Sail Life - Rotten deck core on a Warrior 38 - DIY sailboat restoration

Hi guys, welcome back aboard Athena. Fair warning, this video is not gonna be a full 20 minutes like my videos normally are, but we'll get back to why a little later on. Last weekend, I, with the help of a couple of friends, removed the old cheat deck from Athena. Because the adhesive was a pretty sucky adhesive, it only took a little over an hour. After that, we removed the screws. And this is what I'm left with. This is a bare fiberglass deck. There's not even any gelcoat on there. It's just fiberglass. And as you can see, it's all dirty and it doesn't look all that great. There are also a couple of issues with the deck that I covered in my last video. Chief among those, for now, are the high moisture levels in the deck. No matter where I place my trusty moisture meter, it's telling me that the deck is wet, wet, wet. That's not really all that surprising, considering the 1000 plus screws that penetrated through the teak and into the core of the deck. In response to my last video, I got a few comments saying that my moisture meter must be broken because it only seems to give high readings. Oh, if only that was the case. It would be so much easier just to go out and purchase a new moisture meter. But that is not the reason. To remove any doubt, let me show you here on the side of the hull. I'm going to start below the waterline and work my way up. And the higher we go, the lower the moisture readings are going to be. That is to be expected. And it'll prove that the meter doesn't just give high readings. So if we start down here, you can see that the moisture meter gives a reading of just over 50. And if we move up here, it's around 35. And if we move up here, it's 20. I've also compared the readings from my meter with the readings from a friend's identical meter. And those readings were very similar. So although moisture meters are notorious for being a little tricky or downright misleading, I have no reason to doubt my meter. At least not for now. I've felt a little under the weather this last week, so I haven't gotten a lot done here aboard Athena. But I have managed to scrub some more of the tow rail, which was oodles of fun. And I've also managed to do something else. And this is that something else. First off, let me just switch off this annoying fan. Ah, so much better. But as you can see, I've removed the top layer of fiberglass from a small area of the deck. Here is that top layer of fiberglass. This is the foam core. And then down here is the bottom layer of fiberglass in the sandwich construction. Just for fun, I placed this fan here blowing air onto the core. It's been doing that nonstop for six days. And I thought it'd be fun to see if I could dry out the core that way. Now before I get flooded with comments saying I'm a complete fool for trying this, I know this is in all likelihood not going to work. But I figured there's no harm in trying. When I removed the top of the sandwich construction, there was a bit of water here on top of the foam. So much in fact that when I put down a piece of paper towel and press my hand into it, you could see the palm print from my hand. The core doesn't feel wet anymore. But just for fun, let's see what the moisture meter says. Yep, pretty dang wet. Now let's just for fun check the surface moisture. See, that's actually not bad. The foam that's used in the sandwich construction of the deck does appear to be closed cell foam. So it won't hold a lot of water, but it will still hold moisture. And my biggest concern is the fact that I want the epoxy I'm going to use to repair all of the holes, and also the paint I'll use up on top of the deck to get a good bond. All the experts I've talked to have all told me that the easiest thing to do in this situation is to rip out the old core and replace it. But it is awfully tempting to attempt to dry out the old core. Although from the feedback I've gotten from those guys, that's not gonna work. But I'd be interested to hear what you guys think. So go ahead and leave a comment down below if you've got an opinion. The question isn't whether or not ripping out the old core and replacing it with a new core would be a good fix, because I know that would work. The question is, would it be possible to simply just remove the top layer of fiberglass and dry out the core that way and then replace that top layer? Would that be a good and lasting fix? Go ahead and leave your opinion down below. Regardless of what I choose to do in respect to the core, whether or not I'm gonna rip out all of it and replace it, and that is very much what I'm leaning towards doing right now. But regardless of that, there are still some problem areas I'll have to investigate a little bit closer. And one of those areas is right up here. This is where the windlass was attached, and if I poke my finger down into one of these holes here, it is soaking wet down there. And it feels like this is reinforced with wood rather than foam. In fact, I think that piece of wood extends all the way back. From what I've been able to see down below, this middle section here, going all the way back, has a wooden core. And I'm kind of interested to see how that wooden core is doing after having been soaked in salt water for 30 years. I've used a bit of masking tape to section off the area I want to remove, just to give myself a point of reference for when I'm cutting. And I've left plenty of room out here for when I need to glass the top back on. To cut the top layer of fiberglass, I'll use this, my tiny little circular saw. This is basically perfect for that job. It's got a nice narrow blade, you can set the depth of cut, and it makes a lot less mess than an angle grinder would. It is simply just a matter of plunging in the saw and following the tape. Now, let's see what's hiding underneath there. I have no idea how easy this is going to be to remove, but let's just start prying and see what happens. Oh, and just in case you're wondering, yes, this is a cabinet scraper, the multi-tool of boat repairs. Oh, this is just like a kinder egg for grown-ups. I mean, sure, there's no chocolate and probably no toys inside of the deck either, but it is exciting. Yum! So what do we have in here? Well, there's a bit of foam, which feels kind of dry to the touch. I'm sure it's not, but it feels dry. And then there's some fully delaminated plywood. But this is kind of cool. I mean, look at the difference between the foam and the plywood. The foam is still ordinary, still looks structurally sound, whereas the plywood, well, there's nothing there really. They say it happens to everyone, but still, it's just a bit sad. Jesus, just look at this. Like, there's absolutely no strength here. I certainly need to get that wet, useless plywood out of there. All of that was done with a screwdriver and it took under 20 minutes. I don't really know how much of the