I Rebuilt My Boat Stringers with Coosa Board… Was It Worth It? I Episode 11

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:02]This is where things can go very painful. Making new plywood. She's pretty [music] moist. We'll say uh can see right where a seam was. I have a ton of parts [music] ready for powder coat.

[00:00:15]Don't do that. Don't stick your finger in wet resin.

[00:00:20]>> [music] >> Taking a quick break from the painting though, just because the paint fumes are so bad that for the most part it's it's do a coat and then head home, go home, let it dry up, cure overnight, come back the next day. So, it's been a bit of a battle thankfully with me. Well, not thankfully, but I'm back to work. Going to work during the day and then I come here and get a layer of paint just go home. But today's the weekend. Time to get some more stuff done. Going to tackle this stringer here or at least start cutting it open. Going to clean up some of the paint and random sanding tools that I have kicking around. Get them up there and get going. So you guys can see, I don't know if I mentioned this before, one thing that would make my life so easy is a gel coat peeler. Well, unfortunately, I don't have a Jelco peeler because they're a million dollars. So, if anybody knows of one for a good price, by all means, let me know.

[00:01:22]But what actually works fantastic, but not recommended, is just a wood planer.

[00:01:29]This is just from a simple wood planer.

[00:01:31]I'm going to kind of show you how good a wood planer works and the tools that I use essentially to cut this stringer out to start replacing it. I'm going to uh put you guys down, get some of this tidied up, get the paint and the mixing stuff, get that out of here, and then I'll bring you along for the process of cutting this out. All right, guys. Let me get to it. I got this area cleaned up and pretty much ready to start performing surgery. Before I start though, I'm going to kind of talk to you guys because I've seen a couple comments and I get asked this quite often. Tools, like what works good, what doesn't, things like that. Here's some things that I would recommend if you're going to start any fiberglass job. Tools to pretty much have or try to get borrow, buy, whatever you got to do. Facebook Marketplace, that's that's my best place ever. But I'll go over everything that I pretty much use. I run a shop back hose which is actually just inch and a half subp pump hose. It's very cheap, easy to get, and it pretty much fits most of my DeWalt attachments. Bigger. I think it's a 6-in grinder that I have a 5 in surfacing wheel on. And I have the guard, the dust shield that goes on. You can close it like that. and it does fantastic for taking off a lot of material and really digging down and getting through multiple layers when you're trying to dig down. But you got to be cautious with it because one false move or one little bit of an angle and you're going way all the way through.

[00:03:14]Like I was just mentioning, good oldfashioned wood planer, which I'm about to fire up and show you. Getting into some cutting tools. The classic angle grinder, but with the diamond cut off wheel. This thing works fantastic. I would recommend it to anybody that has to cut fiberglass. Yes, it does make a lot of dust. Don't be like me. Use the guard or else you'll have missing fingers like me. If you're trying to get things done, that is the machine to do so. Obviously, classic multi-tool with good blades. Then we get into sanding.

[00:03:52]The big pretty much just a polisher or a buffer. Variable speed with the 7in sanding pads. That's a must. Quick leaf blower to blow things out. Two sanders.

[00:04:06]I have multiple of these, but a corded and cordless. Then you get into the bigger belt sander and the small little sander. Those are pretty much the tools that I use so much to build everything in here from grinding to cutting everything like that. If you're looking to start doing some fiberglass work, if you don't have any of those tools, I suggest trying to get some of them at least at least for sure the angle grinder with the cut off wheel because even if you have to, you can use like a flap disc or a sanding disc on that attachment. I'm going to show you guys what the wood planer does and kind of you'll be able to just see how well a wood planer works for getting the gel coat off. It does leave kind of a torn up mark if you go too deep. That's where the big 7-in flap disc or the buffer works on a variable speed with like a 60 or 40 grit.

[00:05:00]And like I said, attaching it to the vacuum makes a big difference not having to deal with the dust. And that is a big thing for me. in a small enclosed area.

[00:05:13]>> Once down, [music] never been out.

[00:05:18]Once high and never drowned. [music] Once but [music] never been told.

[00:05:29]Once but never b. [music] Never look back and never turn around.

[00:05:36]Don't stop till the sun goes down.

[00:05:38][music] All right. All right. It's gone. It's gone. [music] Got to get free with love.

[00:05:51][music] [music] So, as you guys can see, look at how well that works.

[00:06:11]Keep in mind, I'm just trying to take the gel coat off and nothing more.

[00:06:16]Sorry, guys. Turn off the vacuum. So, what I'm trying to do is just take off the gel coat to get to fiberglass to be able to add my new layers.

[00:06:26]It's hard to unless it's a perfectly flat surface, then obviously this doesn't really work, but it does allow you to get everything pretty decent. And then areas like this, that's when you use the good old classic sanders. But I was able to do all of that, not wearing a mask and not a single bit of dust flying around in the air, all while just using the vacuum hooked up to it. That's the one nice thing about the planer as well. It's big particles, so it's not just dust that's flying in the air. Mind you, still wear a mask no matter what.

