Prospective
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2006
- RO Number
- 23085
- Messages
- 1,343
Haven't been around for awhile but still have my mind on boating. Thought you all might be interested in pictures of the engine hatch repair I did over the winter.
A little background. This is the day engine hatch. It is mounted between the two main engine hatches which are actuated by rams. It was mounted to the side of the port engine hatch via a 6ft piano hinge that was pop rivited in place with stainless steel pop rivets.
Sadly, as good as Tiara is, they penetrated the skins and entered the balsa coring with the rivets. Over 20 years the coring got wet and rotted. So the port main hatch and day hatch were soft under foot. This is particulary annoying as you regularly walk over the day hatch to go down the companionway. Strangely the surveyor and I missed this during the survey. But I noticed immediately when bording the boat to bring her home. Too late to do much at that point...
I received some staggering bids to repair the damage... north of $4k. So, based on knowledge gleened here and elsewhere I decided to remove the deck hatch and take it home to repair this winter. The port main engine hatch will also need repair. But because of its size and the fact the area is smaller, I may try to do that in place next winter.
Repair began with the knuckle busting process of drilling out 32 stainless steel pop rivets to remove the hatch and bring it home. Once I got it home I built a small frame out of 2x4's to clamp it to to prevent warping. Then I removed the engine insulation on the underside and cut the skin off with a Fein type saw..
As you can see the rot extended away from the hinge side as water penetraed to varous degrees. I ended up cutting away about 2/3rds of the coring using the Fein tool and left the solid and well bonded balsa in place.
Then I replace the bad core with some 3/8ths divinicell coring material. I went over that with one layer of chopped strand mat and one layer of 4oz woven cloath using West System Epoxy. I filleted the hinged edge with an inch of thickened epoxy to prevent the same problem in the future.
Finally I painted the whole underside with a couple of coats of Pettit Easypoxy paint and put on a brand new stainless steel piano hinge using 1/2 inch screws this time. Fortunately, any cosmetic blemishes (and there are plenty) will be covered up by the engine insulation which I managed to preserve.
Now all I gotta do is put the freaking thing back on which won't be easy. Hope you enjoyed. I've used many posts here to inspire me to tackle stuff I thought was over my head.
A little background. This is the day engine hatch. It is mounted between the two main engine hatches which are actuated by rams. It was mounted to the side of the port engine hatch via a 6ft piano hinge that was pop rivited in place with stainless steel pop rivets.
Sadly, as good as Tiara is, they penetrated the skins and entered the balsa coring with the rivets. Over 20 years the coring got wet and rotted. So the port main hatch and day hatch were soft under foot. This is particulary annoying as you regularly walk over the day hatch to go down the companionway. Strangely the surveyor and I missed this during the survey. But I noticed immediately when bording the boat to bring her home. Too late to do much at that point...
I received some staggering bids to repair the damage... north of $4k. So, based on knowledge gleened here and elsewhere I decided to remove the deck hatch and take it home to repair this winter. The port main engine hatch will also need repair. But because of its size and the fact the area is smaller, I may try to do that in place next winter.
Repair began with the knuckle busting process of drilling out 32 stainless steel pop rivets to remove the hatch and bring it home. Once I got it home I built a small frame out of 2x4's to clamp it to to prevent warping. Then I removed the engine insulation on the underside and cut the skin off with a Fein type saw..
As you can see the rot extended away from the hinge side as water penetraed to varous degrees. I ended up cutting away about 2/3rds of the coring using the Fein tool and left the solid and well bonded balsa in place.
Then I replace the bad core with some 3/8ths divinicell coring material. I went over that with one layer of chopped strand mat and one layer of 4oz woven cloath using West System Epoxy. I filleted the hinged edge with an inch of thickened epoxy to prevent the same problem in the future.
Finally I painted the whole underside with a couple of coats of Pettit Easypoxy paint and put on a brand new stainless steel piano hinge using 1/2 inch screws this time. Fortunately, any cosmetic blemishes (and there are plenty) will be covered up by the engine insulation which I managed to preserve.
Now all I gotta do is put the freaking thing back on which won't be easy. Hope you enjoyed. I've used many posts here to inspire me to tackle stuff I thought was over my head.
