross drilled holes and act as internal screws. We also drilled some on the top.
Now that all the holes are drilled and the cuts are precise, we loaded the gap with our System Three Silver Tip fast cure epoxy mixed to a thick pancake consistency. We also buttered the upper and underside and drove it in. Keep in mind that we also cut the lap joint before installing, and since there's only about 3/8 of wood, hammer on this will easily ruin it so I cut a scrap piece to duplicate the lap joint. When you put the two together it forms the original. Using a 2 pound rubber mallet we carefully drove it in inch by inch, making sure to hammer one time in three places across the face to drive the entire piece in evenly. I wanted to see some epoxy seep back out through the front, which it eventually did and let me know that it was indeed fully packed. Next I screwed the top skin to the wood by countersinking 3/4 stainless screws about every 10 inches to.
To finalize this piece, we used the System Three GelMagic cartridge with extended applicator to shoot some epoxy on the port and starboard edges, which bonded them to the hull. We then raised the piece enough to get some epoxy between this piece and the two stringers. As you can see in the photo to the left, the white putty spacer is the top of the stringers, and our piece we just installed sits on both stringers. We predrilled some holes in the white putty spacers so the epoxy would fill, bite, and bond nicely to all components. We finished this piece off with two 4 inch stainless screws countersunk in above the lap joint and deep into the stringer.
What we did here may be a bit extensive, but when I build something it simply does not come apart! Let's move on to the front section, which is very similar to the piece we just did, but on a larger scale.
Before we could put this section in we had to do a bit of bracing in the corners where there wasn't much strength . It doesn't have to be pretty, and you'll also want to glass these in later as well. Rather than using epoxy, which would take a lot of silica to thicken it to the point we needed, we decided to use a marine resin putty. We took three scrap blocks of 3/4 ply and puttied each together and screwed them to each other, then puttied them to the inner hull. To set them, we placed a piece of 3/4 as if it were the deck and simply pushed the block to the bottom side. Being that the inner hull is on an angle, this leaves the top of the three pieces of ply stepped rather than smooth where it butts up to the underside of the deck. Rather than making them flush, leave the steps and utilize the angles to help bond the deck once you fill this area with epoxy. Be sure to rough up the area where you are bonding and glassing to ensure proper adhesion. Now on to more bracing.
We felt the boat didn't have enough bracing under the deck so we added another four ribs and extended the stringer a bit to help support the lap joint of the new deck. As you can see below, we had to carve out some of the foam to add new rib braces. We didn't replace the old foam because it was still in great shape and dry.
For the rib braces we used two 3/4 pieces of ply laminated together with the System Three epoxy. The braces are about 5 inches in height, and each cut on the ends to follow the curvature of the hull. Again, we used the System Three epoxy with silica to make a thick paste. We also cut the inner side that connects to the stringer to follow the curvature, which as you can see is a double step. Both sides are bonded with System Three epoxy, but I also drove two 4 inch stainless screws from the outer part of the stringer back into the rib. If that weren't enough, we used 1708 biaxial and glassed in the rib to the stringer and the hull. IMPORTANT: When you set your rib support be sure to set them about 3/16 below the stringers because the deck must slide under the port and starboard lips, and making them flush will remove all the epoxy when you drive them in. You are going to lose some epoxy, but you should have that 3/16 layer after you slide the wood beneath the lip. Once you screw the deck down you'll have a secure bond.
In the bottom right photo you can see the same process. The wood you see attached to the stringers in the bottom two photos is where we had to widen the stringers to help support the lap joints. I wanted plenty of meat under each of the lap joints to ensure the strength was passed further into the wood beyond the joints. This probably wasn't needed, but again, I like overkill! These pieces are bonded and screwed to the stringers, and we laid three thick coats of the System Three epoxy over the raw wood to protect it. I didn't see a need to glass these in, as the three coats of epoxy will be more than enough.
Here are a few dry fit photos before the bracing was installed, ,and before cutting the lap joints on the port and starboard sides. Again, I lost some of the pics showing the front section install, but it when in the same way as the back section, using the same method of excessive epoxy filling the gaps. One thing we did different, was that we cut some scrap wood and filled in the gap leaving about 8 inches of space. We did this because the wood between the two skins was rotted about 10 inches deep, and rather than wasting all that epoxy, we simply used wood and the System Three Gel Magic with applicator tube of epoxy to bring fill it in. The front hatch opening had very little upper and lower skin depth, but we did get about an inch. The section does wrap around the hatch opening and extends about 8 inches into the gap, and is saturated with epoxy and screwed . Again, we screwed into the stringers with 4 inch screws, and used epoxy on all surface contact areas.