[00:07:02]I'm just doing these kind of things so I can also talk with you guys and normally I'm always wearing a mask, but to be able to explain to you guys that's what's happening. So now going to switch over to the angle grinder, which I will be putting the mask on because it makes a good amount of dust and getting the exhaust fans going, the vacuum going, and going to start doing some cutting.

[00:07:28][music] Once down, never been out.

[00:07:33]Once high but never [music] drowned.

[00:07:39]Once taught but never been told.

[00:07:44]Once ris but [music] never b never look back and never turn around.

[00:07:52]Don't stop till the sun goes down.

[00:07:54][music] All right.

[00:07:57]is gone. Baby is gone. You got to get free. [music] [music] [music] Well, this is the interesting part. This is where things can go very painful or very smooth. So, normally you never want this to be rotted.

[00:08:44]But in this scenario, now that I'm replacing it, I almost rather it be rotted because it comes apart so much easier than a nice solid block of wood that I'm hoping for is in there. Because I'm removing it, though, it's so much easier when it's just completely rotted out. This is where the jackhammer, the pry bars come into play. So, let's work on getting this piece off. See what's behind it.

[00:09:16]>> [music] >> Huh.

[00:09:25]Hey. [music] Huh.

[00:09:30]Hey. [music] Huh.

[00:09:35]Hey.

[00:09:37][music] >> [music] >> Okay, I am glad I cut it out. She's pretty moist. We'll say uh say the least.

[00:09:53]So, it still looks like plywood. Still has the shape compared to some of the things I bowled out in here that was uh mush. So, I put up a bit of a fight, but she's got some moisture in there. So, let's take a look.

[00:10:14]crazy. And I think some of the biggest reasons certain areas have so many issues is look at this.

[00:10:24]I don't know how well you guys will be able to see that, but this thing is just riddled with holes from all of the screws, mounting hardware, everything like that. Like even this pass through hole, which was for the oil drain, I believe, and some wires. No silicone, no 5200, nothing. Just just sent the screw right in. So very easy for moisture to start to seep in there.

[00:10:59]It is discolored, but it is actually pretty solid still surprising.

[00:11:06]And it really doesn't feel damp to the touch surprisingly with how bad it looks. But obviously moisture penetration within this one of course.

[00:11:17]So I'm glad I decided to do it. There was a brief second where I'm like, but deep down there's no way I would have been able to live with myself without doing it.

[00:11:31]Like I said though, surprisingly still very solid. It has discoloration and the moisture meter didn't read very high like almost within tolerable.

[00:11:52]I don't know how. That's kind of why I thought about maybe let's just leave it.

[00:11:58]But like you just seen, I was swinging pretty hard there and it's not falling apart. It still has It still has strength to it for sure. still has structure. Actually just smacked myself in the side of the leg there trying to hold a camera and swing a hammer. Not very good at multitasking apparently. So this is the part that sucks. This is where the jackhammers and the mini hilties and things like that come into play. Let's start tearing out this wood and hopefully get it out in big chunks and get it the heck out of here. Apparently none of that was just recording. So that's cool. Well, guys, you can see right where a seam was, and that's where that piece of plywood is.

[00:12:43]And check this out.

[00:12:47]The reason I say it's so important to have silicone for anything that's going through wood, any sort of cing, anything like that, look at that. Right where the hole was. And boom. Let's look at how rotted that all is right there.

[00:13:06]Absolutely wild. But what I want to show you is something that I am thankful cutting into this boat. I have noticed a lot of things. So you can see how this stringer ran all the way this way. And you can see how this guy back here runs up this way.

[00:13:23]Well, thankfully all of the stringers where they meet like a bulkhead or something like that are sealed off like this.

[00:13:33]So, it's all been fiberglass completed and then they put the next piece on so it's sealed from the back. Like this one I actually I went to cut into that one and it's just a small little piece and it was completely dry. Um, sealed off in that little area. No moisture in it whatsoever. Perfect looking plywood. And that's one of the big reasons sometimes you see boats when they're being built, they lay out all of the stringers, all of the bulkheads, everything, and then fiberglass it all at once, which is essentially, I guess, when building a boat, an easy process, but it turns into a channel for moisture to just get trapped and keep traveling and traveling, especially when you have scenarios like this.

[00:14:25]And for the people that watched some of the earlier videos, that's what happened to this bulkhead that ran right along here. This is why I'm going with CUSA and sealing things above and beyond.

[00:14:38]Never want to deal with this ever again till maybe my next project. But cing is removed. Time for cleanup. You can actually see my cousa in there from recoring the bulkhead.

[00:14:52]So this area is a lot thinner fiberglass.

