110 Cookson Lane | Whitefield, ME 04353 | 207-232-7600 | tim@lackeysailing.com
Ashantee | Monday, January 19, 2015
Picking up where I left off, I cut the remaining pieces of balsa core for the deck repairs during a quiet period over the weekend.
After the usual water wash, I lightly sanded the epoxy skim coat I'd applied to the deck areas under repair, removing any small ridges and preparing the surfaces for the new core ahead.
Next, I test-fit the pieces of core I'd previously cut. The gaps seen in various corners are areas where the inner deck skin begins tapering up to meet the top skin; I'd fill in these spots with smaller bits of core or solid material later.
Because of the way the skins came together on this boat, just outboard of my cuts in most places, I didn't fit core beneath the deck flanges, since the spaces were too tight to fit the core, and any areas full thicknesses of core could fit were shallow. Instead, I filled the gaps beneath the flanges with a thickened epoxy mixture, using a high-density filler.
For each section, I prepared the pieces of core by wetting out both sides with epoxy resin, then applied thickened epoxy with a notched trowel to the deck before pressing the core into place and weighting it down. There was no time for pictures of the individual steps during this process, so you only get to see the after effect. I ran out of the sand bags that I use so in order to get all the core installed I made up the difference with other things from around the shop.
Thinking ahead to the cockpit sole recore, I went ahead and removed the sole-mounted manual bilge pump. Access to some of the nuts beneath was tough, and a couple of the stainless bolts were corroded into the aluminum housing of the pump (the bolts eventually broke, releasing them). I just needed the pump out of the way so I could work on the deck above.
Total Time Billed on This Job Today: 8.25 Hours
