soft floor question

T

Troutkiller2006

Junior Member
boat in question is a 87 center console with severe rot every where. ive done some transoms and stringers but never floors. not the work im afraid of as much as the cost. that floor is gonna eat up a lot of glass and resin and that stuff aint cheap!

so if you guys could please give me a heads up of whats involved in redoing the floor it would be real hepful. kinda hoping that since its a liner boat and not a rolled gunnel that maybe there is no wood in the floor and its just the stringers and braces underneath that are rotten making it weak. that would be awesome but i know better!

thanks in advance
 
Eh nope it's a wood floor and the stringers are almost certainly also rotten... Good chance the transom is at least starting to go... Drill test holes from the inside...

Sadly you are absolutely right... The cost of materials can easily exceed the value of a hull.
 
the stringes and transom are dust, literally. no need to drill any holes. the po installed a hatch in the deck just forward of the console and lined it with aluminium. not a good idea or a good job. i suspect that caused the rot.

whats got me interested in doing this is 1) the hull looks near immaculate! its all there, gel coat is still shiny and hardly a scratch on the boat! 2) the hull is free. and 4) myboy is almost ten and every time i go fishing with a friend he asks if he can go. of course i cant invite him along when i was invited myself. cant just show up like, "i brought a case of bud and a small child".

i have a 25 foot chaparral and i take my kid out regularly on it but cant really do any inshore fishing on it. its good for snapper fishing and running out to deeper water but that stuff is seasonal and expensive to do. nothing sounds better to me than going fishing with my kid! and now that he is finally showing some real interest in it i need to put him on the fish so he doesnt lose interest. i need a small center console. and since im poor, an old fixer upper is the only way im gonna be able to pull it off right now. and i cant think of one better than a v20!

so please, anyone who might know, tell me what i would be getting into with this floor. lids gotta come off to do the stringers, im guessing to come at it from underneath?
 
Best way- Cap off, flip it and fix it. Then you also have access to stringers and transom.

The other way is cut the deck out, flip & fix, patch it back in. Easier removal & handling than cap off but not as clean end result. No access to inside transom either.

Both of these ways save the original skin of the deck.

Some guys have trashed the deck and made a new one entirely. Then you have to glass a new skin and make hatches yourself.
 
thanks skunk. after looking around the forum for as long as i have, i was hoping you would chime in. was hoping for more replies too but it that time of the year, most peeps are out enjoying there boats or working on them.

if i do this i will definitely be removing the liner to get at everything. ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.

any idea where i can find some good reading on the floor repair procedures or some guidance? what materials to use and maybe a lay up schedule would be a great help! i like to learn as much as possible before doing or even considering such a project.

i did have an idea earlier, maybe my dumbest ever lol! what if after the transom and stringers are sorted out i didnt even replace the rotten wood in the floor? since corsa and the like are too expensive for my budget, what if i cut out the rotten wood and instead of replacing it and glassing it in i just glued the correct thickness foam board to the underside of the deck so that it reaches the stringers properly and then filled all the voids underneath with foam? i could screw some generic plywood down on top of the deck to keep it from bulging and heaving and fill her up!
 
Seacast and the like ARE heavy, but they also ARE very slightly lighter than wood and glass.

A wood deck would be CHEAPER than foam filling... Closed cell expanding foam is $$$

There is no way you can keep the deck from exploding from expanding foam other than cutting plenty of good size escape holes for it to over flow from as it expands.
 
Oh and you aren't getting much action because you haven't asked many specific questions...
For the most part you have asked for someone to write you a book with all the details of your project.... You gotta do the leg work and we can help you out when you get stuck...

My V-20 had the stringers n deck replaced by a former member here before I got it..
He went by kamikaze iirc so you could search for his posts here.
 
Troutkiller2006 said:
thanks skunk. after looking around the forum for as long as i have, i was hoping you would chime in. was hoping for more replies too but it that time of the year, most peeps are out enjoying there boats or working on them.

if i do this i will definitely be removing the liner to get at everything. ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.

any idea where i can find some good reading on the floor repair procedures or some guidance? what materials to use and maybe a lay up schedule would be a great help! i like to learn as much as possible before doing or even considering such a project.

i did have an idea earlier, maybe my dumbest ever lol! what if after the transom and stringers are sorted out i didnt even replace the rotten wood in the floor? since corsa and the like are too expensive for my budget, what if i cut out the rotten wood and instead of replacing it and glassing it in i just glued the correct thickness foam board to the underside of the deck so that it reaches the stringers properly and then filled all the voids underneath with foam? i could screw some generic plywood down on top of the deck to keep it from bulging and heaving and fill her up!
Click to expand...

Ok, now you're starting to think out of the box, and that's good.