[00:14:56]Like a lot compared to this. You can actually compare it to my thumb there.

[00:15:01]Like this is couple sheets. Being real cautious. So I can still use the back side of it. I'm going to have to do some grinding and sanding because there is some plywood that just wasn't coming off nicely. And I'm compared to this where I can put a lot more force. I can't do that without destroying the fiberglass.

[00:15:21]That's where this guy with the 3-in flat chisel works really well.

[00:15:41]Make a new plywood.

[00:15:51]Right tools for the job makes life easy.

[00:15:55]I wish I would have known this before starting. It's kind of why I showed you guys all the tools that I used. So, there you have it, guys.

[00:16:04]Pretty much this whole one side prepped and ready for new couring.

[00:16:10]Still got a little bit more to do actually. Haven't grinded down inside here. still haven't got in here yet. As you just seen me using that little belt sander, it works amazing. And I actually talked about it in one of my episodes and I forgot to mention what it was. I did say it was just a cheap little belt sander, but I ended up googling it.

[00:16:30]Turned out to be a little bit more money than I was thinking it was, but you can see why I thought it was cheap.

[00:16:38]So, that's the brand of it. Belt sander made in China. It's a 1 and 1/8 by 21 in. I did Google it. Looks like it is uh like 400 bucksish.

[00:16:52]And then Makita actually has it rebranded for an extra 100 bucks. It looks absolutely identical. Just green and it says Makita. That's a tool recommended for sure. I would just Google that size and you'd be able to see exactly what one I'm talking about cuz that's what I did and popped up right away. Just a guesstimating though what I'm going back around 6 to 7 in back. Quickly sanded all up in here.

[00:17:19]Still got a little bit more touch-up to do and nothing has been done on this.

[00:17:24]Took a couple couple nicks at it with the uh planer, I guess. Still got to cut out this piece. It's getting there.

[00:17:32]Hopefully by today I'll have this all prepped and ready and maybe bring the piece back to the shop there and start getting it uh cut out and ready to get smooshed back in. Well, good morning guys. It's a bit of a slow morning for me. It is Sunday, pretty much the next day from everything you just watched me doing, which uh getting that stringer prepped. I'm in the shop today. I figured I'd show you what's going on and some of the plans we got going on and some of the things that arrived. Well, right here's the stringer.

[00:18:02]or the outside skin of it that I brought to the shop to try to clean up. One sec, guys, let me turn off this fan me so you can hear me. So, here's the outer skin of the stringer. And some exciting things is here is all of the cable tray or also considered cable duck. I was able to get pretty much every size except for some of the bigger stuff. And because I eliminated so many wires, I'm actually hoping to be able to go down in size. The bigger stuff that was in there is 8 inch and I'm now going back with 6 inch just because I couldn't couldn't get 8 inch anywhere. Show you guys some other things going on. I have a ton of parts ready for powder coat. So, the David mounts. This is my AC tray, engine room vents. I got the ladder all sand blasted. Still got to do a hall vent. Got one more. I don't even remember what that bracket is for anymore. Got some of the I- beams prepped. And then this is the issue that I'm running into currently. Started sand blasting the engine mounts or like the rubber isolators and some of them are pretty beat up. I contacted uh Isoflex and man to get all new mounts for these suckers, it's not cheap. That's kind of put things on a pause trying to get some cash flow to get that. If the owner of Isoflex is watching this and wants to hook a brother up, by all means, I I could use it right now. So, that's kind of the stand still we got going on.

[00:19:35]These are sand blasted, but they are just raw iron, so they are kind of starting to flash rust. These are galvanized. Long story short, it was a very hard time finding the I-beams that I needed that match the original ones.

[00:19:50]So, what I'm doing is I was able to find two, which actually was one longer one cut down. So, those are the original length that I need. And these three are what came out of the boat, which as you could see, little bit of a space there and a little bit of a space there. So, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to take the two and cutting this top one up to extend them, weld them together to try to make them, well, not try, but to make them all one length.

[00:20:23]It is a disaster in the shop right now because I am back to work in here trying to make a living and trying to build a boat being a one person doing a fivep person job currently. Some of the cool stuff that has came back from powder coat. So, some handles, my shaft couplers that look just fantastic, some of the ceiling braces for in the engine room, some of the steps, bracketry, water and oil, little hose holders.

[00:20:56]So, things are coming along. We got my heat exchangers over here.

[00:21:02]Got them all sand blasted. Took them all apart. Made sure the insides were clean.

[00:21:08]I personally went through them all, just kind of cleaned them, make sure there was no crazy corrosion or anything like that, putting all new anodess in it and getting those ready. They still obviously have to be painted. But then I ran out of all grip. So, well, the all grip epoxy primer. So, that's the next thing I'm waiting on now. It's uh the constant battle of get so far with the money and the material I have and then wait till I get some more money and can buy some more material. But for now, start to get this stuff loaded in the truck [sighs] and drop it off to get powder coated.

