Project Log: Sunday,
November 8, 2009
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I continued with the hull sanding,
and wrapped up the job in just over an hour. Then, I
spent an hour cleaning up the terrible mess from the past
two days. It was a nice day out, so I opened the big
door to help air out the shop, which also enabled me to get
some better pictures of the progress.
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I'd had quite enough sanding for the moment, and had
some things to do outdoors while the weather was warm and
pleasant, but before quitting for the day I decided to
dissect the two chainplate knees I'd cut out earlier--the
main chainplates, which had been fully glassed-over inside
the boat. I had no intention of reusing any of the
components, but was curious to see how the stainless steel
chainplates and bolts had held up over the years while
encased in their fiberglass tomb.
The first set of
pictures shows the port main chainplate and knee--the one
hidden inside the old head locker in the original boat's
layout. I used a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder to
cut away the fiberglass around the chainplate as needed.
In this particular case, the fiberglass overlay was loose as
soon as I completed my cuts, and I easily pulled it off by
hand; it
was not well bonded to the plywood core of the knee, nor to the
metal of the chainplate or bolts.
Similarly, the
remaining portions of the fiberglass that had encapsulated
the plywood knee were debonded enough that I could easily
pry up the fiberglass. The chisel is only holding the
fiberglass up for illustration; the material was loose and I
could have pried it away by hand.
The plywood knee
was damp and stained, but still sound. The stainless
steel chainplate appeared to be in surprisingly good visual
condition, with no external evidence of deterioration beyond
the rust staining seen, which looked bad, but was really
just cosmetic staining from the corrosion of the bolts.
I turned the knee over and made cuts around the nut-side
of the chainplate bolts to see how they fared. Again,
it was a cinch to pull off the fiberglass once the cuts were
made; any bonding was minimal. The condition of the
nuts and washers reflected that of the bolt heads on the
opposite side. |
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The second set of pictures shows the starboard
chainplate knee as I performed the same basic dissection as
described above. Roughly the same conditions existed
here: poorly-bonded fiberglass (or not at all),
surface corrosion on the stainless components (though in
worse condition than the port side), and damp yet firm and
sound plywood. |
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Note: My comments are not intended to cast
aspersions on Allied, nor to suggest that the conditions I
found on hull #16 are necessarily representative of other
boats of the class. This is simply a straightforward
report of the conditions I found during my own dissection.
That said, clearly I do not plan to reinstall the
chainplates using the original building methods. |
Total Time Today: 2.5 hours |
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