The lap joints were cut allowing a 1/8 inch space between each piece for the epoxy. One thing you can't see in these images, and I don't have a pic of it, but I added an additional piece of 3/4 ply under the front and back pieces that run port to starboard. The area from the stringer to the inner hull on both sides had no support so I bonded and glassed in the 7 x 21 inch pieces to the front and rear section. Basically, that pice has two steps now instead of the one step you see above. What this does is allows the deck laps joints to bond to each other, and also allows the underside of the deck to bond to the additional piece, thus giving it even more support. Now that all sections are dry fitted in place, it's time to cut the topside lap joints for the center piece to lay in.
This was a tricky cut, and after sniffing resin all day, well...it was a bit of a mind bender! It's not a hard cut, but in order for sides to lap joint to the front and rear, and allow the center piece to drop in from the top, we had to create two reverse lap joints. From here it's just a matter of glassing the backsides of all your pieces, which we already did for the front and rear pieces that we installed. IMPORTANT: You are going to want a little bow in your port and starboard sections. It's best to find this bow before you make any cuts, leaving the bow facing up. All ply will have a bow. If you forget, just remember when you glass your piece on the bottom side set them on a two mason blocks, one at each end with the glass on the top. The moisture and weight of the glass will put that slight bow in the wood. You see why you need this next.
Deck Install
So there you have, the majority of the deck is installed and extremely strong! In addition to using epoxy on all the lap joints, I also used stainless 1/2 screws countersunk. Be sure not to go through the backside of your deck, as you'll penetrate the glass and open the door to future rot. Installing the port and starboard sides were a bit tricky because they must slide under the inner liner lip as shown in the pic on the bottom right. Remember earlier when I said set your stringers 3/16 of an inch lower than the stringer, well this is when it matters. Also, I just mentioned the needed bow and this is where it comes into play as well. By setting your rib support a little lower and having the bow, you'll leave more epoxy on the support for when you screw it down.
We mixed up some System Three Silver Tip epoxy and made it thick enough to stand up, but not to be pulled from its location. Practice on something and find the right consistency before going forward. If you pull all your epoxy from the stringers your bond is going to be weak.
For the port and starboard sections we also scribed the curvature of the hull. Our intention was bond the deck directly to the hull as well as to the inner lip of the lining. In order to do this we mixed up a super thick batch of the System Three Silver Tip slow cure epoxy and applied it in mass amounts inline with where the deck will contact the hull. We also traced a line on the wood where the inner lip rested on the wood during our dry fit. Knowing how far to hammer in the deck, we put a nice thick line of epoxy about 2 inches inside the line so when we drive in the deck the epoxy will be somewhat pulled under the lip, thus helping to get it fully under the lip.
Now that all areas of contact are fully gobbled with epoxy, we proceeded to drive the sections in place. As planned, the deck mated to the hull perfectly and the epoxy gushed out above and below the deck, making full contact with the hull. I know our method worked because we were able to see the ribs through a few access points and they were separated by about a quarter inch with plenty of epoxy on all surfaces. We also looked through the inspection hatches on the inner liner and could clearly see the mating of the deck and hull and plenty of epoxy on both sides of the deck. To go a bit further, we were able to reach a good portion of where the deck and hull mated so we used a spreader and worked the epoxy deeper into the wood.
The last process was to get as much uepoxy nder the inner liner lip as possible. We used a few wedges to lift the liner in small areas and used the spreader to forcefully work the remaining epoxy under the lip. After that was finished I dropped 3/4 stainless screws in every 4 inches. As the lip and wood pulled together the epoxy seeped out, which is a good sign that it had plenty to spare.
For all of you wondering, here is the System Three Silvertip epoxy system we are using. The stuff is great, and in my opinion, the best I've ever used, which is why I am using it again. I'll have plenty of details on the system when I write the review on it. I will also put more details about mixing, dry times and other aspect shortly. Stay tuned...
As of December 4th, we are awaiting a custom fuel tank and can not go any further until we install the tank. Update >>> We received the tank today from Moeller, Jan 5th, and it looks awesome and very well built. Due to rain, cold weather, product delays, and other obligations, we have decided to seal her up for a month or so and continue in mid March. In order to protect the wood from the rain we had to tape plastic around the entire deck from gunwale to gunwale, and taking this down each day is a royal pain. Before covering the deck my main concern was condensation getting to the wood via the plastic, so we laid down a thick bed if wood chips as seen below. We also glassed the back side of the center deck piece with 1708, leaving the overlap areas that will bond to the framework untreated. We added another 3/4 piece of plywood to the underside of the deck (secured with System Three Silvertip epoxy and screws) where the bench seat will mount for extra support.