[00:21:48]I figured I'd give you guys a little bit of an update. I did most of the grinding and sanding and all the dusty work kind of thing um in preparation to replace both these stringers. One I did about half. The other one is completely ready to go. Ready to get the new cing set up and put in place.

[00:22:12]So, as you see, got about the 6 in cleaned up all the way back.

[00:22:21]And that is done all the way around.

[00:22:26]The whole backside, no more gel coat on anything.

[00:22:31]And this one, since I was kind of here doing it, I started getting this one prepped, getting all the gel coat off right there.

[00:22:42]Didn't do this backside yet, but just doing that alone is just a lot of grinding and kind of the crappiest part, kneeling in weird areas, things like that. So right now I realize I don't have enough cabil to make up some thickened resin. I'm going to get a template going, start cutting the cusa, and then start waiting for that to show up. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue prepping this. You could see about where I grinded the gel coat back. So I got to continue this all the way. I still have to build all of the substructure for underneath it. get it all set up, which is what these pieces of cousa, 1in cusa, as you can see, that's actually what it's sitting on. There's a 1 in thick by 2 in wide piece of cusa that needs to get screwed into the back. And these are my old hatches to be able to access down in here for a couple different reasons.

[00:23:47]Not really much of storage. which I guess you could store some things like filters, but this is the old hatch that I have with just a just a piece of starboard that fits in this nice aluminum bracket kind of thing.

[00:24:08]But the bulkhead used to be way out here, so there was a lot more room for this. I'm debating what to do. I might shrink it a little bit. Um, I know I have to for over there, but this side I do have a good amount of room to kind of put it over here and still have a big access hole. So, I might do that for here. On this side, this is where all my AC components sit. And I really don't have a ton of room here. That's going to be a little narrow one. That's what I'm going to start working on now. Getting this stuff cleared up and start grinding away. Stopped by the boat after work today and uh just made a quick template for the stringer. So, this is all I do.

[00:24:54]Done it a couple different ways, but for the more complicated one, just something like this.

[00:25:00]Just some simple cardboard. It's actually what a couple of the sheets of my cousa got shipped in. Just was wrapped in this cardboard. So, it actually works pretty good for this.

[00:25:10]It's just laying here right now. But as you can see when it's unfolded, it fits in here very nice.

[00:25:20]Of course, it wants to fall down while I'm trying to show you guys, but I guess you get the view from this way.

[00:25:25]Something quick and easy. And now I can bring it back to the shop, which not today. I'm exhausted today. But tomorrow, I'll get it traced out and get my two pieces cut to size and start uh laminating them and gluing them together. Well, fiberglassing them together, not gluing. Once that's completed, hopefully my cavasil will arrive and we'll get this one stuck in place. Well, another day here after work and got the cus sheet cut. So, I'll show you what's going on.

[00:26:04]So, fits pretty good. And you'll notice there's the old glass. There's the piece that we have to build up multiple layers to kind of get to the same thickness of this area here. But I leave it up a little bit long because where it's sitting in is on an angle. I tried to match it, but it just it simply just doesn't doesn't work well trying to do it to matched angles because I'll show you why. Because of extra resin and just unevenness in the fiberglass.

[00:26:38]So, what I do is I build it all. I leave it a little bit tall, sandwich both pieces together, get them all as one piece, and then I just bring it in and I just start hand sanding it. Um, well, not by hand, but like a belt sander. I just use a heavy belt sander and just start sanding it. Check it. Sand it, check it. And then what's nice about the CAUSA, you kind of leave dust everywhere. When you push it down, that little bit of dust leaves a little imprint where it was touching. Take it out, sand that area down, and then it's just kind of a trial and error until you get a nice perfect fitment. And then that little bit of about a half inch that is sticking up turns into more of a quarter inch. And then we round the corners. For the most part, that's what I do. And it kind of ends up perfect.

[00:27:29]Takes a bit of time trying to be very cautious, but it gets the fitment like perfect. So it uses a lot less thickened resin to just glue everything together.

[00:27:38]You're not filling massive voids.

[00:27:40]Everything is nice tight areas, things like that. So, it kind of just saves saves some material, saves some money there. Takes more man-hour though, trying to make it real perfect. And I just I like to have the fitment real nice and snug. Like even like this areas like this, just a nice tight gap.

[00:27:57]Nothing crazy, but you can see that there's a gap right here. And that's what I'm talking about. The halls angled, so I just take my time and match it up. Going to go back over to the shop tonight. And I think I'm going to get the two pieces glassed together. So, over here at the shop and got that stringer all set up.

[00:28:18]Check that out.

