'88 16ft V mod. muskiecraft

[Hanr3]

Great build so far, except for the added hole in the bottom of the boat.

I also built my boat as a wet boat. All water can run to the bottom of my boat and flow to the transom where it gets pumped out.

As to your problem, yea it sucks and yea it will set you back some time. It could be worse, and you could make it worse by ripping things out. Take your time and everything will be fine. Use a hacksaw blade to cut that coam out. Make a handle out of tape on one end. It will conform to the irriegular surface of the boat and slice the foam like butter.

I spent some time looking at your tube section in teh pic you posted. Is that sch40 pvc? If so, whack the center couple of tubes off just infront of the rib about 2". You can use a connector to reattach the piece you whacked off. That should give you access to the foam under the tubes, and behind the tubes. Clear out the foam with a hacksaw blade and fill the boat hole with JB Weld, liquid metal that hardens like steel. You can sand, drill, and tap it.

One other thing. Back on page 1-2 or so the question was asked how much does the wood weigh? A 4'x8' sheet of plywood weighs roughly 25 pounds per quarter inch thick. 1/4" thick sheet weighs 25 pounds, 1/2" thick sheet 50 pounds, 3/4" = 75 pounds. Pressure treated is slightly more.

 

[Hydrilla]

Man, I do understand getting discouraged, I've wanted to throw in the towel on a few occasions, and my build isn't as complicated or near as difficult as yours. Yes it's a setback, but you'll overcome it. Good advice from Hanr3.

 

[danmyersmn]

I know I will get it fixed. Just frustrated that I let it happen. Hanr, I need to take the entire tube assembly out. First, I can probably cut the tubes at the end near the front of the boat and then work down from there to repair the hole I drilled. This isn't going to fix the problem i started with. Somewhere under the tubes I let the A/B foam block my drainage. I am going to pull the entire tube assembly out, pull the pink foam under it out and find where the problem is and fix it. Then I can address the hole in the boat properly and put stuff back in.

The big problem I have is how to get to the hole. I either need to cut out a section of the rib or the strake. I would rather work from the top down instead of the bottom up. Then once I have that done how do I repair the rib? At this point I am thinking that I will use two pieces of aluminium angle. If I cut it long enough to put two rivets on each side of the hole I cut in the rib then the angle should be stronger then the rib I remove. I guess I will find out soon enough, I am almost through the day and can get back to finding out where the darn new hole is in my boat.

 

[danmyersmn]

All is better now. Once I got home I was able to take a look at my options and make the repair.

So first, I tried a couple different ways of getting the foam separated from the rod tubes. Eventually I broke one. After that I took a sawzall to them and cut them all. Then they came out easy.

Here is the foam that the tubes where encased in. Notice the big blob coming out from under then pink foam. No wonder water didn't make it past.

Another shot of the blob of foam and here is the hole I made.

Better shot of the hole. I used a sawzall to cut out the rib and get access to it.

I used a torch and a stick of alumiweld and filled in the hole.

used a flap wheel to grind down the weld to make sure it was holding.

Took the torch too it again and covered it with Cabela's boat patch. This is actually a 3M product I just don't recall the product number but it melts on and I used it to fill 10 holes the boat came with and it held up great until I could make proper repairs so it will work as a skim coat/sealer here without issues.

Finally I used 3 pieces of angle aluminium and riveted them to each side of the hole I put in the rib. Should be more then strong enough as a repair to the rib I cut. Plus it Gurka approved!

 

[Hanr3]

wow that was fast.

Nice job.
So what are you going to do witht he foam now? More is better, however you need to have a water path.

 

[azfish]

nice job fixin that hole. now a question, that boat patch you used, how good is that stuff to use as a small hole patch on the high spots of the boat? do you think it will last a long time because i dont have a welder to fix them properly? thnx for the input.

 

[Nick Jones]

Looks good man but i am surprised you didn't use a solid rivet. That hole must be larger than it looks. How did it look on the bottom of the boat?

 

[danmyersmn]

As for the foam I am hoping that I can take a 3/4" piece of PVC pipe and use it like a punch with a rubber mallet. since its plastic it wont harm the boat hull and if it follows the v on the bottom of the hull and punches a 3/4" hole through the foam I will have all the drainage I need. Then I can leave the A/B in place as it is. One bonus that came out of this was that I know I won't be filliing in this area with A/B foam so I can replace the small blocks of pink foam with large strips that go from one side to the other under the rod tubes. I had enough room under them for 3 or 4 layers and I will get a huge bump in material by being able to build up bigger sheets before the rod tubes go back in.

AZFish - the patch stuff will produce a strong patch. When I bought the boat the previous owner had drilled out a few leaking rivets and replaced them with nuts/bolts. The nuts/bolts had rusted away so I had removed them and plugged the holes with the green patch stuff and nothing else. I had to grind it of when I was ready to put solid rivets in. It would work fine. Personally if I had a hole through the boat I might consider 3M 5200 first. In my case I was simply putting a skim coat on top of my alumiweld since the alumiweld may have had some pin holes in it. Second, this stuff is a solid stick of plastic, you apply it by heating the metal hot enough to start melting the stick and then sort of glob it on as it melts and it fills in any voids. It works pretty nice but its a big nasty green blob. If it is going to go anywhere you can see it then you will have a big green nasty blob to work with

Nick - I couldn't use a solid rivet. From the bottom this hole is inside a strake. I.E. the long aluminium runners that are riveted to the underside of the hull. I would have to cut a hole in the strake to get a metal backer up against a solid rivet. I also considered a pop rivet but the hole was sort of long and oblong and at an angle. the more I looked at it the best option I could come up with was filling it with alumiweld.

