| Author | Message | ||
     Jeff Roy (Jeffr) Rating: N/A |
Certainly there were many options in material to replace this part of the boat. Doing it entirely of glass is a good way to go, but not the one I chose for several reasons. I wanted to work with material I have experience working with and the right tools for. This made using wood to provide strength a practical choice. I wanted to use material similar to the original structure. They used mahogony and I chose locust. If they had glassed over all of the wood as I have done the boats would have lasted better. They also screwed up the weep holes which accelerated the problems. I was not as confident in my ability to build it up entirely of glass and get everything in the right place and be strong enough. I thought about glassing over foam core but was concerned about the compression load. I opted for a very dense material to avoid any risk of compression. I am positive the structure I have built is much stiffer than the original construction and will out last the rest of the boat for certain. Lots of the boatyards around here are using G10 for all sorts of applications, especially as backing plates. Bronze would create a glavonic problem with the stainless. Stainless would have been a good choice except it will suffer from crevice corrosion if the bilge is wet. It is also difficult to machine without contanminating the edges which only accelerates crevice corrosion. G10 is almost as strong as SS. It is only going to further stiffen up the sump. Because it is basicly super fiberglass it is a great choice. I fabricated them with tools I had. I know there are many different ways to do this, but this is what worked best for me given what I had to work with. I not only saved a ton of money by doing it myself, I got the job done two weeks before the yard could even get to it. I would have no complaints if a yard did it this way. |
