Jon well a least your tank came out easy compared to my nightmare. mine was foam in placed as is yours. The problem was the access cover was a smaller size than the tank.But the area between stringers (which mine are glassed over ) is longer and wider than tank. so Idid not have access to all the foam around the tank. My bright idea was at first to chip all the foam I could with long knife. This worked,the tank was loose and would slide side to side. Now the problem was the front and rear which had 3inches of foam that I couldn't cut. My great idea was to use a power washer to blast foam out! The fun starts now. What I did not know was that area dose not have a drain for safety reasons. Half way thru blasting out foam I realize the tank is starting to float !
This making the little slot to blast foam out smaller!Now
the tank is pushed up against the floor no way to drain
out water to get tank down. I Finlay did what I should have done in the beginning. Break out the sawsall.! with a couple of small cuts tank popped right out. Glassed up floor to replace pieces and life was good.

Well today I spent the day grinding. This part of the job SUCKS. I purchased a Tyvek suit, taped it at the wrists and ankles. Then I put on a hood, repirater, and safty glasses and just went to town. Took me about 4 hours of grinding and it is ready for me to make the new bulkhead. As you can see from the picture it made one heck of a mess!!!!

Jon

This is the port side grinded out.

This is the Starboard side. The hump in the middle is the drain from the bow.

I had a project like yours a few years back. It was on a 77 Magnum 25 ft. I still remember the grinding and the dust (shiver). Make sure you have a good resperator when you reglass the stringers in, my first one wasn't for resin fumes and I almost passed out under the deck. All said and done, when it was finished I was dam proud and a little ichy....good luck and don't give up!

Jon, I know that you are doing a great job. One thing that I would highly recommend is to use a good epoxy such as West System to do the stringer glass work. It will cost about 50% more for the epoxy, but the laminate and the bond to the wood will be much stronger than basic polyester resin. I am the one restoring the Cigarette 35' Awesome. My project has been on hold due to the winter, my mistake in getting headers that are 1" too wide for my 34" engines centerline placement, and the fact that I was downsized out of my career a year ago! Good luck. Bob.

I feel your pain buddy, Been there!

Mark that is not your 302 is it?

I spent another 3 hours working on the boat today. Spent the day vacuming out the boat to make it more enjoyable to work in (if it can be called that :D ). I then took a piece of Luan (sp) wood and cut 2" strips that were 4' long. I then took the strips and used a hot glue gun to hold the pieces together. This is what I used as my template as the cost of the marine plywood is about 160 bucks a sheet. I then took the template that was hot glued together and put it on the Luan again and made a solid template out of that. I then packed it in and headed home to watch the game :D

Jon

Go, Jon, Go!

Keep us posted and show me the way. I cut out the engine compartment liner on the Magnum today and found that there are no real stringers where the engine mounts, just a real beefy liner. Also found about 50 gallons of water trapped in there.

Maybe we should get the board gods to create a Project Section for the trailer queens?

Ok finally got some pictures to update. This picture shows the construction of the first template. The wood that I am using is called OKUMA and it costs about 150 or so bucks a sheet. So making a mistake is NOT a option!!!! So it is a measure twice cut once type of a deal. I took 2" thick strips of luan that were 4 feet long. I then laid them into the boat and hot glued them together.

I then transfered the one template over to this one. Were ever there was a gap I measured that with calipers and wrote it all down.

and in went the Okuma. Perfect fit and I am a happy camper :D:D

:cool:

At present time I have had to purchase a Tyvek suit, Sock to put over my head, resirator for grinding, 5 gallons of Vinnillester resin, 2 sheets of Okuma plywood and a sheet of vaneer. I also have used about 3 grinding disks for the high speed grinder and a few sawzall blades. Tomarrow I hope to glass the bulkhead and stringers.

Jon

Keep it up, love the pics good job, I'm starting in the cabin to redu it all so know how ya feel!

Jon,

Wow!!

You don't know me, but this is what we do for a living, day in and day out everyday. We also have a 1982 formula 302 with similar problems we just took the engines out to replace some stringer and bulkhead sections. While the engines are out i figured we would go though the engines to. So now we have a rotten boat without engines, I just keep getting deeper.

The good thing is that formula builds an excellent boat for the time, Although i have come to find the most repairs are better than original construction.

It looks like you are doing an exellent job,good luck.

Did i mention we bought another project boat, a Performer 400, that i am looking for information about the company that built these. If anybody knows of this company let me know. They were suposed to be built in Fl from 1977-1982??

Thanks and good glassing

P.S. You want a job??

Herman
www.offshoregroup.net

Wow, you're doing a great job on a project most of us wouldn't dare tackle on our own. It also sounds like you're actually having fun with it too...:rolleyes:
Keep the pics/commentary coming....