 

[Nick Jones]

As for the foam I am hoping that I can take a 3/4" piece of PVC pipe and use it like a punch with a rubber mallet. since its plastic it wont harm the boat hull and if it follows the v on the bottom of the hull and punches a 3/4" hole through the foam I will have all the drainage I need. Then I can leave the A/B in place as it is. One bonus that came out of this was that I know I won't be filliing in this area with A/B foam so I can replace the small blocks of pink foam with large strips that go from one side to the other under the rod tubes. I had enough room under them for 3 or 4 layers and I will get a huge bump in material by being able to build up bigger sheets before the rod tubes go back in.

AZFish - the patch stuff will produce a strong patch. When I bought the boat the previous owner had drilled out a few leaking rivets and replaced them with nuts/bolts. The nuts/bolts had rusted away so I had removed them and plugged the holes with the green patch stuff and nothing else. I had to grind it of when I was ready to put solid rivets in. It would work fine. Personally if I had a hole through the boat I might consider 3M 5200 first. In my case I was simply putting a skim coat on top of my alumiweld since the alumiweld may have had some pin holes in it. Second, this stuff is a solid stick of plastic, you apply it by heating the metal hot enough to start melting the stick and then sort of glob it on as it melts and it fills in any voids. It works pretty nice but its a big nasty green blob. If it is going to go anywhere you can see it then you will have a big green nasty blob to work with

Nick - I couldn't use a solid rivet. From the bottom this hole is inside a strake. I.E. the long aluminium runners that are riveted to the underside of the hull. I would have to cut a hole in the strake to get a metal backer up against a solid rivet. I also considered a pop rivet but the hole was sort of long and oblong and at an angle. the more I looked at it the best option I could come up with was filling it with alumiweld.

Yeah I was thinking that since it was in the middle of the boat. wasn't sure so I thought I would ask. That kind of stuff is so frustrating.

 

[azfish]

danmyersmn thanks for the advise. the 3M 5200 what is that? sounds like its a good hole fixer is that correct?

 

[CRAPPIE_SLAYER]

The 5200 is more of a caulking type sealer used around through hull bolts, seams, and such. Not sure i'd patch any major holes with it.

 

[danmyersmn]

The 5200 is more of a caulking type sealer used around through hull bolts, seams, and such. Not sure i'd patch any major holes with it.

True enough, I guess I was thinking a pin hole type hole when azfish asked about patching a hole. Anything bigger then that I would go with a solid rivet unless you cant get to both sides like I had an issue with. In my mind I would attack a hole in this order, eventually the hole and circumstances will give way to one of them: Solid Rivet, Pop Rivet & 5200, AlumiWeld & skim coat sealer of some sort of epoxy, 5200, PL, etc. Larger tears and rips are a whole different ballgame.

 

[danmyersmn]

I didn't get a whole lot done today but I did make a good milestone. All the sheet aluminum is done. Next comes cleaning/sanding/cleaning/priming/paint. That will probably be a few weeks of the same thing all day long with little to no progress to show for it.

I chopped a channel in the foam block that was the nightmare of my last weeks build. My son helped.

Here I have the foam channeled and the drain holes through the rib cleaned out. I didn't realize I had completely encased a rib. Another of those "no wonder it wasn't allowing water to drain" moments.

I picked up a can of GreatStuff to use to finish installing my rod tubes. The rear handle holders where foamed in and the front pieces I cut off to remove where installed again using some unions. I then filled as many areas as I could using the pink foam I had laying around and used the great stuff to bind it all together.

I also added a few more pieces on top of the tubes.

I would really like to get the deck on cause the foam is kind of an ugly mess and I am sort of tired of looking at it. Anyway, moving along, I finished up all the sheet aluminum and here are some shots.

The 3M 3500 from last weekend is still tacky so hopefully sitting another week it will be ready to start working with. Either way I am going to pull all the exterior decals and that's probably going to take me all day next week anyway.

 

[Cheeseball]

The 3M 3500 from last weekend is still tacky so hopefully sitting another week it will be ready to start working with. Either way I am going to pull all the exterior decals and that's probably going to take me all day next week anyway.

It took awhile for 3500 to set up for me as well, but when it's dry it seems like really tough stuff.

Keep up the good work!

 

[danmyersmn]

I was posting a few pics so I thought I would throw one in here too. Boat is flipped and I started prepping for paint. I got carried away and now all the paint is coming off instead of a scuff and prime.

 

[CRAPPIE_SLAYER]

Ha! Same thing happend to me. Was just going to take some of the loose stuff off, and it all started comming off. Oh well, it'll end up looking nice in the end. By the way, what is that large hole in the side for??

 

[danmyersmn]

livewell overflow. I have three holes for my livewell. Two in the back. One to pump in one to drain out. When I am using the livewell I plug the drain in the bottom of it with a standard sump plug. Then the pump fills the livewell until it hits the overflow and out the side it goes.

 

[jasper60103]

wow, that wire wheel really took it off.
I agree, you should have a really nice finish.

 

[danmyersmn]

most of the work was done with a cupbrush on an angle grinder. The wire wheel was for spots that the cup brush couldn't access well.

Paint is done being removed, zinc chromate is on and the bottom is painted.

I am hoping that it has finished outgassing by Saturday and I can paint the rest.

 

[Hydrilla]

Looks great! Looks like the same color as mine. I dig it.