Commander Compression Post Discussions

[John]

Thank you everyone. Now as I take a deep breath, it looks like I have 3 choices:

1. Sell the boat (any takers??? HI)
2. Open up the deck underneath the mast step and pour in filled epoxy and put mat on top and cover with mast step.
3. As above but fill the void using built up modern coring and filled epoxy.

The consensus seems to be that a solid area underneath the mast step is best. I am busy this weekend so by Monday, I think I will open up the deck in about a 5 in. circle. I will have to cut back my mast light and antenna lines as well. The open area will give me a good idea of what I am dealing with.

More to follow, I'm sure

What do I do to raise the ceiling in the cabin? Or should I just leave it as is ?

[Commander 147]

What do I do to raise the ceiling in the cabin? Or should I just leave it as is ?

John the ceiling in the cabin should remain as is because you are not removing the fiberglass on the bottom of the deck only the top layer.

I apologize if I lost you on my explaination of the process. I often assume the reader knows more about the materials I'm talking about than is often the case. Sorry about that. Let me try and show you some pictures of what I'm suggesting as a possible course of action.

This is a picture of a couple of the areas on my deck where I am reinforcing for hardware and doing the same basic process as I suggested in my prior post.

The one on the right is similar to what I had suggested you do under the mast. As you can see the bottom skin of the deck is still intact (except where some holes had been drilled previously) and the balsa core is removed from the center and the bevel and been ground into the top skin surrounding the hole in the center.

This picture shows what 1708 biaxial cloth looks like.
as you can see it is heavy fiberglass cloth that is 8 oz mat stitched to 17 oz woven fabric. This is what I use to cut the circles out of to build up a solid glass and resin core in the center and what I laminate to the top of the deck as a new skin. By making the deck under the mast solid glass and epoxy you drastically improve the compression strength of that area.

Hope that helps, and while this may look like a large a scarry project (I remember when these kinds of things were scarry to me) it really is not bad if you take your time and fully understand what you are doing before you cut.