rebuild - easyrider 139

[xiphias82]

Hi everyone

Joined up looking for advice on my little project boat. Basically looking at cconvertng a little runabout into a centre console with front and rear casting decks. Its basically going too need a full rebuild, transom, floor and stringers but the boat didnt cost me anything so im not too worried about that.

I,m fairly confident with the basic structural rebuild based on my research, but what I need help with is the details. I'm thinking like routing electrical, steering and maybe fuel cables/hoses, replacing floatation, getting weight distribution eg. Position of console, batteries, fuel tanks and others.

Im hoping as i get stuck into the rebuild there might be the knowldege here to help. Also does anyone know any other australian based forums specialising in this types of project? I know some of the big us ones, but hoping to find as many sources of info locally if I can.

Thanks for your help
Matt

[Rip it up]

This forum is a good place to start.

Positioning of items comes down to a few key factors which are hard to determine without running the boat on the water first.

Little boats are very sensitive to weight placement. Even changing the outboard from 2st to 4st hurts.

But I'll try to give you a few pointers.

Fuel tank. Biggest annoyance for weight balance. Now assuming you are looking at a 4 stroke motor and running only up he creeks etc. a 40/50L underfloor tank would be the best option. This will help with the stringer placements under the floor.

Grab a premise poly tank from Sant marine. And position it so a filler hose and breather hoses can be accessible from a hatch under the console.

A pre made console would be the easiest to install but a custom build glass over ply can also be done. You basically want the console to have a flange to screw down after the floor is complete. This will help to fine tune the weight placement of your self standing in the boat. You will only get 300mm max movement with the filler hoses etc coming up underneath but sometimes that's all you need.

Do you need help with materials?

And we all love photos of the projects.


Damo's dodgy boat building factory.

[Ringoscar]

Abundant rebuild strings and deep build knowledge on this site.
That's a nice, soft-riding old hull that should rip along with a 50-70 2 str (remember them?) without compromising weight, which is your major biggie in a hull of this size. But you might have to settle for less power if you want a Builder's Plate or conform to AS1977 to keep it all legit.
If you're rebuilding transom, floor and stringers and you're new to glassing, chances are you'll use plenty of resin-heavy mixes, adding extra weight.
Maybe try to go a little lighter with the forward and aft decks to keep centre of gravity low; consider >H60 Divynicell or Klegecell foam hatch covers etc to minimise deck weight. It's also pretty easy to fabricate your own console with these products.
Crawl all over a US bass or bay boat to see how to build waterproof decks properly and plan from the start on how you propose to drain away all water at washdown time or when it rains.
In fact, plan plenty before you do anything. Like adding wooden or alloy backing plates to everywhere you'd ever want to put a screw. And every time you drive a screw into (encapsulated) wood, pack the screw hole with 321 or Everdure epoxy, and then spray the screw with WD40 or whatever before you drive it in. It'll unscrew smoothly years later.
Put multiple pull-throughs in your cable ducting.
Any time you drill into gelcoat/flowcoat, start with the drill in slow reverse until you've drilled through to the glass, then as normal.
And despite opting for the 65L Sant underfloor tank in my build 6+ years ago, I regret not having gone for 2 or 3 storage sites in the hull that could take a normal 23L tote tank. That gives you >70L when you really need range and 20 when you're not going far, especially if you did go down the 4 stroke path.
Multiple fuel site options also give you the ability to easily & simply control your longitudinal and horizontal centres of gravity, among the major issues in a small hull – better than trim tabs (almost!) And you won't have big volumes of fuel going stale in one big tank if you don't use the boat for extended periods.
Your batteries (bow-mount electric?) also need to be low, stay dry and be close to/on centre line.
Plenty more but, essentially, allow twice as much time and money as your wildest guesstimates, be prepared to work on the damn thing when you should be fishing and, most of all, enjoy the experience and your growing list of lifelong skills.

[xiphias82]

First of all, Thanks so much for your help and advice so far. So many questions to ask I dont know where to start.

Ill try and go through in some sort of semblance of order.

First materials. I was thinking of using mostly a good quality exterior ply rather than marine ply. Havent yet done the rounds of the timber yards to research this yet. I was thinking of using the boatcraft pacific range of products primarily and using epoxy throughout as, from my research this is the best way to avoid water intrusion and rot in the future. I plan to "paint" all the ply with epoxy and the boatcrafts penetrating agent to water proof it before use. Im still not sure about what types of cloth, tape etc. to use. Ill probably check this out with the local fibreglassing shops but any advice you have would be really useful.

I Have done a fair bit of reading about how to actually do the stringer, transom replacement etc and Im fairly comfortable with it, but before I start Ill probably put a quick plan up and and get your opinions. My plan at the moment is to do each item individually to prevent any warping etc of the hull. I plan to do the transom first, removing a minimal amount of the floor to keep the hulls rigidity. Once its finished, Ill start pulling out the rest of the floor, replace stringers, floor etc. Once the floors done ill put in vertical bulkheads in the appropriate place for the planned casting decks and I also plan to build a nice wide new gunwale all the way around. I was going to do this all in ply but due to advice above Ill consider the foam options if budget allows.

I plan to put a battery compartment under the front casting deck for running an electric and I love the idea of under floor compartments for standard fuel tanks to allow tailoring weight distribution. I will probably initially install a second hand two stroke outboard, but I want to allow for the possibility of upgrading to a four stroke down the track. Where would be the best place to get info about getting a builders plate and AS1977. Im not really familiar with this. My understanding if it was manufactured prior to 2006 you dont need this. Is this a matter of having it inspected by an engineer or something and they then issue a plate and AS1977 is the standard that has to be met?

