HOORAY!!! I think I have Wet Foam

Pulled the engine out today. Came in to post some pictures and began reading the composite stringer thread. NOW I am more confused than ever. I am planning on using Douglas Fir, but am having second thoughts about putting wood stringers in the boat and just waiting for the rot to begin again. I guess I will take a bunch of measurements, grind out the wood in the transom for the exhaust, rudder and lifting eye and wait for a miracle stringer replacement to come along before Christmas. I wish you guys would hurry up and figure this out for me. I thought this would be an easy job guess I was wrong (sarcasm). I guess I will just take my wife out for dinner and drinks.





No wonder the lag bolts won't tighten up, threads are full of wood pulp.


Really considering putting a chevy 350 in this boat. I'm just not a Chrysler guy.

Chryslers sound great, too! Definately old school sound that goes great with that boat.

Wes. You have to keep the chrysler. Your project looks to be coming along nicely. I dug out foam this week. No fun at all.

Doing the job exactly like it came only replacing the wood with coosa I dont think it particularily hard in terms of difficulty. (This means refoam and fiberglass skin over the floor. In fact when compared to doing a full cpes job where you take care to seal every screw, hole etc it may in fact be easier to achieve the same result. But there is no doubt the Coosa has some expense. There is the effort to laminate together to coosa into longer shapes for the stringers but after the effort it similar only you dont need to cpes.

It is going foamless that adds some extra steps.

the only downside to the pool noodles i used was that mine arent secured and they must move around a bit and the foam is breaking down, also one winter mice got to them . all in all quite a sucess.............

what about glueing concrete foam to the underside of the floor, its pink and closed cell, you just dont want a place that will trap water.
will you guys ever go out in a rowboat?

When I pulled the engine out of the boat I noticed a core plug (freeze Plug) laying in the bilge along with water and some coolant. I guess that when I drained the block the drain hole was plugged and I didn't get all of the water out. Just filling the engine with coolant was not enough to "winterize" the block. Next time I will keep the drains open when filling with coolant to see it coming out the drain before capping it off. Hopefully no damage like a cracked block, but I am going to disassemble and inspect the engine. Rings, bearings, gaskets, freeze plugs, seals and valve job at a minimum. I am learning alot....the hard way.



Trans crated, need a new damper too. List is getting longer and I haven't even started making a list.

Just trying to be funny

normally the cooler flow is from the bottem of the boat right to the "in" side of the cooler, how was yours plumbed, I just did a complete r and r of a trans, the guy winterized it when he brought it to me, well i pulled the hose to the cooler and it was packed tight with sea-weed...he told me he seen that and thought it was some type of screen and left it in there...in hindsight he did remember the boat being very sluggish after runs and his temp gauge was not working...so the cooler affects the entire system

I couldn't find clear vertical grain Doug Fir, so I ended up buying construction grade Doug Fir and stacking inside my family room for a month to get it down to 9% moisture content
Wife: how long is that wood going to be in the house?
Me: til I put it in the boat.
Wife: So, you are saying it is here permenantly?
Me: &^%$#@)(*&^


I shaped the stringers using the template stringers, bevel gauge and a carpenters square. Power planer made short work of the changing angle of the bevel. I replaced them one side at a time using 2X for both the main and the secondary stringers. Test fitted them, and then coated with CPES.




I made fixtures before removing the stringers, but had to add a small piece of the fiberglass that I removed to compensate for the bare stringers. I replaces port stringers and then removed the starboard and got out the grinder....again!!!


Flipped my fixtures around and installed the other stringers, CPES, Cloth, Peanut butter.


Filled in some small gaps between the hull and stringers, put in some fillets, and I have 2" and 4" tape down. I am putting 8" and 12" Biax on both sides with 12" biax over the top of the stringers tomorrow.

Ty Pennington can build an entire house in a week, I'm just saying.

You are going to be a busy beaver, cool era Mustang.

Looks great Wes. Have a great 4th of July!

Looks like super nice work.   

Love the jigs you used to hold the stringers. Looking good, hope you hit your date.