Interior

I figured now is a good time to drop a new thread. It seems the old board has been a bit quiet. My question is has anyone done a complete overhaul of the interior. I had mentioned that I ran into
deck problems and water came through the chainplates on the portside. It leaked into the shelf in the main cabin and bureau.
The draws are fine but the rest of the structure needs to be
completely rebuilt. I started to take a part the bureau and expect
to finish soon. I was wondering what people used for replacement materials. The galley counter has to be replaced and
stairs. The previous owner took the sink out from the original design. He made a straight counter and monkeyed around with
the spare parts he ripped up from the sink counter and made stairs out of them. He put the sink in the middle of the new straight counter. He made a cover and you have to walk over
the sink to get into the cabin. Has anyone done the wall over.
What should the construction and materials be. The V-berth is next.

Captain John :confused:

Jist passin thru here....
I figure any boat that has an 18' foot waterline is a fren of the A/Cs.

Check out a Compac 23 site called 'No Mas'. The carpentry inside will knock yer socks off!
(I'll try to get the address later, if anybody is awake around here.)

www.frontier.net/?chappell/
Unfortunately the question mark is the Spanish tilde that this keyboard doesn't have. Seems pretty exclusive to use this accent mark in your web page address - but the interior photos are well worth the visit. The Compac 23 is just shy of 24 feet and has a 20 foot waterline. Google will find it.

Capt John,
To be specific to your question - nearly all of the framing and cleat material in 338 is/was mahogany. All of the ply is/was fir, with the 1/2" stuff being very good quality, and the 3/4" used for the bulkheads pure junk IMCO.

I use mahogany because it is softer than fir, takes fastenings just as well, smells better, and can be used for finish work. Fir can always be used where it isn't to be seen. KD fir is expensive, hard, and splintery. Better to find good grade air dried construction 2X4 and cut around the knots.

Started with fir ply, but even the marine grade just made me angry. Switched to maranti that comes in two marine grades and is kind of heavy. It is composed of unknown phillipine mahoganies and phenolic glue. It is true marine plywood. African Okumbe(?) is a mahogany type plywood that is lighter in weight. Kyack people like it.

When you look at exterior fir ply go for the stuff with the most veneers More layers is stronger. (You can still find 7 layer 1/2" - stay far away from ply that has two thick layers inside going in the same direction - curses to the APA!!!) Go for A C faces. Fir ply cannot be painted or finished in any way. There is however a secret, known as sign painters plywood called MDO. It has kraft paper cooked on with phenolic. You can use it for bulkheads or shelves and paint it, of course. It's not outrageous and is rewarding to use. Pretty sure you can formica over it, and generally glue to it.

338 has rock hard white oak for structural, like the compression beam and struts. For finish and trim work just about anything can and has been used.

Take an awl and try poking around the tops of the chainplate knees for rot. The end of plywood is susceptible to rot and the Pearson installation did not seal or attach the knees to the cabin liner or the underside of the deck (in 338):mad: :D

Capt.Ebb,

On the third chainplate aft on the portside was yours
screwed into the bureau or did Pearson have a separate knee.
Mine was micky moused into the bureau.




Capt John

Just looked at the decommish photos and I wasn't too detailed back then. Maybe someone with an original interior can tell you.

My impression is that the furniture was built in after the knees were tabbed to the hull. Don't remember taking any screws out when the locker came out. But wouldn't put it past the assemblers shooting a screw thru when needed. There are regular finish nails everywhere that were used to tack things together until the brass screws were driven. DFOs probably would have used s.s. Let me see... doesn't the locker butt up against the knee? They may have used a cleat there to hold it in place.

The after lowers are arguably more important than the forward - but the forward knees stopped at the shelf in 338 - when the shelf came out all that was left were tiny pieces of ply sortof tabbed incidently to the hull. Scarey.

The chainplate issue has been covered well here. The SEARCH button will help sort it out, but there is a lot of chaff. My ideas on stopping the rot are my ideas - you might start a thread to see if anybody has solved the problem recently. 338 has had its knees doubled with the fores extended down the hull like the afters. But the chainplates going thru the deck would make interesting discussion. 338 is not rigged yet.

IMCO the mast pad/beam/deck/compression bulkhead has to be completely rigid and stable. There would be less working (movement, jerking) on the plates if the tension on the shrouds was dependable and stable too. Efforts at caulking the plate thru the deck would be more dependable also. The mast and the plates are the same issue.:(

The forward and aft chain plates, as I recall (I haven't been to the boat in a couple months) are each bolted through a knee, the knee being fiberglassed to the deck and hull. I have no idea what material is behind the fiberglass reinforcement. The main chainplate is bolted to the bulkhead. I believe it goes through a fiberglass cover that is secured to the hull as well. The chainplates are not connected to the cabinet, but the cabinet is adjacent to the aft knee.

As for the interior, I took off the original Micarta everywhere and teak vaneer, using contact cement. It has held up well so far, and looks super - but was a PIA to do.

There was some rot in the bulkhead between the cabins on the starboard side. I drilled holes and saturated the rotten plywood with fiberglass resin (I can't remembe the name of the product - Go Fix or something like that)

The knee is separate from the bureau. Mine was Mickey Moused
yikes. The previous owner used two plates. The bronze on chrome
chainplate was connected to, get this, one stainless steel plate
strip, one aluminium plate screwed together with bronze screws.
Something tells me I might need new knees. Was the closet setup
the same way.



Captain John:(

Capt John,
What you have there is an old attempt at a lightning arrester.
I think the idea was to confuse the million volt bolt with the
disparate metals and the various electric currents passing
between them so it wouldn't blow the side out of yer boat.

Have you checked out the bonding wires with a meter? Might
keep the ole battery topped up with that rig.

Capt Ebb,

What type of meter do you use. What should the grounding
setup should be. Where would the grounding wires be. Where
should I look.



Captain John

P.S. How do I straighten this mess. On the starboard side near the closet is the knee separate as well

Captain Theis


The stuff is called git rot.


Captain John;)

Yeah, you're right. I was just testing everyone else to see if they knew what I was talking about. Besides I was too lazy to go look at any catalog, and too old to remember.

Don't worry about it.


Capt. John