Deck Re-Work

[Kong]

I have a question regarding material for the recoring of the deck of my '67 Ski Sporter. I'd like to take a router and cut away the inner roving covering the balsa core. Next I'd like to use the blue foam insulating boards you can get at Lowes as the core material. You know the 2' x 8' x 1-1/2" thk stuff. Will this adhere to the resin and new roving without deformation? Will the heat from 'kicking' buckle the deck? Is there other materials or methods that make for an easy install? Thanks for any responses. It's a great summer day and I'm off to the lake and will try to avoid all the other Miami Vicers out there. My little 14' Baja loves to wave jump! WHEEEEE!

[Jamesbon]

Hmmm, I'm thinking polyester resin will melt that "blue" stuff. If you use the "blue," you might want to try an epoxy based resin. From personal experience, I would opt for material which was designed for coring.

I used Diab, which I believe is the same as Kleglecell (sp). It's a scrimmed and scribed coring material which has an excellent ability to conform to the original contour and is compatible with polyester and epoxy based resins. I assume it's available anywhere, but I picked it up from Fiberglass Coatings (http://www.fgci.com/) here in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Check out the deck restoration (http://www.donzi.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004593#000000) I just completed. It should answer a lot of your questions.

I suppose the "blue" stuff would work, but...

[oldLenny]

We have "all" the products available here as well. Recently I discussed the +'s and -'s of different materials with my supplier. ( these guys (http://www.ashchem.com/images/home_banner.jpg) )and the MOST bang for your buck is still End Grain Balsa. Better for the money than core-cell and all the rest. The trick is to THOROUGHLY WET IT OUT. If done this way it is an EXCELLENT product. Easy and cheap (ish). I only use Vinylester resins in all my lay-ups regardless of where, why etc. It costs about double that of General purpose, one and a half times as much as Isothalic but is has all "the right stuff".

(Hence,...Good Boat, Bad Boat)

..Nathan,..I have "melted blue, pink and green foam stuff as well... MSDS and all the rest of that stuff can help you here if your "a chemist".

I AM NOT!!!

[Kong]

Nate, Your project looked good. It appeared that the thicknes of your core material was abot 3/4" - 1". I aasume that was enough to ensure rigidity. I was heading in the polyester direction and was worried about meltdown w/common insulating foam. Both yourself and Lenny are confirming my suspicion. I'm taking things slow here because I don't want to F...Up. I would like to just do the front deck but I think I'll end up going all the way around just because I'm anal that way!

Dave.

[MOP]

Ditto to the balsa! If cost were no object phenolic honeycomb with the grey aircraft grade epoxy would be my choice. for weight and strength. We used alot of it in the military it was unbelivable. Have any of you tried pre-saturation of balsa with thinned Epoxy with almost no kicker short about 70%? Back a few years I worked with a builder who had a bunch of degrees on his wall. We used to build a little expoler boat using 1/8" Bryzonel inside with the 1/2" saturated balsa outside and covered with two layers of Dynel. They were real strong his tilt was to after about an hour while super sticky mix a regular batch slightly hot about 10% over this was applied to the also pre-saturated wood. This was left to the next day at which point it was sanded fair but with 100 grit to remove all the highs, surfaced carefully cleaned then the Dynel. He would let the hulls cure about a week then sand and paint. I had been to all the USAF glass, honeycomb and coring schools, I htought the stuff would never go off. But we never had one come back, I did try to get him to let me core one but lost the battle.