Sawdust and wood chips to wick up moisture. 1708 Glassed backside (Main Center) with leaning post support
So now it's March 20th and we are back at it again. After unwrapping the deck we found very dampened wood chips, but the deck below was nice and dry! We let her sit in the sun for an extra day to ensure the wood was completely dry. Now, on to the Tank install >>> Next tab
Tank Install - Finish Deck
Installing the tank was pretty straight forward, but a little tricky due to the angled sides. The top of the angle had more space than the bottom, and to install this tank properly, a 1/2 gap is to be left on all sides for expansion. To further confuse someone, these tanks come with a concave to them until they are filled with fuel, so when installing keep this in mind. Once you add fuel, they will expand outward, so keep that half inch gap by using the top and bottom of the tank edges as a guide.
To the left we just ran the padding all the way to the tank with three layers, as this will easily allow 1/2 expansion. The bottom and center was too narrow for three layers, so we only put two layers, and added smaller pieces to the top.
On the ends of the tank we had to pad out about 8 layers and again just took it all the way to the tank. The angle was much tighter at the bottom and only took about 4 layers. I really don't know why the angle wasn't 90 degrees when they built the boat, but it is what it is. We probably should have taken the time to glass in a new barrier wall closer to the tank, but the original tank was installed the same way and lasted 20 years with no damage. Besides, the padding is very firm and even over the 8 layers didn't appear to give more than 3/4 of an inch in a small area, so when spread over the wide surface of the entire strip I'm sure it will be fine.
I wouldn't imagine the ends should expand much due to it only being roughly 19" x 21".
Now that the tank is in and padded on all side we added the top strapping to hold the tank in place. The original bracing was in good shape, but the angles were not suited for this tank so we modified them to fit.
We also padded the bottom of these braces as to not wear into the plastic. Next we clamped on the fuel line and vent hoses using three high grade stainless clamps. Be sure to leave extra hose for any possible movement in the tank or future use.
Below the tank we ran padding about every 12 inches. This will help with movement, as well as wearing of the plastic against the fiberglass.
I'm pretty confident in this tank install, and took some extra precautions such as securing the padding not only with the self adhesive backing, but also used three zip ties on each incase the adhesive comes free, which I doubt will happen, as the original was still well bonded in place and took some muscle to peel it off.
This Moeller tank appears to be very well built and when standing on the top it barely gave way. Being a rotationally molded, cross-linked polyethylene plastic, it looks and feels super strong. The molded in hose fittings are very strong, and when forcing the hoses on the plastic didn't give much at all.
Be sure to read my full review when I get it up. In the meantime checkout the article on plastic vs aluminum fuel tanks.
Now let's move onto the non-skid, we've got to lock in the final center piece of the deck. To do so, we chose marine putty because we were getting low on epoxy. As shown in the previous steps, we glasses the backside with 1708 and left the overlapping edges bare for better adhesion. To go a step further, I always cross drill holes into the bonding areas to create a dowel pin effect. By drilling 3/8 inch holes every 6 inches on angles, and smaller holes in between, it allows a very effective bond to take place. Be sure to push the putty down in the holes and fill all voids, and then put ample amount on the area to be joined. We also predrilled the center piece to avoid the screws from lifting the wood while screwing down.
The biggest mistake people make here is to fasten the adjoining pieces with too much force, which closes the joint too much, thus not leaving enough putty between the joints. I use enough putty that it oozes out of the joints, and only drive the screws in until the deck is flush. Keep in mind that when I cut the lap joints I removed not only the blade thickness of the saw, but I also took another 1/8 off to allow a nice bed of putty between the lap joints.
Now that all pieces of the deck are in, it's time to throw the grinder on it and clean it up in preparation for the original factory non skid to be laid down. As you can see below, we sanded off the dirt, old epoxy, and other debris, as well as flushed up any high points. Many people will want to fill the voids to create a smooth surface, but just leave it, as the voids will create additional bonding structure for strength. The original non skid top layer that we will be putting back on is about 3/8 thick and pretty stiff, so you won't have to worry about it being wavy and picking up any cracks or small voids. The next few steps we unfortunately lost the photos due to unreadable file format (hate when that happens), so I'll explain. To further prep this floor, we wanted it as rough as possible, and a high speed grinder with 40 grit will not do the trick. High speed has a tendency to smooth it a bit more, ultimately making that 40 grit more like 100. We took a belt sander to it on low speed with 40 grit and really raised the grain. The final step was to take my skill saw and set the blade depth to about 1/4 inch and angel it to cut a 45. I then ran the saw from bow to stern every 12 inches, making about 10 passes. Each cut was opposite of the next, thus forming two groves opposite each other. I then ran the saw from port to starboard repeating the same. The end result is a very nice # hatch pattern across the entire deck. The purpose of this is to add more epoxy to the plywood for strength, allow it to get down in the wood and grab rather than just surface bonding, and the reverse angle cuts act in the same manner as toe-nailing. Final step is to vacuum the dust up and mix your epoxy.