Ill post some pics up in the next day or so and try to get stuck into the transom, which I think will be my first step, pretty soon.

thanks

[xiphias82]

Heres some pics and a quick question

Attachment 107482 Attachment 107483

How concerned do I have be with the hull warping/distorting if I remove the fibreglass cap/deck? I want to get it off and start on the transom. The hull is now supported on a basic wooden cradle rather than tyres. When I got it approximately the front third of the cap had been seperated from the hull and it seems like the top sides are bowing out slightly?

thanks for your help

Matt

[xiphias82]

Just realised the pics didnt work. Im worried about whether Ive got enough support under the hull to start pulling out the transom. Thoughts on whether I have enough support under the hull would be great. Check out the pics below. Note that in some of the pics Ive removed the small 3rd wooden frame as it wasnt doing anything (Previous owner made them up).

Do I need to add more support at all?

[Rip it up]

A few ideas worth looking at.
Lengthways timber studs under the chines or strakes.

Connect the top of the cradles with another stud. Possibly supporting the lip of the gunnel joint. 2/3 screws through the edge and into the timber.

The upper hull sides will bow out and become very floppy. Not much you can do without using a few timbers under the lip to support it. Although I was never concerned when I took my cap off the rogue 14ft. I just had under the chines supported.

When the cap went back on the pop river holes just needed a small poke and prod to line up.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair centre.

[juggernaut]

I also used the Boatcraft Pacific "Bote Cote" epoxy system on the marine ply floor when recently made a new floor for the Quinny. Their product called TPRDA is added to the first coat (approx 20% by volume - from memory) to assist in the first coat penetrating and binding the grain. Light sand then apply the next two coats wet on tacky. Mainly used a roller and brush for fiddlier bits. Have to work fast although you can also get different hardeners depending on weather conditions. I used "standard" but "tropical" will give you a greater working time.

[xiphias82]

Thanks for the help guys. I will add some timber under the chines and make sure to support the gunwales. I dont want the sides of the boat to flop out too much as I plan on building a completely new cap, which is completely flat. Something along the lines of a us flats boat or the haines 485sf.

The boatcraft TPRDA is the exact stuff I was planning on using for all the ply I use. I have also heard that for transom applications, despite the fact that all foam is the latest thing in boatbuilding, a ply transom is significantly stronger if done properly and looked after ie. Holes sealed with epoxy etc.

Thanks again for the help, time to get started!
Matt

[Rip it up]

Consider using honeycomb core materials of you want to get rid of timber in the build.

My transom now holds onto a 180kg 80hp fourstroke without a crack or issue.
My whole boat is now timber free and I couldn't be happier.

Only down side to the honey combs is having to fill the exposed edges with light weight fillers before wrapping glass or painting etc.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair shop.

[xiphias82]

Thanks rip it up. I am considering it. I was originally going to go for ply to save some cash, but after looking at some of the builds here with rough prices, it didnt look like a huge difference in cost. Im going to have another look at your build thread now but if anyone has any particular advice on choosing any of the honeycomb materials I would love your thoughts. I have found all the different foam and composite options a little confusing.

thanks
Matt

[Rip it up]

A little info for you.

http://www.compositesworld.com/artic...site-laminates

Most core materials rely on a few key characteristics.

Density - or weight per cubic meter. So many core manufacturers quote this as there strength. Ie 80kg dyvinecell foam. Or 40kg refrigeration foam.

Different cores have pros and cons. It's just being able to harness the good attributes and work with the bad ones.

Have a read of the link and see for yourself.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair centre.

[xiphias82]

Sorry its been awhile since my last update, just started a new job and havent had time to touch the project. Im at the point where Im ready to put in the transom. I've chosen to go with plywood for the transom because Im more comfortable working with it.

Ive removed the old transom from the inside, and left a lip of the old inner transom skin which I will grind a scarf onto. So the new transom will slot in behind that, glued in place and be glassed to the remaining inner skin. My plan was to make the new transom core by cutting two bits of 12mm plywood to fit and laminating them together with a layer of fibreglass in the middle and on both sides. I than plan to fibreglass it to the existing lip using successively wider strips of cloth.\

My biggest question is what cloth to go with for this job. Im using boatcraft epoxy resin and fillers etc. From my research i was going to use biaxial cloth, but the place where i bought my resin recommeded just a standard cloth. I think it was 200gram cloth. I had also previously been recommended that if i just bought a whole roll of biaxial that would be suitable for doing the whole boat.

I would appreciate input on what cloth to choose for this job.

thanks matt

[Rip it up]

200gsm cloth is a woven material which is too light for general rebuilding. Maybe building sailing dinghies is would be fine. But 450gsm double bias cloths would be he better choice.

Fibres in biaxial cloths run 45 deg to the roll. One layer on the bottom another on the top and stitched together. Makes it a very good fabric to lay around corners and when laid across the transom gives you an even dispersion of fibres from the hull up onto the timber

Woven cloths run 0/90 on the roll and are woven together. So you end up with fibres running across the transom and up/down the transom wall. Making it difficult to get them to lay neatly into the bottom corners.

Hope this helps. A full roll is approx 60m so way more than you will ever need. So try to get a 10m pack somewhere.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair shop.

[xiphias82]

Cool, thanks for the advice, I might try and track down some heavier biaxial locally I think, sounds like the best choice. From what ive found it sounds like it will be a stronger and lighter option than woven cloth