Steven,
I did leave the old wood in there. Was a decision I had to make and
wasn't sure what was the best approach, but yes, I enclosed it with the
pieces I installed. I thought the fiberglass would be strong enough. I
didn't have a backing plate on the bolt, just the washer, but after I
had the crunching of the wood I put one in temporarily, maybe that's was
done on your boat also?
I just happened to do both the mast step and the bolt at the same time,
I think you could do them separately but access to the bolt was probably
a lot easier with the mast step removed. I had my mast pulled to
replace the step, but I've heard suggestions that you could just raise
it up and block it from the deck, though I don't think I'd be
comfortable doing that for any length of time.
Getting the wood of the step out was easy, a Sawzall did the trick.
Getting something in was a lot more complicated as you cannot fit a wide
enough board through the opening in the cabin sole. I used a fiberglass
cloth layup on a form across the bilge sump so I could get the cloth
into the space, I think I used 27 layers in one rather long layup. I'd
be happy to go into more detail if you want to contact me offline.
Neil Gallagher
Weatherly, 35-1
Glen Cove NY
On 10/25/2022 2:58 PM, steven.hickel--- via CnC-List wrote:
Dennis and Neil, thank you so much for the very quick and extremely
helpful replies.
Neil, if I understand correctly, you took off all of the fiberglass on
top of the blocks, and tabbed a fiberglass board on the top and on the
forward face, creating a boxed corner around them and replacing the
lost height. And you left the wood blocks in place, encased in more
resin, rather than replacing them with fiberglass blocks/ boards? Was
assuming I'd need to replace the blocks to avoid the same issue later.
Looks like I'll need to grind out and replace what seems to be a very
eaten away backing plate on the bolt. Is there a particular type of
(am assuming) stainless steel that should be used?
As per the smile. I'm actually addressing that now. And I didn't
notice the fiberglass separation around the forward smaller bolt until
after tightening it to close the smile I added a picture before mostly
filling the gap and will finish fiberglassing it on the first dry day.
There seemed to be lot of resin and perhaps filler/ mat, instead of
cloth in the lower area above the joint, though I don't know what's
original. Some of it had cracked. You can also see a hairline crack in
the picture where, after grinding exposed it, water drops were slowly
leaking out from water in the bilge.
As per the mast step, did you have the mast out or is there a way to
raise it a little and support it from below to get access underneath?
Were you able to get to the wood board underneath and replace it
without grinding out that big block of resin between it and the mast
step?
The boat is on the hard at evers Marina in the Bronx. Have to get it
ready to go back in the water in next week. If you come this way from
Glen Clove and have the time, please reach out. Would be great to get
input from someone familiar with all of this.
Thank you so much for the help!
