1978 Viking rebuild

[LakeFever]

Indeed well explained! As for the holes did you use a hole saw or a forstner bit?

[tnelsmn]

3/4" hole saw. Ran it high speed with light pressure trying not to blow out the back side when coming through.

[GregAdams]

A vent at the front of the floor seems like the obvious place to put it, when the boat is floating. But if you you go upside down, the boat will float vertically with the nose in the air. If you damaged the buoyancy tanks in the crash, water can leak in and the air will vent out the vent hole and the tank will fill with water all the way up to the vent. Might take a while, but unless you are on a race course, a rescue will probably take a while longer. Best place for the vent hole is the near the transom. One easy way to do it is to put a bung fitting in the floor, and drill a 1 mm hole in the bung. Or a sturdy inspection port with a hole in the lid. I know I am always talking about extremes, but I have been for a couple of swims Fortunately my boats didn't break, but that is because was thinking about extremes when I built them But I have seen other boats go over and break. The only thing stopping them from sinking fast was the air trapped in the front of the underfloor compartment.

[rjdubiel]

No air tanks on my boats, if she sinks, she sinks. Will worry about it later. Maybe I will put the tube up under the bow! Or the 50 pool noodles?

I wish my glass work looked that good, I usually have very sharp edges and glass spears that require sanding after the resin kicks.

[XstreamVking]

Cover the edges with mat and you will have a much stronger layup and bond. Also less sanding.

[DanUmbarger]

I sandwich my cloth and roving between layers of mat for that very reason.

[tnelsmn]

RJ, I'm leaning towards the tractor inter tube as well when going for speed runs I've been diligent about putting a good radius on the edges of everything before laying glass. I'm still sanding everything.

Xstream, what edges are you referring to? Edit: are you referring to the edges of cloth?

I laid a 4" strip of 1708 along the core where the front shelf meets it and since I had resin mixed I laid a layer of CSM on the underside of the foot well floor. I wrapped the edges of that when laying up the bottom. Planning to trim that off flush with the top of the floor before bonding it to the hull.

[XstreamVking]

THe perimeter edge of your layup. The shear strength is increased by a lot if you cover the woven/knitted edges of the heavy glass with mat. .75 or 1.5 oz is good.

[tnelsmn]

Gel coat below the floor is complete!

To prep for the gel I gave everything a scuff with 36g. Brushed everything down with acetone and wiped that up with a clean cloth, then a finial wipe down with a new tack cloth.

Learned a lesson with this stuff, short work times. Mixed a quart together with the surfacing wax and catalyst. Dumped it into a pan try to attempt to roll it on like paint. Sure doesn't cover well trying to do that. The center (pad) area turned out ok but the starboard side of the core got a bit thin. The stuff started to kick before I could get anymore down, but I think it will be ok. After a chat with the guys at Express Composites I went with the pour it on and spread it around method the next night. 2" paint brush and light pressure worked amazingly well. This stuff is pretty cool when its cured. Sure won't be any water reaching my core.

[tnelsmn]

The floors have been bedded to the hull.

All floor pieces are 1/2" marine grade plywood. I laid up a layer of 1.5oz mat on the underside before they went in the hull.

On the main floor I added the support for my tow bar rig. The tow bar is slick piece my father built when the boat was new. It's all aluminum and also a quick detach set up. The support/mount is 12"x12" 10ga 304 stainless steel, I TIG welded 5/16" stainless nuts to it. Knowing the plate would sit below the floor and interfere with the stringers I used a router to remove material from the floor allowing the plate to sit flush with the bottom. I bonded the plate into the floor using 1.5oz mat.

Floor panels were set into a putty of cabosil and milled fibers in the hard chine and on top of stringers/bulkheads. I threw all the weight I could find on top. Putty was then used to fill any voids around the perimeter and to set a radius for the future glass tabbing in the floor.

I've found dumping the putty into a one gallon ziplock bag, cutting off a corner and using it like a piping bag works wonders.

[tnelsmn]

Plugging away slowly but surly. Floors are all tabbed in with three layers of glass as follows; 2" 1.5oz CSM, 4" 1708, 8" 1708. Each layer was cured and scuffed with 36g before the next layer. I also added a strip of 8" 1708 across the floor where the tow bar mount bolts in. Probably overkill.

My 5 gallon bucket full of cured excess resin from each batch. So there's at least that much waste with my build. I could probably save money with better guessing at needed resin for each lay up. I'm getting better and learning to mix more/smaller batches. Learning can be expensive.

Next I'm planning to cover the entire interior with a layer of 1.5oz CSM to cover all edges of 1708 and give a nice uniform finish. Once that is finished I'll set all my mounts for the seats, hot foot, fuel tank, and battery. Planning to use 3/4" marine ply with tee nuts installed from the back, bonded to the floor, and glasses over. I'd like to use bolts to secure everything for ease of removal in the future if needed and to avoid any puncture into the floor to avoid rot. I believe 1/4"-20 stainless bolts/tee nuts should do the trick if I use enough of them. If you have input on mounting options I'm open to ideas/input. Thanks!

[LakeFever]

1/4" is too small imo. Better to use less well placed 3/8" for a couple of reasons. I really dont like stainless fasteners for service use they gall up so easy and 1/4" stainless are not very strong I can sheer them with small hand tools quite easy. To make up for the strength loss you mentioned using lots which also seems a bit risky because of the additional holes for potential water infiltration points. With a build this awesome I'd certainly want the best fastener solution possible. I have only used 304 fasteners but there are other alloys that are less gall prone and stronger id be looking into those. Are the Tee nuts you installed also stainless?

[rjdubiel]

I used 5/16 for seats, put the T nuts in the base and then glassed the base to the floor. Seats sit 3/4 inch off the floor.


This was supposed to be in the original

[tnelsmn]

I haven't installed tee nuts yet, still need to order them. I was planning on stainless for the corrosion resistance. I'm aware of the galling issues, anti seize seems to work pretty well at avoiding that, but it is still a concern, also I don't plan to take them in and out frequently. I just like the idea of being able to remove a threaded bolt vs a lag bolt/wood screw. 1/4-20 is probably too small. The tee nuts will be installed into a separate piece of wood and added on top of the glassed over floor. So nothing will penetrate the glass layer of the floor.

I'll be using the original style back to back seats, so I'll secure a piece of aluminum angle iron to the sides of the seat base and this will bolt into the tee nuts. I'll do the same with the fuel tank, weld aluminum angle to the sides of the tank and bolt into tee nuts. Not sure about battery mounting yet.

[Captaincj]

Remind me, you did or are going to have vent holes between your floor and the hull bottom correct?