[Rhodes22-list] Centerboard top glassed in?

[Graham Stewart]

My 74 had the center board housing glassed on. Actually it was a very crude
effort where the cloth was simply draped over the cover. It was riveted as
well. About 15 years ago I was able to pry and cut off the cloth and drill
out the rivets and the cut through the sealant between the cap and the trunk
with a butcher knife that I would heat with a torch. It was a tedious job on
my hands an knees but not technically difficult. In the end I broke the
cover getting it off right in front of the raised part. That was fixed
easily enough by clamping the cover to a flat surface covered in waxed paper
and then building up a few layers of cloth and epoxy. The top of the tunk
and bottom of the housing needed to  have scratches and worse filled and the
entire surface made smooth and flat. In the case of the trunk, because I had
damaged it removing the cap I cut a single piece of 1/8" aluminum, to cover
the whole surface and then attached it to the trunk using thickened epoxy
and held with aluminum rivets.  That gave me a nice smooth surface to mate
with the repaired cap. I made a gasket and returned the cap with silicone
and used 20 1/4 inch stainless steel bolts wherever the rivets had been
previously. 

Whatever you do, do not replace the cover with the 3M 5200 sealant - or
similar "permanent" sealants. You want to be able to remove the cover fairly
easily in the future for all sorts of reasons. Glassing it on in the first
place, as I understand it, was the sloppy work of contractors who built the
early boats.

I am now doing a major rebuild of the boat and removed the cap.  I
discovered that the pulley's for the centerboard line were seized and needed
replacement.  Also the inside wall of the housing needed to be cleaned and
anti-fouling applied. Finally, the centerboard was badly cracked and had
osmotic blistering. By tapping I could tell that the core was hollow in
places and with the cracking it seemed to me likely that water would find
its way in and freeze. I drilled two holes into the edges of all voids where
I suspected they existed and pumped epoxy into one hole until it came out
the other. I must have used a quart of epoxy or more and sill can't be sure
I have filled all of the voids. I dug out all of the cracks and filled them
with epoxy  and epoxy strengthened with adhesive filler. Finally I coated
the whole center board with multiple coats of epoxy with the aluminum powder
additive for better water barrier and abrasion resistance.





--
View this message in context: http://rhodes-22.1065344.n5.nabble.com/Centerboard-top-glassed-in-tp44867p44961.html
Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.