Ariel #97

well, after a bunch of head scratching I put the head where it was in the first place... ha, I tried. But, the point of moving it over to the port side didnt make any real functional difference, perhaps easier access to the forepeak. However, I did figure out some pretty neat feature with the holding tank... in speaking with an Alberg30 owner, I was telling him about how I didnt have any experience with marine toilets and that the diagrams and rats nests of hoses and diverters was hard to figure out. He had built his holding tank up over the toilet and seacock. The idea being that you pump the poo up to the tank but let gravity whisk it away. Wow. So, instead of a series of diverters to pump in the tank, out of the tank, through the tank, over the tank.... Instead, i wont have any diverters and a minimal amount of hoses for poo to get stuck and smell up the boat. If I am sailing in an area where I cant pump out directly I just close the seacock. simple.

So, I am going to make a triangular shaped ply/fiberglass box and mount it directly under the deck and above the outgoing seacock. The holding tank will be mounted to the 1/2" mini bulkhead that I have built. This is so much easier for me to manage and modify if necessary. Before, I had been thinking of making an integrated tank on the v-berth sole that would have needed to be built next to the compression posts... this would have been a huge pain in the ass if an unforeseen problem had arisen.

http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps54889b21.jpg

here you can see the footwell of the main berth coming through the main bulkhead. There will be shelving or locker above it, not sure which yet. The next mini bay is going to be a hanging locker. On the other side of the 1/2" mini bulkhead will be the holding tank.

I would also like to say that I choose an inappropriate time to make use of 1/4" plywood... I used it at the end of the footwell, since this is a non load bearing mini bulkhead, however, now I am stuck having to bridge these two mini bulkheads together as the 1/4" cant take the force if one was to tear at the exposed corner... I will think of something, however, I blame the rain on this one, as I ran out of 1/2" and couldnt drive 2 hours in the rain with a sheet of plywood on the roof of my car.
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps77a32f42.jpg

I purchased the Thunderstruck sailboat kit last week, so in anticipation of its arrival I have shifted focus on to the electric conversion for a little while. In terms of fabrication, the motor mount is what I need to figure out first, so, I took a closer look at the original motor base for the Atomic4. Well... it has some issues, the first is that the end closest to the end of the prop shaft is not really attached to the hull, anymore. And actually, the last 5" or so are spoiled by oil and grime. I say this because the 300lb Atomic4 had a distributed load over the entire base which worked. However, the 40lb load that i intend attach to the motor base needs to be attached at the spoiled end. If we were just talking about the 40 lbs load I wouldnt care, but it is also going to vibrating in conjunction with the motor and spinning prop shaft, which, if not attached properly, may make any vibration worse.

As a matter of fact the entire base is now, after 50 years of holding up a slimey gasoline engine, impregnated with oil. So, i cant just lay some glass over top.

I feel as though I answer my own questions before I even finish typing, but what do you all think?
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps36d3c1c0.jpg

Here you can see the black little dots and damp areas... i just sanded and wiped!
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...psbcdd1ea4.jpg

Do not sand. You are scrubbing the oil into the glass.
Do not use solvents. In that space they will kill you and drive the oil deeper into the glass.
Don't have the whole picture....but what I would start with carbide scrappers.
I have Bacho. You find them small with triangle and circular blades.
But they have a larger one with 2'' wide flat carbide blades. These are pull scrapers. Tried others, these work on old polyester.
Scrape the hell out of the surfaces. You want to cut out significant material, probably down into
the first layer, maybe more of the mat Pearson probably used to built up the hull in there. [Maybe not that deep. It depends on how contaminated
the polyester is. Maybe not deep at all if the boat spent a lot of time in the water and the plastic had water vapor in it? Impossible to say.
Maybe smelling the stuff removed will clue you whether oil soaked in or not in the scrapings]

A338 has a skinny laminated hull. So in case you have a thin hull....watch it!
Whatever hull laminations you remove (not original tabbing used to paste things on the hull) you should build it back up with glass & epoxy.

Then wash with Dawn detergent or Joy. Some people suggest GOJO, which I haven't used, but it sounds like a good idea. You want to wash/scub/dissolve and soak up the liquid and suds with hundreds of paper towels. Or whatever. You are trying to get rid of contamination, so you don't want to spread it around. Then make sure the soap is removed with rinsing.

Get it dry and do a test with epoxy to see if it bonds to the hull..

I'd see if the mounting blocks are where & what you want. Do they need to be lower for instance. Are they level?
I'd remove any piece that has come loose, cut it out with an oscillating blade tool. Do the decontamination clean up.
Remold the ledges where you want them with polyethylene sheet, which epoxy doesn't stick to.
You can zap together flat pieces with short skinny 'sheet-rock' screws, make almost any volume and shape, pack in your own mix of epoxy, chopped strand, fumed silica, & laminating epoxy - mold in place exactly what you want. Mold falls off after set.
You may find uncontaminated virgin hull that with 40 grit prep will bond your epoxy to the polyester.
But I still won't trust a bond where the old stuff was without testing first.

If you take the old ledges out, maybe you can build down with layers of Xmatt from higher up where oil didn't get.
And build your new ledges from off the new laminations. Maybe find enuf bond to the hull that way? Good luck!
May find something useful on the Silicone is Truly Evil thread.

Here the oil contamination was in gel coat which is more porus than plain layup. Can't remenber what I did, but probably GRINDED it down to green polyester. [remember now: used a Festool heavy duty 5 or 6" sander with small number grit disks, AND an incredible HEPA vac that sucked all dust up. A revelation.].....
You going to raise any dust in the bilge there, beg borrow or steal the tool and the Festool vac. Imagine, no goggles, no mask, no clean-up.
Whatever method, it was replaced with a layer of Xmatt, which is a glass mat you can use with epoxy, and this can
be sanded or grinded to level because it isn't woven. Would not grind on on glass cloth. Faired with structural epoxy filler - epoxy primed, no gelcoat.
Got lucky.... the rebuilt coaming sidedecks look pretty good with no noticable hollow sounding or bendy delams.