[00:28:21]I know not a whole lot to see, but we have two pieces of cusa sandwiched together with a layer of glass and pretty much everything heavy that I could find, including some weights, some actual workout weights. Should probably start picking up some of those myself, but we're working on it. Maybe that counts. I did pick them up to put them up there. About one rep. You can see I kind of let the You can see I kind of let the glass hang out on either end all the way around. I let it hang out just a little bit, like a/4 in, something like that. All the way around. And then what I do is I just go around and trim it all off. For the most part, I just use the angle grinder with that diamond wheel.

[00:29:08]It works great. Very fast to trim it all off. Then after that, the big cordless belt sander shaves it down nice and smooth. The bottom all right here, that's where I have to sand down on that angle anyways. So, doesn't matter. But this way, leaving it out, it just ensures that glass got all the way to the edge. It's a good safety measure kind of thing with very minimal waste.

[00:29:34]Engines still sitting here. shop has been getting cleaned up though, so things are looking good. Little trick for you guys, too, is use some shrink wrap.

[00:29:46]So, I've use this piece of shrink wrap to build almost every piece of either stringer, anything that I glassed. And what's nice about it, you get resin on it and it does not stick everything. Well, well, of course that's wet. Don't do that. Don't stick your finger in wet resin. Works really good till you stick your finger in the wet resin, but works really good to make an easy clean up. Make sure the parts you're laminating together when stuff drips down, it doesn't stick to it. Just peels right up. And then anything that flowed out can be uh sanded off, which I'll show you that once I peel it up tomorrow. For now, I'm out. So guys, it's now the next day. Sorry, I still got the exhaust fan running, so it's a little loud, but I want to show you what I was talking about with [music] doing this on top of the shrink rack. We'll peel it up and see what it looks like.

[00:30:55]There you go. Look at how easy that was.

[00:30:58]So, that's what's so nice about doing it on top of the shrink wrap.

[00:31:03]So, your a little bit of excess. I did try to wipe it up pretty decent with uh just one of the paint brushes that I was using to laminate. So, not too much soaked underneath the material, but you still get some areas that look like that. And that's what I use the big belt sander. Sand it down clean. But the beauty of it is, as you seen, it just peels right up. Nothing sticks to the shrink wrap. very easy to clean. I roll up the shrink wrap and I you I roll up the shrink wrap and I pretty much wait until uh the next time I need it, lay it out, do the same thing. Makes the process very easy for fiberglassing on top of something. Doesn't stick to it and just easy to clean up. Works good.

[00:31:45]All right, going to trim up all the excess and go hopefully get it installed on the boat, which might be a couple days, but I'll let you know when I get to that point. We are back in the boat. It's another day here after work and I'm ready to get this stringer bonded back into place. I'll show you the setup and then I'm going to start mixing up some fiberglass, well some thickened resin that I made and we're going to bond this together, make it all one. Show you what uh little setup that I do to squish everything together. So, I just use some big big lag screws and honestly just spare chunks of 2x4 and it actually threads into these. And then I drill a hole straight through the 2x4, the cing, the glass, everything on both sides. And then you can actually see them sticking out here. And then they grab this and clamp.

[00:32:48]So that secures all of the bottom.

[00:32:53]And then for the top, I just use some clamps. Clamp it all on the top. So I mix up a good amount of thickened resin.

[00:33:02]Slather it all over everything. I usually do a little bit of a test squish to see if it actually has enough where it's squishing out of voids and things.

[00:33:10]And if it is, then it's go time. Squish it all together. And that's about it.

[00:33:15]So, now that I've explained it, I'm going to get to it.

[00:33:20]You guys most likely won't be able to hear me cuz I got the big exhaust fans on, plus wearing a mask, but I might just speed this up or do something like that. So, you'll see the process of what's happening. Pretty straightforward. Slather it on, squish it all together.

[00:33:38][music] Oh, [music] [music] everybody was kung fu fighting.

[00:33:59]Those kids were fast as [music] lightning.

[00:34:04]In fact, it was a little bit frightening, but they fought with expert timing.

[00:34:14]There were funky China men [music] from funky Chinatown.

[00:34:19]They were chopping them up. They were chopping them down. It's an ancient [music] Chinese art. And everybody knew their part. From a fainting to a snip and a kicking [music] from the hip. Everybody was gone for fighting.

[00:34:37]Those kids were fast as lightning.

[00:34:42]In fact, a little bit frightening.

[00:34:48]This is what you want to see when you're doing this. I'll show you. It's all the squeeze out.

[00:35:04]for the perfect expert timing.

[00:35:09]There was [music] fun and little Sammy John. He said, "Here comes the big boss. Let's get it on." We took the ball [music] and made a stand.

[00:35:21]Started swaying with the hand. Sun motion [music] made me skip. Now we're into a brand new trip. Everybody was comfortable fighting.

[00:35:32]Those kids were fast as lightning.

[00:35:37]In fact, it was a little bit frightening, [music] but they gave expert timing.

