Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 17:48:05 GMT -5
With the transom in and the voids filled, it was time to fillet the edges of the transom and tab it to the hull. I used thickened epoxy and 17 oz biax for tabbing. The transom inside was covered with multiple layers of 17 oz biax. There were a couple of holes in the hull bottom. Ground those out and patched with 17 oz biax and epoxy resin. Time for stringers. Ground the remaining polyester resin and stringer tabs out in the hull bottom to create a nice surface for the new stringers. My son came over one evening after work to help mix eposy while I bedded and installed the stringers. We mixed batches of thickened epoxy used West Marine caulking tubes to lay down the bead of epoxy on the hull bottom. Installed the stringers, put down a sheet of plywood over them and topped off with a few patio blocks to keep the stringers in place and level as the epoxy cured. Knees were added to tie the stringer into the transom. Initially the hull bottom was going to be open to allow water to drain so there were drain holes cut in the bulkheads by the middle stringers. Then decided to add flotation foam. Added several bulkheads to contain the foam in the stringer system. Finally after several days of curing, the stringer system received fillets and fiberglass tabbing. The hull between the stringer also received a layer of 17 oz biax. The stringer system was soaked in epoxy resin to seal the wood. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 17:52:15 GMT -5
Stringer install Attachments:
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Sauce
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Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 18:11:22 GMT -5
Installing the floor. Opted to go with 1/2" AC exterior plywood for the floor. The floor was sealed with epoxy and glued to the stringers with thickened epoxy. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 18:23:23 GMT -5
Flotation foam under the floor. There were many debates back and forth about adding flotation foam under the floor. Researching other boat building and boat performance sites and you'll get lots of arguments for and against using foam. In my case adding foam made sense. The floor was going to be sealed, the foam would add some rigidity to the hull and it would provide flotation. Other factors were the boat is a trailer boat, its not going to sit in the water overnight or for more than a day. Its also stored under cover when not in use. I opted to go with the 2lb 2 part pour foam from US Composites. Drill plenty of relief holes in the floor, mix the 2 parts together and pour in the hole within 45 seconds. Then sit back to watch it expand. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 18:36:43 GMT -5
Seal the floor. The plugs that were removed in the floor for the flotation foam installation were glued back in place with thickened epoxy. Fillets were added to the edge of the floor where it meets the hull. The floor was tabbed to the hull with 17 oz biax and epoxy. The floor itself was sealed with 12 oz biax and epoxy. If all goes as planned the bottom of the hull should be water tight. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 19:01:33 GMT -5
A really thin hull. After all the hard work of installing the transom, stringers and floors you quickly realize how paper thin the fiberglass hull is. The bottom of the hull was beefed up with a new layer of fiberglass while installing the stringers. The hull sides and hull bottom under the deck needed to be beefed up also. Hit those areas with the DA sander and 80 grit. Once sufficiently sanded, cleaned up and wiped down, I added a layer of 1708 biax with polyester resin to the hull sides and bottom being careful not to let the 1708 cover any epoxied fiberglass. This was done on the sides and hull bottom all the way to the bow point. After the polyester resin cured, strips of 17 oz biax with epoxy resin covered the gaps between the two.
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 6, 2021 19:05:42 GMT -5
Finally she was stable enough to move onto her new trailer. With restoring the boat there wasn't enough time to restore the original trailer. I still have the trailer with hopes of some day restoring it. Attachments:
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Post by badger on Mar 7, 2021 9:50:07 GMT -5
Awesome job on your MAN BUTTER..It's all good I did it the hard way too for most the restoration, then took off the deck and reworked it all. and I have the same era Johnson and am interested your prop and set up are you using a 4" jackplate? Love the raceboat look. again Excellent job Sauce. Saving the 59 one hull at a time!!
Bagder
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 7, 2021 16:53:45 GMT -5
Hi Badger, Thank you for the comments. I'm happy with the way it turned out in the end. Still have more documenting to add as time permits. Performance wise there's still work to be done.
I looked at several jack plate manufactures including Bobs Machine and Vance Manufacturing plus a few others. I decided to go with Vance Manufacturing's JPL4300, manual 3" setback jack plate. The quality is excellent and the price was really good. Am very happy with it. For my application I wanted the least amount of setback I could find with the ability to adjust the motor height. Oh and right after my purchase Vance Manufacturing released a 2" manual jack plate.
Because the transom is curved I added shims between the jackplate and the transom to square the motor, approximately 1/4" on the inside measurement giving a total setback of 3 1/4".
The current setup has the motor height sitting with the prop shaft centerline at 4" below the bottom of the hull. That height provides plenty of water pressure. I've had it as high as 3" with a different prop and still had good water pressure. I should be able to go up from the current 4" setting.
