1983 Vking rebuild

[VkingMike]

Core went in last night. Made a mess on my arms and legs with resin, but its worth it. This morning I only found one small area that needed more weight on it in the bow curve, so its a little soft. Luckily, I can cut it back and redo just that 5" area. Took these picks this morning after taking the bricks, landscaping stones and gallon paint cans off. It looked like I was hauling a load of junk to scrap with all the stuff I had weighing the core down.

In the pics, the port side has a bit more saturation into the scoring. It all went on evenly, so not sure why the starboard side didn't bleed up. But I'm not too concerned.

[VkingMike]

I found a few spots that I didn't like, probably less than a square foot in total. Since it was still thumb print tacky, I used an epoxy injection syringe and mixed up some cabosil to inject in those spots. More so to make me feel better about it. I pulled it out in the sun today to really get hard. Ive found this vinyl ester needs some good heat to really kick off.

Once it's good and hard and before the final layer of glass, what are the recommendations for rounding off the core material? Cabosil and spoon or trim the core at and angle?

[XstreamVking]

Trim and sand smooth, less putty the better. And pre-wet that core real good.

[VkingMike]

It's wild to see all the variations other owners have went through in a boats life. When I picked this boat up, a pretty nice aluminum plate was used to cover most of these holes. The 1" thick marine wood is in great shape behind the dash, so it will stay in place. I'll repair most of them and move the steering to the center. I'll likely use another aluminum dash plate like previous as well, since it does clean up the dash.

[VkingMike]

Making templates for the floor. This is a tough one, trying to judge where to put the forward section so that the pedal is in a comfortable spot. I'm leaning towards having it closer to me, so that the pedal can be moved further forward if needed. Also a slight angle forward to double as somewhat of a foot rest.

[tnelsmn]

I like being able to plant my left foot against that forward section to help plant me in the seat. My peddle is to the right up on the first chine.

[LakeFever]

I set the drivers seat in on some wood pieces and sat in it, marked where my heal sat at rest and made a pad big enough for an inch either way of adjustment plus I have the slider plate for the foot throttle. It was the best I could come up with at the time.

[VkingMike]

I did end up putting the seat on some wood last night and mocking everything up. Then made my final pieces out of coosa. It felt comfortable, and like Tony suggested, I also like using that as a foot rest to push me in the seat. I'll be center steer, so the peddle will be just to the right on the steering wheel on that coosa pad.

You can also see in the pic where I started on the plug for the dash where the steering wheel will eventually end up centered.

[rjdubiel]

I did left foot as I could not find a comfy spot on the right side without my shin close to the dash. Hit a wave or get out of sorts and you will have you leg on the dash. Left foot was odd for about 15 seconds then you don't even know it is left foot throttle after that. I have seen lots on the right but I just did not like it. Looking great!

[rjdubiel]

I did end up hitting a hard wakeboat wake and cracked my hull so did some more balsa and carried it up wider in front of the floor. If you are going to put floor in on top of the one stringer going forward then you dont really need to do what I did.

Crack!


Repair inside with more balsa up to where the floor would sit if you carried the floor forward.

[VkingMike]

I did do an extra layer of 1708 and took the divinycell further up the sides than it was from the factory in the nose section.

I'll have floor on top of that single stringer as well. I'm having fun with this portion of the rebuild, can't wait to get this thing back out.

[rjdubiel]

you will be fine then. I only wet back with the one long stringer and the little hot foot cross section so my mistake did not have much support up there and it cracked just where the core ended. I put my seats on a 3/4 plywood with stainless inserts to keep the seats as low as possible.

[VkingMike]

Advice on where to drill drain holes. Do I need vent holes at all with coosa? Or just close it off and forget about it?

I'll have a drain hole in the small floor where my step to get into the drivers seat will be, which will go in between the stringers and back to the bilge. But the forward bulkhead, just seal it off and forget about it?

[LakeFever]

Looking really good! Drain holes; I drilled the center of rib in the footwell but not the two side areas. I drilled the stringers at the rearmost area by the transom. I am going to drill a small 1/8” hole on top of the floor to vent those side areas as well. This way if it ever gets wet and bobs nose up the two side cavities are air tight and will float it. The front sub floor has a stringer that sits off the bottom by about an inch so it vents plenty that way. You definitely don’t want sealed chambers anywhere. They can pressurize and bust the hull in certain conditions

[VkingMike]

Perfect, thank you. That was my concern was having something sealed be an issue.