In between all the spreading and sanding there was a good couple hours of “set” or hardening time for the Bondo and Duraglass. Not to waste time I went ahead and put in my cockpit drainage system. Here is another do you remember section. When I made the cockpit floor I made it about an inch short. What I intended was to make the last inch half the thickness of the rest of the floor. This would provide a “draining trench” that any water in the cockpit would flow to. I measured and cut holes for my fittings (3.95 each at boaters surplus) and used 3M 5200 marine adhesive to secure them. Then I started off by making a strip slightly over one inch wide by 3/8” thick out of Coosa board. I glassed one side of the strip and brushed resin over both of the sides. After it dried I cut it to fit in the area remaining. Using left over foam board I made small supports to hold the piece in place. Once the supports where resin’d and 5200’d in place I used a tube of 5200 to bed the strip down.

I spent the rest of the evening vacuuming, sweeping, and generally cleaning up after myself. Looks like I will have to send my truck through the car wash again tomorrow…

Update:
Got my advice on the front deck bedding and I am not at all happy about it. It seems that fiberglass will not bond to silicone caulk. This means that all of the caulking has to be removed and replaced. I had anticipated using more 5200 as several people that work at the local boat manufacturers in town say that’s what they do in the shop. However, fiberglass does not bond to it either!

Another tip: I know several people that work on the floor of all three major area boat builders. All of them have warned me to check the manufacturers date and not to buy anything made in the last week of any month. It seems that as production requirements must be met, the last week’s boats are rushed. One even said that he has pulled hulls days before schedule!

Well the “right way” is to cut the decking material perfectly and use tiger-hair or duraglass to feather it in. Unfortunately I had some pretty good sized gaps filled with silicone. Not only was the gap filled in, but the silicone was feathered back three inches into the deck in places. All of this had to be removed in order to make a good bond with the fiberglass.

Using a ¼” wood chisel, a pair of channel locks, a screwdriver, and a hammer I started removing the caulking. The first two feet or so wasn’t all that tough. After that the caulking had seeped under the deck making it much more difficult. In fact I ended up breaking out the pry bar and lifting up the deck a little at a time in order to get it out.

I then ran into my next obstacle. Some sort of putty was used in many places. It was semi-hard at about the consistency of my wife’s cookies. (just kidding) I ended up working the entire day just removing the caulking and putty. What a mess!

The next day I made a shelf for my wife before getting back on the boat. Pretty simple though-cut a piece of plywood, cut a piece of trim board, glue, and clamp. After it dried I sanded it down and put a coat of stain on it and walla, shelf complete.

Front deck to bulkhead prior to routering

After routing (crappy pic)

The routed corner

Completed routing

Bedding caulk

Removal start. This stuff is THICK!!!

The better side

Now that was ugly!

The worse side