[00:35:46]Oh yeah. [music] >> [music] [music] >> I was known for fighting.

[00:36:10]Those guys were fast as lightning.

[00:36:14]In fact, it was a little bit frightening.

[00:36:19]Make sure you have expert times [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Keep on keep on.

[00:36:50]All right. Well, it's all in. Got all the radius filled with the thickened resin. All the corners are filled up.

[00:37:00]And then over here, it's just a bunch of pieces of this, just some cousa I cut into triangles and just stuck in the corners like that, which makes a very nice radius. That's what I did over here.

[00:37:31]with a little bit of shaping with the belt sander. It works out perfect.

[00:37:37]See, maybe you can see that better.

[00:37:44]And as you can see, everything is uh filled with the thickened.

[00:37:48]I'm pretty sure I showed you in the midst of doing it, you could see it just oozing out everywhere, which is exactly what you want. I even take a chunk of the 2x4 or sometimes a small ball beam and just you tap it along and it works all the air pockets up until you see that resin or the thickened resin just start to spit out. And then you kind of know that everything is saturated all the way through and then try to work out every air bubble you can because during this process it is hard to get everything out. But that's kind of why you slather it on and then scrape it off. You get a real good bond this way.

[00:38:24]You can still see where all the screw holes are.

[00:38:31]It's all oozing out, which is exactly what you want. I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. Only word of advice I could give, if you're trying to do this, don't do it by yourself. It sucks. My plan B was filling in where the old bulkhead was with some cooa.

[00:38:50]Then going to smooth that out with the wood planer and belt sander to get it all to the same height. And hopefully maybe tonight or even tomorrow I might start getting some layers of glass on.

[00:39:02]If not, at least right now I'm going to head back to the shop because I still have my template from this side. I'm going to start tracing out my layers of glass and getting it cut out and ready to get put on. All right, I'll meet you guys back here when I'm putting more glass on. Just got back to the boat.

[00:39:19]It's been about two hours. Did some things at the shop like cut out some fill-in pieces for here. Some pieces like that for down there.

[00:39:32]And as you can see, I popped off all the clamps.

[00:39:39]And you can see where the thickened has oozed out of all the screw holes where unfortunately I tried to actually clean it up before it uh it saves on the sanding but I missed those. I guess trying to be quick. Everything is hardened up nice.

[00:40:00]It has a nice radius. This one's a little little off.

[00:40:06]That's what the sanding is for. And the seam is filled in nice and everything.

[00:40:13]I already went around and knocked everything seems solid with no hollow spots whatsoever. Happy with that for sure. So, my plan now, I'm going to build this up with a couple of sheets.

[00:40:25]I'm actually not really going to be tabbing it in much. I'm going to grind it in and they only overlap a little bit. Um, and on the bottom, what I'm doing already is so beyond overkill.

[00:40:38]Like, it's going to be so much stronger than what it was originally that I'm not worried about that. All I'm doing for here, I'm just building it up to try to get to the same thickness as this. So when I wrap the new fiberglass all the way over because I'm doing full pieces, five sheets of 1708 over the whole thing front and back and on top. And that's what I did here, which let me see if it looks like Yeah, you can you can see in the color difference where exactly what I'm saying was done. So, I added a whole bunch of sheets to make this all the same thickness and then added five more layers on top of it. So, it not only has the original skin and then about five layers to build up the thickness and then five layers over top.

[00:41:32]So, just for the rigidity of it, it's going to be extreme, right? cusa cord and that many layers of glass compared to factory. That sucker is going to be so freaking strong. It's Friday night and uh I have a date with a sander. So, I'm going to get sanding and I'm going to glass these pieces in tonight. So, tomorrow I can start with the new layers. My goal for the weekend is to get this completely glassed and I would love to get that stringer completely built and done as well. We'll see if I can do it. It's an early morning here on a Saturday. Ended up uh staying out here till like 1:00 last night, but we got some things done.

[00:42:20]Just made some good progress. So, I'm going to show you how she looks. Just like I said, I ended up adding, I believe, f actually no, I did six layers, two layers of chop strand, mainly because I actually just found a spare piece I had that cut out perfectly for two pieces on each side. So, I did that first and then three layers of 1708, I believe it was. Freick, it was a late night. I don't hardly even remembering, but she's looking good. So that thickness that was here, it's probably not going to show up on camera, but it is it is the exact and everything done here. So I got a little bit to trim off the edge. End up being a little bit tall on this side. Purposely tried scooting some of them down a little bit because this whole corner I'm going to round out. So mind you, this is not technically the proper way of doing that. In theory, you really should have tapered this back quite a bit, over overlapped each layer, but like I said yesterday, this is going to be so overbuilt, so over strong that I'm not too worried. All I did I literally just did that to build up the same thickness as this. The whole thing is going to get wrapped in fiberglass again. Anyways, I know for like the pros out there doing fiberglass, I totally understand. should have been done a little bit different, but I'm not worried. Like I said, because of how overbuilt this is already becoming.