The prop on it now is an OMC Raker 22 pitch, 13 1/2" x 22, old school version. My nephew has an OMC Raker 24 pitch, 13 1/2" x 24 that I tried but my motor height was set too low at the time. I plan to test that prop again in the spring. If you are familiar with Rakers, they come in 13 1/2" and 14 1/2" diameters. For an OMC 70hp you'll want the 13 1/2" version. The Raker is a performance bow lifter prop with lots of cup in it. It allows the motor height to go up and still maintain bite. Other prop options are a Mercury small ear chopper cut down or an OMC 23 SRX. The OMC 23 SRX is an awesome prop but extremely hard to find as they aren't manufactured any longer. The chopper or 23 SRX are surface running props that require the motor height to be set very high.
At the 4" prop shaft centerline position with the 22 pitch Raker she runs 50 mph at WOT turning 6,000 to 6,100 rpm. The motor is pure stock with 2.42 and no low water pickup. I've considered adding a nose cone with low water pickup but highly unlikely I'd see a large enough performance gain to justify doing it. We'll see what happens this spring. With some work and the right setup she may reach the 53 mark. Not too shabby for a 1959 with a 70 on the back!
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 7, 2021 17:53:16 GMT -5
Jump ahead to March 2019. Over the winter the exterior transom was glassed in to match the original transom skin. After lots of debate back and forth with my brother the transom was cut down from 22 1/2" to 21 1/2" in height. At this height the transom could accommodate either a 15" or 20" motor. The motor bolt holes were drilled in the transom using my brothers template tool along with the bottom drain hole. Grinding and sanding the bottom was going to make a royal mess in my garage so their had to be some way to deal with this. If you notice in the pictures my garage has a concrete floor but my drive way is gravel. Solution: Harbor Freight dolly carts (3 of them) with 2 sheets of cheap 3/8" exterior plywood. The real fun began, grinding and sanding the bottom. The gelcoat was spider cracked and crazed everywhere. Unfortunately there was no way to save it. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 7, 2021 18:14:03 GMT -5
A lot of focus was spent on the last 2' to 2 1/2' of the hull bottom. This one had a hook in the bottom along with a high spot approximately 14" in front of the transom. For fairing I used Jamestown Distributors TotalBoat 2 part fairing compound. One part is blue, the other yellow and when mixed together turn green. I found it pretty easy to work with. Even though I tried to be as careful as I could with the grinder trying not the leave many grinder marks in the hull, let's just say there were more there than I want to admit to.
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 7, 2021 20:37:28 GMT -5
I forgot to mention I used a long board with 220 grit to complete the hull sanding. My brother recommended putting a barrier coat on the hull to help seal the fiberglass. Jamestown Distributors TotalBoat Epoxy barrier coat is what was used. It went on fairly easy using a roller. 4 coats were applied to the hull bottom. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 7, 2021 21:33:37 GMT -5
With the bottom sealed, the boat was flipped to work on the interior fabrication. First project was securing the beams under the deck. The original tabbing was still in place and believe it or not only 1 beam had 1 tab broken. To beef it up I added 4 6" wide tabs to each beam securing it to the deck. After the epoxy cured, the beams and deck are solid, no movement and very stiff. Next was the wood in the coming. The original wood was also in good shape with the bottom 1/4" showing some dryness (crumbling). I cut those spots back to the good wood. Rather than remove the original wood altogether and replace, I layered on a piece of 3/8" plywood epoxied to the coming wood. Yes I know its not the correct way to restore but it ended up creating a very solid coming. The new wood was tabbed to the under side of the deck. The plan for this G3 is participation in APBA Vintage & Historic events, running exhibition heats with other race boats. Also it'll be used for river running. It won't be so much used for cruises with my wife. The setup I chose was put the battery in the center of the boat just under the motor well with 2 6 gallon gas tanks, one of each side. And an automated bilge pump in the drain well. The floor is glassed in and sealed therefore I didn't want to breach it with screws. Wood components were epoxied to the floor so tie downs could be screwed into the wood without breaching the sealed floor. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 8:22:50 GMT -5
The wood behind the dash was dry rotten. Removed the dash wood, grinded the surface down and epoxied in 3/4" Okume. Tabbed the dash wood to the deck and to the deck beams. Glassed it in, good and solid. Attachments:
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Sauce
Lieutenant
Posts: 54
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Post by Sauce on Mar 8, 2021 8:44:27 GMT -5
Decision time on the sponsons, what direction to take. Mimic the original design with wood? Foam fill? Or leave open with drainage hole. Opted to go with the latter. Beefed up the sponson cavity by sanding down the inside of the sponson and added a layer of 17 oz biax inside. Installed the sponson trim prior to covering the sponson cavity. Opted to rivet the sponson trim to the hull. Finding rivets in longer lengths at the local hardware store is impossible. Fortunately Fastenal had what I needed. Purchased 30 each of item 0126185 and 0126187 3/16" dia. rivets in 3/4" and 1" grip range with aluminum washers. Drilled holes in the sponson, filled holes with 4200, inserted rivet with an aluminum washer on the inside of the hull and riveted the trim in place. After all the rivets were installed the inside of the rivets were filled with clear silicone. Inside the hull the sponson was covered with 3/8" plywood sealed with epoxy and glued in place with thickened epoxy. After the epoxy cured some areas required fairing then glassed over it with 17 oz biax. At the rear of the sponson cover near the transom is a drainage cutout. Attachments:
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