deck I can remove at any one point in time, because once you remove the core, even if it is just a pile of wet mulch, it all gets kind of loosey-goosey. But there is something I'm sure of, and that's the fact that all of this plywood here, this useless plywood, needs to go. I am very tempted to go ahead and remove the piece I've sectioned off here, but look at what happens if I step out here. I may have to do this in very small sections. I've never done this before, meaning I've never replaced the core in a deck before, so perhaps the answer to my question of how much of the deck can I remove at any one point in time is obvious and is staring me right in the face. If that's the case, I'm sure you guys will let me know down in the comments. For now, I think I better just err on the side of caution and call an expert on Monday and get his opinion, because I don't want to remove too much of the deck, because it'll be too soft for me to walk on, and I also want to have the deck retain some of its shape. Well, let's see. I started out this video by telling you guys that this was not gonna be a full 20-minute video. The reason for that is that I'm still waiting for a lot of stuff to show up, stuff I need to be able to continue working. To start out, I'm still trying to figure out where to buy the foam for the deck, the epoxy I'll use, and the fiberglass. If you guys know of a good place here in Europe to shop for that kind of stuff, please go ahead and leave a comment down below. I'm also still waiting for the vacuum pump to show up, but that should arrive on Tuesday, and then I need the silicon heater mats for drying out the hull, and I placed an order for those last Monday, and they should arrive in about two weeks. Speaking of drying out the hull, this should actually have something to do with that. This is what I'll use to control how much heat is applied to the hull from the silicon heater mat, because the thing is, the hull is not supposed to go over 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit for prolonged periods of time, because that could apparently damage the laminate. A humongous temperature controller. To be completely honest, this, at least in my mind, was a lot smaller, but I think it'll still fit in the box I've picked up, so yeah, it's okay. And this is the box that will house that humongous temperature controller. That should fit, because style still matters. I've gone ahead and figured out where I need to cut a hole in the box I've just showed you, so this humongous display is going to be centered on that box, and it turns out it's right here. Ah, turns out my scroll saw is good for other things than making awesome-looking wooden anchors. I would say that is a camera-worthy temperature controller. Angry pixies will need to flow in and out of this box, so I need some holes in it. In fact, I think I need four holes, but unfortunately, the scoundrels that packaged my order forgot to include the nuts for these glands. That's no biggie, I won't need it for another couple of weeks, but let's go ahead and drill some holes. Somewhat annoyingly, this is about as far as I can get with my little box here today. As soon as I start running cables in through these glands, I'll kind of need the nuts on the other side of these, but that's okay, I can easily wait another week. The purpose of this thing, like I mentioned, is to control the amount of heat that's applied to the side of the hull, and it does that using a temperature sensor, but I'll show you all of that once the silicon mat arrives. Good morning, guys! It is Sunday morning. A little earlier this morning, I had an idea, and that idea is to use a bit of wood to span the deck up here in front of this hatch, so that I can remove the entire piece of wet, yucky plywood that's underneath here. Now, this doesn't need to be fancy. More than anything, this is a proof of concept for something that might come in useful when I start recoring the deck. Let's see what I can come up with. Ta-da! Now, I am fully aware that this platform here is not really the Mona Lisa of woodworking. In fact, it's pretty sketchy looking, but I think something like this might come in very handy for when I start recoring the deck, because this means I can work on a larger area. I could be recoring the area that's right here forward of the platform, while the area that's immediately underneath the platform is busy drying out because I've already removed the core, yet I'm able to sit here because I'm not putting any weight on the deck. I can't agree with myself if it's a good idea, a silly idea, or a downright dangerous idea, but we'll find out in a few weeks. Before I do anything else today, I better just get rid of that last bit of plywood. That's the stuff that's hiding underneath this lip here. I had hoped I'd be able to pick up a cheap chisel this morning that I could use and abuse for stuff like this, but I wasn't, so I'll just have to use my screwdriver. Yeebus, that is time-consuming as all heck. I've been at it for hours and I've gotten a lot out of there, but there's still a lot left. The big challenge is that the stuff that's in there is not like wood anymore. It's just fibers and they're stuck in there and, yeah, I'm kind of regretting giving myself that big of a lip. Just in case I haven't mentioned it yet, this lip is here so that when I put the old top back on the sandwich construction using some thickened epoxy underneath it, I can then bevel the edge here so that I have a nice surface to re-glass this back together. The reason that lip is so wide is because I don't want to mess with the edge that's down here. That's the nice curve you see along the deck. Because the sandwich is on top of the deck, like I mentioned in my last video, I'm going to have this hump here and it actually turns out that there's a fairly decent looking edge hiding underneath a bunch of thickened epoxy and, as you can see here, I've chipped that epoxy away and, yeah, I think that looks okay for a cruising boat. Here's a closer look at that curve. I'm not claiming that this is perfect because it's clearly not. As you can see up here, it's almost vertical while down here it's a nice slope. But I think I can work with this and get at least a decent result. Long story short, I need the lip also to preserve the curve I just showed you. So I guess I just gotta suck it up and dig out all of that annoying plywood. Fortunately, I think the foam that's in there is going to be super easy to remove, so that's good. I'm sorry about this weekend's video being a little bit light, but I guess that's the one downside to publishing videos weekly. Some weekends it's just not that much going on. But like I mentioned, I'm waiting for a lot of stuff to show up. So, yeah, I guess that's gonna be it for this weekend, guys. As always, feel free to leave a comment down below and, if you've enjoyed this video, remember to leave a like. See you!