[00:43:51][music] She's hardened up today.

[00:43:55]Again, like I've explained many times, just polyester resin, no wax yet. The final layer is with wax. Always keep that in mind. Whatever you decide to do, the last layer is what you want to use the wax on. This side turned out beautiful, too. And I did, you can see where the old glass is here and where the new glass starts. So, I did taper it in to the old stuff a little bit, but not nothing crazy. Not compared to what you would do if you were trying to do a proper repair and I wasn't rewrapping the whole thing in glass. So, keep that in mind. With the way I'm doing this, it's it's okay. If you were only adding this, that bond between those two is a big no no. That's not what you would want to do. You would want to be tapering that back 6 in and slowly going further and further. I got the old hole that's here. I'm going to clean this up and then just mix up a little bit of thickened resin and fill it in. Call it good there. Maybe add a couple small pieces of glass just to fill the void.

[00:45:06]And then I'm got to mix some thicken to essentially smush into the old screw holes from what I used as a clamp. You can actually see this one. I was able to had a little bit left over and just kind of use my hand and smooshed it in there.

[00:45:22]I am getting excited because after this stringer and that one is done, I want to cut this back out and get my layer of fiberglass on here. Then after that, I can start figuring out getting engines in here or at least getting my steel I beams which weld to here going across.

[00:45:44]Get those suckers in here and figuring out where everything is going to go.

[00:45:48]start kind of actually mocking things up for getting engines in here instead of just the same fiberglass work day in and day out.

[00:45:57]So, here are some of the joys of building the boat in the water.

[00:46:02]Just about to go leave to cut that fiberglass. Got the shop back running in the background.

[00:46:08]I'm going to lean over here to, you know, hit that switch, which turns on the diesel heater to warm up this area.

[00:46:16]And boom.

[00:46:23]I step on the old transducer, which I've been being very cautious with because it's already kind of leaked before and now it's cracked and leaking everywhere. Pull over.

[00:46:36]Thankfully, this area stayed dry. It looks wet, but that's from the uh the resin.

[00:46:43]And yeah, so now I got some O-rings. I already took it apart in a panic. Got water almost everywhere.

[00:46:51]So, figured I'd grab the camera and show you the fun reality of doing all this still in the water.

[00:46:58]So, I'm going to go outside, drain the shop back while I have this leak kind of manageable.

[00:47:04]So, this way if a ton of water starts flowing out, the shop back's at least empty and can handle it. I'll be right back. Yeah, if you want to like have to I found a different transducer plug, but I don't think it's for this one.

[00:47:21]>> Is that where it's coming from the top?

[00:47:23]>> It's I have electrical tape and very quickly rigged up and vacuum sucking a lot of >> What is that? You see?

[00:47:32]>> No, it's it's like a transducer that sticks in there. I freaking just stepped on it.

[00:47:44]Quickly rig this up so I can drain the shop back too so it doesn't fill.

[00:48:05]>> Yeah. See, does that look like the same size?

[00:48:09]Looks like nothing broke off in that bottom out.

[00:48:55]You know, just go for a smaller one.

[00:49:24]Well, [ __ ] size up, I guess.

[00:50:13]It's bigger at the top than it is at the bottom.

[00:50:19]Well, this has been exciting.

[00:50:22]Um the trans old transducer is actually broken off. So what we are currently going to try to do is is where the threaded portion is see if we can find it's 2 in to see if we can just find a 2-in hose to go over top and clamp and either leave tall above the water line or try to plug the hose after because the transducer is completely broken.

[00:50:47]Thankfully able to damn the water to about this area. And I even to prevent these kind of things went around and packed all of the sea [ __ ] that are exposed.

[00:51:06]But of course, there's an old plastic transducer in there that I step on in the middle of trying to do fiberglass work on this side.

[00:51:16]The joys of building a boat, I tell you.

[00:51:19]All right, so big thanks to my marina.

[00:51:23]This is what we rigged up here. We got an old F-150 ball joint and a chunk of rad hose that uh the inner ID is about the same ID as or OD as these threads.

[00:51:36]So, that is what I'm going to try to rig up for the time being until I get a proper plug because the old transducer base is actually broken off inside here.

[00:51:47]So, we're going to try to slip this right over top and then clamp it on. And that's going to be a temporary fix for the next little bit till I get a proper plug. So, let's try this.

[00:52:02]Heat.

[00:52:04]Heat.

[00:52:32]Look at that, guys.

[00:52:36]That actually worked really well.

[00:52:41]It's not even leaking a drop. I don't even got a hose clamp on it yet.