I'm sure that others besides me have redone their floor, but here's what I did. The story: The previous owner never vented under the floor, especially in the winter months with the boat covered.. so the floor rotted out but the stringers were still fine. Thank God he sold the boat to me before they did. The fix: Cut out the floor leaving a 2" border around the seats and in from the hull at the transom. Take out the floor, turn it over, pry, scrape, remove and clean all of the rotted wood off the underside of the floor. Then glue (Liquid Nails or equivalent) and Stainless screw irregular pieces of plywood to the underside. (Use irregular pieces so they don't make a continuous joint line like a box shape would). Then SEAL (something Wellcraft never did) the wood. I used fiberglass, but I don't see why you couldn't just use a good brand of wood sealer or epoxy. (Note: I had to remove all the old foam in the voids as it was waterlogged). Then I made a shelf out of scrap plywood and glued and screwed it to the underside of the 2" border that I left when I cut out the deck. Foamed the voids over the top so they would meet the bottom of my new deck. (Let the stringers be your guide for that part, and you'll have to cut and scrape the foam to properly shape it before you put your deck back onto it. But it's soft, and, while messy, it goes pretty quickly). Then I put the floor back onto the shelf, with glue and screws, and finally I covered the entire deck in U-Pol Raptor Truck bed liner (like Rhinoliner). I used the liner material because it's tough, has a nice soft rubbery feel to it on bare feet, is a great non-skid, cleans up easily and, because of it's thickness when applying, it filled all the joint lines and screw heads, making them completely invisible.
So your comment about filling the voids to the bottom of the deck is valid. I did it and my deck is solid as a rock.





 
Troutkiller2006 said:
ive also given some thought to seacast for the stringers. my biggest concern with that stuff is weight. ive read that it is very heavy and that it is lighter than wood. would definitely be a lot easier. ill have to do some cost analysis and give it some consideration.
Click to expand...

Consider CarbonCore pourable compound(aka Arjay/Nidacore). It flows much better than Seacast. I haven't calculated how many buckets are needed but it will be a lot. The full Transom was 3 buckets.
Whatever you do will be $$$$$.
Since Carbon Core is self-leveling, it can be used to pour a deck. I saw a video once that showed that...
 
You can spend as much or as little as you want. I did like D did except, my hull had no foam to contend with. You don't have to foam it back in, so don't. Repair stringers and transom with skunks pour method , then replace deck with Ds methoud,.
 
thanks smoke. and sorry for the vague questions. guess i dont really know the right questions to ask, just trying to get an idea of what alls involved. and youre right, foam would be a lot more expensive, except for the +/- 30 gallons of resin and 100 gallons of isocyanate ive got sitting in my foam rig right now. its a little old but im sure i can kick it and its wall foam but there really is very little difference. and i think that even though i dont spray much anymore, just a side gig since the economy collapsed and i went into composites for a big company, i still have some contacts and might could get some "samples" from some of the manufacturers. they use to send me that crap all the time and it would just set in the shop and ruin.

theres always something new to learn about poly's and i dont consider myself a guru by any means. but i do know that the biggest difference between pour foams is the force they excerpt when expanding do to the different surfactants used. and trying something like i described could be a really good way to screw up a boat!. but overfilling and shaving, i dont think, wouldnt be as firm as cast in place under pressure

whats expensive right no, and has been for a long time, is resins!!! foam, fiberglass... it dont matter. if it says resin that ****s expensive! every time oil prices go up, resin goes up with it. but when oil prices fall do the resin prices fall with it? hell no!
 
thanks man, thats really helpful! so underneath the floor is just some wood bonded to the bottom of the floor? its not encapsulated? i was thinking it would be cored in with many layers on the bottom. this is good news from a budget stand point. doubt if my ole lady will see it that way but... good news, lol

thanks man
 
No, under the floor is wood between glass. Actually, lots of little plywood squares. You can find some pix here if you look around. What you want to do is save the outside deck skin and fix from the bottom.
If you take the cap off and flip it (easily said...) you can cut out bad wood from bottom. The cap is "glued" with a poly resin filler/adhesive. Much of it has probably already broken loose and is probably blocking the drains in the bilge.

Make sure your repair is not thicker than original because the cap has to fit when it goes back on.
 
The overfill and trim method is THE method used for all foam filled boats BUT I would do anything I could to avoid foam in a wood stringer boat...

No ventilation equals a rotten hull.


MAYBE you could use that spray foam for a couple side jobs to fund the materials to do the boat... Then you can tell the wifey it was all free!!!!
 
boy could i use a side job or two right now! or some overtime at the shipyard! how much you pay me to cut your grass man? frickin doctors bills... i use to have good health insurance but now, thanks to obamacare, i have expensive insurance that sucks. at least thats what the doctors tell me

thanks for all the good advise guys. im leaning more and more towards doing this, just gotta get past my fears of the unknown and of the time its gonna take
 
I suppose I could sell you my v..... I dunno what to charge tho... I have about $250 cash and about $10,000,000 labor and swap equity in it lol....
 
Troutkiller2006 said:
thanks man, thats really helpful! so underneath the floor is just some wood bonded to the bottom of the floor? its not encapsulated? i was thinking it would be cored in with many layers on the bottom. this is good news from a budget stand point. doubt if my ole lady will see it that way but... good news, lol

thanks man
Click to expand...

Yes, underside is just wood glued to the underside of the deck. No encapsulation. That's why it rots so fast. If Wellcraft has spent just a few more dollars and put a thin layer of glass over the wood it would have saved countless boats from premature deaths. Just remember to use irregular shaped pieces of plywood when you replace it so there's less chance of a structural weak spot like there would be with square pieces.
You're welcome
 
My personal opinion is that wellcraft did a absolute horrible job building these boats. On My 74 restoration i found some of the worst layups in my life. It almost seems like they were made to be disposable. I think you have answered your own question....the boat is in great shape with out a scratch correct? I say lift the liner...repair the sole ( floor core) from the bottom side..remove rotted stringers(grid) and replace with marine ply or comparible material and layup with resin.i built my boat with poly resin and have beat the crap out of it and it is soli as a rock. Im not gonna sugar coat it for you..its a long row to hoe but its so freaking worth. What ever you decide we are all here to help.
 
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