With no gel coat, once you've scraped it clean, the oil may, may, not have penetrated very deep. Oil in the bilge would be another story!

Aha! i read the 'silicone is evil' thread. man, i am truly learning so much about boat building/rebuilding every day. I wake up every morning, have some coffee, do a little email, research some boat stuff on what ever topic i might be working on that day and then attack. So, good on you Ebb for steering me in the right direction before I made a situation worse. Well, as I suspected, and Ebb has now confirmed, I need to start from virgin glass. And now, i know how to grind the oil deeper! Fortunately, I am not dealing with Silicone oil rather just 50 year old motor oil.
So, now I need to cut the old motor base completely out of the boat so I can get a better lay of the land.

Great! Noticed in A338 that the tabbing Pearson put in after the initial molding was done,
like for bulkheads, settee fronts, stringers, etc - that the tabbing is sometimes TOO EASY
to get underneath and start peeling. Can assume they were slapping stuff together without 'proper' prep.

A sharp chisel can do significant damage to the old green poly.
And start some scarey peeling of old laminations !!!
[Explanation is that plastic can't soak into glass, the liquid plastic surrounds it at best. So if you start lifting
material off, you'll see white filiments of old glass that your tool is cutting along. Doesn't mean they did a bad job.
You can see how glass reinforced hulls get water in them. ] And that's where oil gets into.


Don't know how you're gonna work in there......:eek:

Just thinking.....oscillating Fein-type tools come with a scraper type blade that you push into the work. No teeth.
Wonder if the blade can be sharpened, and kept sharpened with a makita grinder.
Don't want fancy sharp. A ragged sharp would get into the offending glass surface. Worth a try
Haven't did this myself. Don't be tempted to grind on the hull until you're sure it's degreased.

I got all the oil impregnated fiberglass out of the way. I choose to use the 'peel the onion' technic using a sharp chisel and hammer. I was able to delaminate in nice layers, it still took all day to get the area totally prepped but hey, its gone now. However, on this 3rd day of 'spring' i choose not to sit in the 30 degree windy boat and instead poured through the McMaster site researching all the bits to make the cradle. I think I have most of the major parts spec'd out. I then modeled the parts and assembled them together to find out what kind of space requirements i will need and what I will have to compromise. Not shown are the 'bolt down, vibration dampening, motor mounts' which I am glad to say are only 11 dollars each. ha! eat that marine industry rip off. seriously, i have seen prices on small motor mounts nearing 50 bux each. really?

I have not even touched the 'design' of the actual metal (aluminum) frame as I need to take some more measurements. Now that I have an idea of the components and their sizes I can play the back and forth game til i can narrow things down. One critical measurement I need to double/triple check is the distance from the edge of the pulley to the hull... its going to be close, maybe very close and, unfortunately, the only way to eleviate this is to purchase a longer prop shaft.... which would be another 200+/- bux


http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps44a0cba3.jpg

When I was in San Francisco a couple weeks ago I cut out 3/16" stainless steel sheet to make all the parts. I checked a box of parts when I flew back east and dropped them off at a local machine shop to get bent and welded. I should get the parts back soon... I already got all the nuts/bolts, pulleys and belts from Mcmaster.
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps96ec7983.jpg

in other news, i was able to reuse some of the interior bunk fiddles for a mainsheet traveler base. Question: i believe this is teak. Starting from the center, can i just bolt it down? i think its about 5/8" thick. Seems like it should be able to handle the bend... i could use a couple strips of 1/4" marine ply laminated together, but reusing the original just 'fits' better.

now to my metal worker to put a bend on the track.
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1b62a3d7.jpg

Garhauer 48" main traveler track fits perfectly
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...psf56ed695.jpg

and some clear deck plates to give my boat some soul... sole! though in retrospect, i may have saved some materials, but I should have just cut the entire thing out and started from a fresh piece of 3/4" ply. Having to cut holes, brace the old access ports, refiberglass and then level... im sure has taken more time.

anyway, the clear access ports are pretty nifty. They allow sight into the nice clean bilge storage. They are especially cool with the 'bilge light' on. Soul glow!
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...ps32ddccde.jpg

so i need to start thinking about interior painting. i have no idea. Do i just use standard primer and an exterior paint? do i have to be worried about 'marine' grade paints?

Nice work, you are really moving along.

Of course you can use any old paint on your boat. But I think you might find the marine paints are quite easy to apply and do a very nice job. The volume of paint you need isn't very much so the cost difference is not too great. I've used Interlux Pre-Kote and Brightside on architectural fabrication jobs after realizing their worth from using them on sailboats. Nice brushes and roller covers contribute greatly to the cause.

Bolting the traveler track through the teak mounting board and fiberglass deck with fender washers and nuts will work fine. No need to glue anything down. You might want to slightly bevel the holes you drill through the deck with a countersink and apply a tiny bit of a soft sealant like Life-Caulk during assembly to keep out water of the lazarette.

Looking great! I've had really good luck with a Sherwin Williams two part glossy or eggshell paint for the interiors of boats. It goes on nice and thick flows out nicely and is hard and smooth. No need for primer. It is a lot like working with Interlux 2000E but half the price and a very nice finish. They can tint or color to your preference.
Your traveler track looks to be a low profile track. If that is the case you should be able to just bolt it down with out prebending it. I really like the lights in the bilge idea... Cool.
Mike
C227

I've read about adding mildewicde to the interior paints too. Seems like a good idea.