Rick

Damn,

that brings back memories from when I had my keel split open about 5 years ago. the marina dropped the boat with the forklife and it fractured the keel. Well, to make a long story short they had some mickey mouse guy look at the bottom and determined the was nothing wrong with the boat.

the boat actually turned out better than new. We put in extra stringers, a new gas tank, a new bulkhead, and blue printed the bottom. I picked up 4mph.

Herman I had hoped that all I was going to have to do whas to lift up the floor and take out the gas tank and glass my old stringers to the new bulkead in the front of the engine bay. No such luck for me however and there is only one way to do it. The correct way. I keep telling people that see me spending all this time and using high end materials. "you know what is worse then having to replace your stringers? Having to replace them again!!!!! :D:D

Jon

Why not have fun. It is actually fun and I am learning a TON. Of course the grinding sucks but other then that I have learned a LOT about boat building and materials and my boat as a whole.

Jon

I think this one will be better then new as well. I have used better resin, glass, and wood to do the repairs :D:D

This is one of the stringers for the sides of the gas tank. I made the mistake of leaving the wood in the back of my truck and it was not flat. It took a curve sitting in the back of my truck for two weeks :( So I had to find a way to make it straite again. The solution that I came up with was to snap two chalk lines on a board 5/8" apart. Then I put screw holes along one and used the other as a guide. I then straitened out the wood along the lines. Worked very well for two of them but one still had a little bit of a curve on top, not a big deal as long as teh bottom is super strait. It was. :D:D

Jon

I then rounded over the top of the stringers a little so that the glass would make the curve and not have air bubbles.

We then painted by brush the resin onto the stringer. Then put the fiberglass over the top and drapped it down the sides. After a while we realized it was going to take for ever and looked over at the chopper gun next to us :D:D We turned off the glass feed and used the resin spray to make the process take a LOT less time.

Spraying the other side.

Then the bulkhead got glassed up.

Stringers all glassed up and ready for the gas tank braces to be glassed on. I did that today but no pictures. The red color of the glass is due to the hardener that we used, it was red. The reason for the red is to know that we have mixed the resin and hardener fully.

Pretty interesting Jon. Who owns that shop? Doesn't look familiar.

Kurt

Kurt it is owned by Joe Berkman. It is near Browns one street farther out towards the point. He used to work for Mark Linsey with Burn and all those guys. He is now building a boat that he calls the G20. It is a real nice center console fishing boat.

Jon

Jon,

You are right, in my case nothing worse than doing the job twice. Thats what i keep telling both my customers and my guy's spend a little extra time and materials and do it once!!

I see you have use of a glass shop, makes things a lot nicer, both with equipment and advice. You are using good materials also, good wood, vinyl-ester resin, thats what we use to.

Looking forward to more pic's

Herman
www.offshoregroup.net

Great job Jon!!! That's one heck of a project....When is the anticipated splash date?

Craig it will go in when it goes in. I gave up looking for a spash date a LONG time ago :D:D I hope this summer.... If I was not going down to the Mid Atlantic deal then I would have the bulkhead in this week and maybe one stringer but I guess that will have to waite now tell next weekend maybe. From there who knows. Long road to go but I am told it will be worth is :D:D

i gotta hand it to you for taking on such a big repair.
i wouldnt know where to start:o

What type of wood did you use for the new stringers and bulk heads?

Sorry, I read back and see you mentioned OKUMA for the bulkhead. Are you using this for the stringers as well? Also are you planning on adding any additional bulkheads or reinforcement to the stringers? From a design stand point, it's interesting that Outerlimits typ. has bulkheads or reinforcements every 2'-3".

Well finally got to spend some time on the old girl this weekend. First thing I did yesterday was to glass the other side of the bulkhead. This did not take long, probably only a hour or so.

I am using the Okuma/Okume on all the stringers and bulkheads. The slight addition in cost seemed worth it to me. I am not adding anything as far as stringers or bulkheads. I figure the boat lasted almost 25 years the way it was before and it was done incorrectly (IMO) the first time so now with the new stuff it should be good for a LONG time to come :D:D

I then took DB glass and cut it to shorter more manageable lengths. This also allowed me to go around all the corners easier. For each location I did three layers of glass.

This is a picture of what it looks like all tabbed into the boat. Going around the drain proved to be a LOT easier then I thought it would be. One of the nice things about DB glass is that it bends easy.

I used cabosile/cavosile (same thing as West System 401 first to trowel in a radius for the glass to go around. I mixed up a good paste and then used a bondo spreader to radius the turn. The Cabosile is great also for sticking down the glass and bonding.