Be sure to really work the epoxy down in the cuts, and of course, dry fit your skin first! When dry fitting the skin, place several marks in each corner extending from the skin onto the outer deck for alignment. This is important, as you want to set it in place and not disturb the epoxy by moving it around. Moving it around too much can create flat spots that will be weaker and may not adhere properly.
Getting this skin down looks a bit easier than it really was. It took a full gallon of System Three's Silvertip Gel Magic non sagging epoxy to fill all the voids and give us a nice bed of epoxy to lay the skin on. The non sagging Gel Magic is a fantastic product, as there is no need to mix in fillers. Both parts come as self leveling, but when mixed together form a non sagging mix. This stuff mixed up with its counterpart and stood nice and tall. In order to lay this large piece in place we were not able simply coat the deck and then lift into place due to the flimsy nature of the piece, and if you'll notice, the area nearest the transom is wider and actually sits back in, thus making us have to install the skin one side at a time.
The other aspect that I wanted to avoid was laying the skin on wet epoxy and having the pressure flatten the epoxy, thus leaving a void or low spot. To do this and allow a nice even bed of epoxy, I first placed two 8ft 2x2's from bow to stern on the deck, then lifted the skin in place and laid it on top of the 2x2's. We then raised one end of the 2x2's and placed another 2x2 from port to starboard about midway back to hold the skin off the deck. The 2x2's were sitting about 1 foot aft of the raw deck so I could coat the entire deck without the lumber getting in the way.
This created a fort-like roof that I could then crawl under and start spreading the epoxy. It was a little tight near the back where the lumber met the deck, but it worked great. I had my buddy Reggie mixing the Silvertip Magic Gel at a 2 to 1 ration (not 1 to 2 Reggie!!!) while I did the spreading.
Be sure to use the slow cure, as this is going to take some time, both in mixing and spreading. Be sure you are prepped in all areas, and have laid down plastic so as not to track epoxy onto the deck. It will get messy, no matter what you do!
Before spreading the epoxy, I ran a test on some scrap wood and used a 3/8 notched trial. After placing another piece of wood on top, I could see by looking at the side that both pieces mated, filled the notched voids, and left about a 1/8 -3/16 bed of solid epoxy. This was what I was shooting, as I wanted the extra layer to also act as a solid sheet rather than just adhereing the skin. Before using the trial, I used a regular flat plastic spreader to force the mix down in all the cuts, and folowed back with the notched trial.
NOTE: Be sure the back of the skin is super rough as mentioned in the tear down section, as this is important for adhesion.
Once the entire deck is coated in epoxy, you'll want to roll the 2x2's onto their sharp edge and slide the entire section onto the epoxy coated wood. By rolling the wood to the sharp edge, you won't disturb much of the epoxy in the next step. Have the other person lift the two 2x2's while you remove the center support. You'll then need to have one person on the opposite end holding the skin as the other person pulls the lumber out slowly. Be sure to align the marks that you placed on the skin and deck earlier. As the lumber slides out the skin will gently lay into place.
After the lumber is fully out and the deck is in place, do not walk on it. Let it settle for a few minutes while you gather your weights. We predrilled and countersunk all of the screw holes about 7 inches apart in the skin, and also sanded off the gel coat when we prepped it. Lay on the weights and then start screwing the skin down. If you sanded the skin to the right depth to allow a 1/8 inch bed of epoxy to lay beneath, just screw the skin down until it's flush. You should see epoxy start to ooze out of the seam and screw holes. Hopefully you've prepped the edges with tape!
After all the screws were in place I carefully walked on the deck, but only in the center and where the center console will sit. I wanted to ensure that the epoxy wasn't being forced into the center and also evenly use my weight to ensure all areas bonded by lightly stepping out to the sides. Now, sit back and admire your hard earned work, and stay the heck off your deck for a week! I'm sure it'll cure out in about 3 days, but I gave mine 7 before I walked on it.
After a week we removed all the weights and excess seepage of epoxy with a grinder. We also flushed up both sides in preparation to laying the fiberglass finish cloth over the seam. As you can see, this turned out super nice. In fact, I can assure you that the deck is stronger now then it was new.
UP NEXT... Finishing the seam work on the deck and gel coating the seam.
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