1984 2001 rebuild. Pete, go away.

Yoopersully, I did go over the thermal expansion on one of the previous pages. I ended up using pine for the secondaries, I glassed them in the other night.

WOFTAM wrote: Nice thread. I have a book that I have used in the past for varoius projects that you may be interested in picking up: Elements of Boat Strength- David Gerr On another note, this CC is certainly one that did not go with the traditional rebuild. Twin screw ski boat? Take a lookee youself TWIN SCREW CC I'll bet the PA works well. I cant figure out why nobody has picked up this gem. It has been listed for awhile on the craigslist in my area. Good luck.

That boat has been for sale since early June!

Well I did a few quick tests using some US Composites Epoxy. I let it cure for about 4 days.

The Trex has a layer of material about 1/32 thick of uniform brown plastic that wraps over the top around the sides and maybe 3/16 around the bottom. It has the fake wood grain pattern and no doubt some serious UV stabalizers. The majority of the bottom is exposed composite material. I wanted to test both sides. I didnt score or sand any of the materials but I did prep the trex with acetone.

in the first test I epoxied (using a layer of epoxy mat between two materials) two pieces of trex to a hunk of pressure treated 2x6. One piece of trex glued on the top side, one glued on the bottom side. Results are shown below.




Top side fail.. it took little effort to knock off and there is no residual epoxy.

Bottom side - not so bad.. failure occured at the wood material .. no adhesion failure.

Next test is a bedding scenario of a stringer using the side of the trex as it ships, I used a bit of coosa as the substrate for comparison.





This test was a fail for certain, it took no real effort to pull the coosa off and take all the fiberglass material with it

the next sample uses an end of the trex with a cut from a table saw..





It took more pressure to break it apart but it still failed at the joint although it pulled a glass out of the joint with it



An improvement but the saw cut seemed smoother and perhaps the heat of cutting effected the material locally because the cut edge clearly did not hold epoxy as well as the bottom.

I did another sample with coosa attached to the bottom surface



And it took a lot of force to break it but it failed the coosa --both sides of the joint held.



My humble opinion - you could use it if you cut off the wood grained coating... and even then I would sand the substrate material because I wouldnt trust the saw cut surface. The bottom face sticks plenty well, but the coating is a bit of a spoiler I dont know if it woudl work to sand it but I wouldnt trust any bond made to it.

I think it would take a lot of work to make it work well as a stringer.

Pete - (Twin Screw CC) You will have to update your alignment video to cover that one.

Eric - Do you have a manual for that gear box?

I wonder how easy it is to dock with 2 screws?

Max,
Nice looking boat!! Good luck with it, it's gona turn out nice!!!!

Maximal691 wrote: Also, I aquired a PA system today. It was a ton of fun when I had one in my jeep, I think it will fit in great with the boat.

HA this is a police boat!! "PULLOVER, YOU with the tube!!!

Joe is a great guy, super knowledgeable with nice boats to prove it. The coosa is awesome, something I would have no problems knowing it was in my boat.

So,   Are the Test Results in yet ?

Ok that's about the exact route I was thinking. I'll get her in the air today.

Have any of you guys been able to keep the boat on the trailer and just jack the bow? The front portion of my secondaries are lifted about 1 inch off the hull, is this from the hull being on the trailer? Or because they are just crowning while they dry out. If they are crowning while they dry out, it worries me because I'll be using them as my template. I would like to keep the trailer under the boat due to space constraints of my garage and they way I have to have the trailer turned. Also does anyone have any close ups of where they jacked the boat up on the bow and what you used to to cradle the hull.

Thanks bishop, I'm not worried about how it looks, because if I use it, you will never see it. In it's correct application, as a deck, it does hold up very well. Whatever decks you have seen where it sags like crazy and looks like bad, the builder/carpenter/contractor/homeowner either didn't compensate for the extra weight of it or didnt have proper spacing.

interested to see the results of the adhesive test...in the name of science...i like the cop boat idea too...old style red and blue bar on top of the tower would really set it off hahaha

I have the time right now, just no money. Paying your way through college is tough without taking loans out. To the people who noticed it was at one point it was a salt water boat, this doesn't bother mensince it's getting a new power plant. If it was a big boat with two v8's that i didn't plan on replacing I would be more concerned. One of the ideas that Joe and I came up with while talking shop, is using a sheet of coosa for the decking where the driver and observer seat are mounted, so there are no spots for screw holes to rot the decking. This is good because I can save money by doing the decking where nothing is screwed, with ply, and only have to buy 1 sheet of coosa. To those who haven't seen it, Joe gave me some scraps and this stuff is pretty awesome. To the guys in the capital district, if you want to see it first hand let me know. Also last night Joe and I were talking about the weight of the trex, and I think I'm going to use azek for the ribs for weight concerns. For those who don't what it is, it's a popular trim for houses made out of PVC. You cn get it in nominal board sizes as well as 4x8 sheets. With the sheet sizes you could cut out bulk heads or something else of that nature. I thought of it as a floor option too, because it could be a maint free floor, without carpet (you can get it in white, but might be slippery) but I'm almost positive it wouldn't hold seat bases in, and the supports underneath it would have be around 11" because it's not that ridgid. Pete, i have full intentions of using epoxy and not liquid nails.

Met up with Joe, he's going to test the epoxy on the trex. It was cool to see his boat, totally inspirational.

MinaquaWI wrote: How about liquid nails Subfloor and Deck adhesive to glue your flooring to your stringers? It has a 450psi sheer strength after 28 days of cure. Engineers?

Nick,
If you are doing a epoxy system, keep it all equal and use the same. You've been over looking at the "home improvement" places too much!! BTW, look up how hydroscopic liquid nails is!

MinaquaWI wrote: On another note, I had a 1985 Malibu Skier and the floor was glassed to the hull (topside only) and was stapled to the stringers. I thought that was an interesting and subpar method.

What do you expect from MB?