The plywood footwell sides never were as high as the stringers. The stringers were dead flush with the transverse frames. The whole mess makes the deck look a little off if you get your eye down to deck level. I probably goofed up somewhere. I was always going to paint the footwell so I’m just going to bury the blunder in microballoons. The good news is the deck is solid. It doesn’t flex or oil can or any of that stuff. My main concern is that the flush trim bit has a smooth, flat surface to key on when I trim the excess off the deck.
It seems a 50/50 mix of microballoons and wood flour is just about ideal. Spread out on a paper plate it kind of resembles a Wendy’s Frosty. Strength to sanding ratio is very similar to soft wood.
3rd coat has cured for 31 hours. Fingernail doesn’t dent it at all. I’m going to immerse the sample in rain water for at least 24 hours. The sample is only epoxied on the side that is coated in Cetol. The sample was a hole saw offcut from the footwell of my boat so it’s okoume.
That gap needs to be structurally fixed. For future reference, it looks as if the deck either never sat right in the first place or there was insufficient clamping and it moved. At any rate, it needs to be securely attached because, if I’m reading the picture correctly, it’s pretty much at the point where all the longitudinal flexing converges. Over the years those forces could cause material fatigue. Not in the wood, but in the adhesive. And, if I’m reading things correctly, that’s the gap that you filled with the woodflour/phenolic microballoon/epoxy mix. While that is a good gap filler for static compressive loads, here it’s living in an area of high dynamic loads with flex and shear. Microballoons do not like shear.
To avoid the future possibility of that decking popping off and opening a leak, or worse, if that was my boat I would lay down a strip of glass over the corner. I’d make it at least 4" wide and twice as long as the gap, centered on the center of the gap. I’d also use bias-cut glass so the threads can share the load and resist both vertical and longitudinal forces equally. Bias-cut will also help fit the rounded-over corner. This kind of reinforcement can be made invisibly whether the final finish is varnish or paint.
Laszlo
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That sounds pretty serious Laszlo. I went through my cloth scraps and cut these at 45 degrees to the bias. Will this be sufficient?
Looks fine to me. If you’re piecing it instead of using a continuous strip, make sure you overlap the ends of the pieces by 2 inches.
Laszlo
Yes sir! I’ll get the edge rounded over first.
Footwell edge rounded over. Had a few little burbles with the router. The bastard file to the rescue as usual.
Lofting and cutting Seadog Hatch doublers. These mimic the Guider a little as they go around the flange instead of under it. I had some 1/2” Meranti in the loft with a few cosmetic water stains this seemed like a good place to use it.
So the sample spent ~24 hours in a bucket of rainwater. The plywood is obviously soaked. I’ve set it on a couple of blocks so it can dry overnight. Surface looks a little cloudy. Still passes the thumbnail test.
A big storm came in the night. The sample wasn’t even dry yet from the immersion test. But it looks pretty good already. Most of the cloudiness disappeared. It feels hard and smooth. The rain started beading up on it again before the sample is even dry. That impresses me. Still passes the thumbnail test.
At this point the epoxy and Cetol have dried. The plywood underneath is still damp. It passes the thumbnail test. I did the tape test again. It passes the tape test. Now I will subject the sample to UV. I’ve hung on my south facing fence in full sun.
Portside seat top to footwell reinforcement in place. It will be four or five coats on the top to hide the weave. I must say, cutting the cloth 45 degrees from the bias works a treat for corners. Thanks Laszlo. I’ve put clear tape at the 2” mark and some painters tape to hold everything. I’ll let it cure green then peel tape and slice the fabric in a neat line. I did remember the two inch overlap. I’ll have to come up with some more for the starboard side.
Looks good. If you’re painting anyway, fill the weave with epoxy/phenolic microballoons mix instead of unthickened epoxy. That’s what that stuff is designed for and it’s a lot easier to sand than cured unthickened epoxy.
Laszlo
Footwell paint, deck/seat Cetol.
Starboard side glassed. I had a beautiful strip of fiberglass and was about use it when I remembered it needed to be cut 45 degrees off the bias. So I had to cut a new piece. I used excess epoxy to fill the weave on port side and to start encapsulating bare wood there.
Since I have to reach the rudder gudgeon hardware I moved the Sea Dog oval hatch about 2” aft. Sea dog ovals have a lip inside the bottom of the flange so I ended up cutting the hole the size of the middle of the flange then using my combo square to draw a series of dashed lines about an 1/8th wider than the inside line. Then I just free hand sketched the oval again and cut again. My doubler looks a little crude compared to the Seadog flange. But it should be sound. I’ll sand it in place after the thickened epoxy sets and add fillets around the outside perimeter. The parallel painters tape showed me where the stringers were so I wouldn’t accidentally saw them.
This doubler going around the hatch is a neat piece of engineering. It’s more like a plywood grommet than a doubler. I just copied what CLC does with the Skerry Raid and the Guider. I wonder, between the fiberglass reinforcements to the footwell and inspectablity access to the flotation chambers and these oval hatches if we could call this a Southwester Dory Raid.
I doubt I’ll get many opportunities locally to do a Raid. Around here you see mostly high speed motor boats. I’ve never seen a rower. Paddling is common. The sailboats around here are big fiberglass yachts that mainly just live in the marina.