[00:52:52]Well, that was no fun on a Saturday morning. And of course, it had to happen when I was fiberglassing around this area. Thankfully, everything cured overnight. And I really didn't get any water down here. Couple splashes. Going to set up the fan. I got this diesel heater blowing crazy hot air down here to dry it out. I do have a small dehumidifier in the boat that's running. I might go grab that, stick it down here, try to dry this up because Yeah. Now, that's a funny looking item right there. So, if you guys are curious, you know, regular maintenance on a 58 Viking includes uh changing your ball joints every once in a while just in case you get some corrosion on them. Well, all jokes aside, but that's a fix for uh Saturday morning with quick things we found around the marina. All right, I'm going to get this cleaned up and try to get back to fiberglassing.

[00:53:50]Got her cleaned up, but wanted to show some things cuz man, as resin cured, that was just a liquid that dripped and stuff like that. Sure look like water and has freaked me out so many times now. Like, look at that.

[00:54:06]When you're dealing with water everywhere, you sure think stuff like that is water and then you realize, nope, nope, it's just it's just resin.

[00:54:15]But man, does it look like that could be wet. And it sure freaks you out when you're in the middle of doing this. And one thing you some of you guys know and some of you guys learning is you do not want to get your fiberglass wet. That's for sure. So, what a crappy time of events for this all to happen. Just wanted to show you that as well. I apologize, guys, but I did not film me actually doing the fiberglassing. You've seen it before. I was by myself doing this. And it's not something that you can kind of just be like, "Oh, let me take a quick break and start filming or grab the camera with your hands covered in resin." You guys know the routine.

[00:54:54]I'm by myself here. But check it out.

[00:55:03]That is five layers of fiberglass, both sides and five layers on top. And I learned from my mistake that I made while doing the stringer that I'm sitting on. And I actually just tested it before realizing I forgot to show you what I did. So over top of it all, as you see with this piece left stuck there, I did a pretty thick layer of just chop strand over top of it. And it allowed me to form the fiberglass for these complicated corners way, way better than just using 1708.

[00:55:43]1708 doesn't wrap corners well at all.

[00:55:47]great for flat surfaces and things like that, but using something like this as a final worked great.

[00:55:55]So now it formed to all these corners that you can see. I just gave it a real quick sand and it looks perfect. No big indents or voids. I was able to get up in here really well.

[00:56:08]You can actually see it right there.

[00:56:09]There's a 1708 issue stuck in the corner and not much I could do about it. So, just laughed it and we'll sand it up.

[00:56:26]Things turned out very, very good, though.

[00:56:29]Pretty much no air bubbles.

[00:56:34]And you want to talk about solid, you're listening for a sharp [snorts] hit, a sharp sound, no hollow thud kind of thing. in compared to here's one that I haven't done.

[00:56:53]So, she will be solid. That's for sure.

[00:56:57]For a stringer thing's damn near solid glass at this point. It's probably getting upwards of a/2 in of glass on each side. I had/4 in of glass existing and then added five layers on top of that. Looking good. Goal for today. I'm going to get this one sanded and that one cut out. And hopefully after this I can start doing something exciting like getting ready to get these engines in here because man, it is killing me not having them in here. Going to set you guys up and show you a quick process of what I do for sanding using pretty much the buffer or variable speed buffer with a 60 Yeah, I think a 60 grit sanding pad on it. Safety first.

[00:57:56][music] Heat >> [music] [music] >> up here.

[00:58:25][music] >> [music] >> Well, good morning, guys. It is currently Easter weekend on Saturday and figured I'd give you an update. So, I'm not going to show you recording that second stringer just because like this whole video is going to be watching me redo the one. So, it's just copy and repeat. With that being said, I kind of been skipping ahead to leave that alone, but I'm going to show you some dilemmas I'm running into and what I'm currently got going on today. Down here in the engine room, like I said, this stringer here, it's in the process. We have, I would essentially say the tabbing plus the layers. This doesn't have right now.

[00:59:22]It's just at the stage with no wax and we're send sanding out all of the blemishes and lumps and bumps for these areas here as well because this whole area tabbing into the bulkhead, tabbing into the stringer, tabbing into the stringer, and then overlapping where the old the old bulkhead was. So, this will all be glass. It gets glass to about here.

[00:59:50]I'm just doing three layers there. So, we got this area. This way, everything from stringer to stringer to bulkhead to floor gets tabbed in extremely well. And it will be extremely strong that way with just overlapping being tabbed in like that. So, that's the way I like it.

[01:00:12]Things are looking good here. Another beautiful day out here. Finally, some nicer weather. And like you just seen, we're going to get going on tabbing in that bulkhead.

[01:00:26]That sucker needs to get finished up.

[01:00:28]So, let's get to it. But wait, that's going to be on the next episode. This video is starting to get a little long.

[01:00:35]I'm going to catch you on the next one.

[01:00:37]See you guys.

[01:00:42]There [music] [music] heat.