Archives for December 2010
Stiffening the salon floors in my Pearson 28-1
27 December 2010 | Pearson 28-1 Restoration, Sailing | No Responses
It may be because of my weight, but the floors in my Pearson 28-1 flexed a bit in the main cabin when I walked on them. It wasn’t noticeable at first but after working on the boat for months it started to bother me. I decided that if I was going to stiffen the floor that it made sense to do it along with the the other bilge fiberglass work that I was doing.
The flexing was only evident near the middle of the openings to the bilge. I decided to install strips of wood laminated with 18oz biaxial cloth on the bottom of the cabin floors. They strips of wood were installed parallel to the openings.
Now, not only is the boat actually stronger it also feels stronger due to the stiff floor underfoot. Here are a few photos of the prep and installation of the fiberglass and wood floor stiffeners:
New floors in the Pearson’s bilge
22 December 2010 | Pearson 28-1 Restoration, Sailing | No Responses
After recovering from the layup of cloth in the bilge, work on the new floors (structural cross-members) commenced. The usual sanding, grinding and fairing was needed in the bilge in order to ensure good adhesion of the floor tabbing. Little plates were then installed under where each floor would be installed so that water could move to the lowest point in the bilge with minimal restriction. After those tasks were complete the bilge was ready to receive the new floors and glass.
The old floors were a laminate of plywood and fiberglass and were showing their age. These floors were stripped down from when I removed them from the boat and I decided to replace them with new wood. I started with marine grade plywood that was thicker than what Pearson used and cut the new floors using the old ones as templates. After they were cut they were fitted to the contours of the bilge and the tops of each floor were rounded so that the fiberglass cloth could wrap over the top of the floors with minimal air sucking.
The layup schedule for the floors went as follows:
- The bilge areas around each floor were faired with thickened epoxy and covered with a layer of chopped mat.
- Each floor was placed in thickened epoxy that was shaped into a thick fillet so that the upcoming cloth layers wouldn’t suck air at the joint between bilge and floor.
- The bilge area around each floor and the floors were wet out with un-thickened epoxy.
- Each floor was tabbed along the bilge with strips of 18oz biax.
- Each floor was covered with layers of 18oz cloth that overlapped onto the bilge/hull.
- Interlocking layers of 18oz cloth were layed up over the tabbing in a manner that faired everything out and also unified the layup of all of the adjacent floors.
In the end the floors were firmly in place and well protected from moisture. The previous failure of the floors was with delamination from the hull so extra attention was payed to the adhesion of these floors to the bilge. The results were pretty similar to what Pearson had done at the factory but I’m hoping that the secondary bond of the epoxy will be stronger than the original polyester that was used by Pearson.
Here are a few photos of this phase of work in the bilge of my Pearson 28-1.
Fiberglass layup in the bilge
11 December 2010 | Pearson 28-1 Restoration, Sailing | No Responses
It’s been a productive time since my last report on the restoration of my Pearson 28-1. For most of the five following months I worked on the boat every day.
In July and August it was often too hot to work during the middle of the day. This left lots of time for computer work which was good since I’ve been busy on that front as well. Epoxy work had to take place in the early morning and moved very fast since pot-life was short and working life was not much longer. Fortunately much of the work during the hot months involved wet sanding and the over-spray kept me a little cooler than I would have been doing other tasks.
Sometime after my last post I finally finished cleaning and prepping the bilge for the layup of lots of fiberglass and epoxy. Beyond the sanding and cleaning I did some fairing and also ground out and filled small cracks and voids in the surface of the bilge fiberglass. The goal was to end up with the best possible surface for adhesion of the new fiberglass. Adhesion was really important so I kept sanding, filling and prepping until I was confident that the bilge was ready.
The first major fiberglass layup in the bilge involved adding five layers of 18 ounce biaxial cloth to the bilge. The first layer was as wide and as long as I could fit into the bilge and was something like 45 inches wide by 9 feet long. Each subsequent layer was narrower and shorter so that the fifth layer only covered the bottom of the bilge and a few inches of the bilge sides. The goal for this layup was to maximize adhesion to the existing glass and to reinforce the hull. Around 3 gallons of epoxy and and plenty of fiberglass cloth and mat were needed for this layup.
Throughout this project Alex Baker helped with expert guidance, advice and when it came time for the big layup he even suited up and took the lead (thankfully). Alex works at Bock Marine and is a true expert. I understood that through the planning and prep work for this project but didn’t appreciate it until the glass started to go in. There is a lot of skill involved in good layup and I’m really glad that he allowed me to work along side of him, and to watch and learn a few of his techniques. I’m not sure what would have happened without Alex’s help but learning from an expert is surely much faster and easier than learning complicated things on your own.
The new fiberglass had to go in all at once so that the layers chemically bonded to each other. The goal is to minimize mechanical bonds since they are not as strong. With all of the prep work done, the cloth cut and ready and plenty of epoxy on hand we started the layup at sunrise one hot morning. We worked for more than five hours and by the time we finished it was well over one hundred degrees Farenheit in the boat. The layup went well so once I was recovered I moved into another round of sanding and prep for the next big layup which I’ll detail in my next post.
Here are a few photos showing the bilge before the layup, and Alex rolling out the first piece of glass in the bilge.
