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well i got most of the foam core out of the bow. still lots of finish sanding to do. i was a little dissipointed with what i found under the core. lots of repairs, really thin spots in the hull and even some small holes and cracks. im trying to come up with a game plan on how to deal with this. im thinking of repair each spot then reinforce the entire inside bottom of the hull with a layer of glass. has anybody had to do this before? im thinking safty first, and i dont think the added weight will will make that much difference, but i dont know for sure. im also a little worried about how true the bottom will be. will these repairs make it more difficult to get it flat and streight? the batteries in my camera are dead, so ill have to post pics of the damaged areas tommorrow. thanks, mike

Mike, I see you're in Daytona, I lived on Natalist and A1 while I went to school down there. Fun times for sure.

I would do it like you said repair the spots and then a layer of glass over the whole thing.

yea, daytona is a great place to live. i left michigan in 98 because the boating season was too short. ever hit dissipearing island, or cruz the intercoastal? im taking my 23 foot seabird out this weekend. the cobia are running closer to shore, going to try to catch one.

I'm restoring a 73 vector about an hour west of you in Crescent City FL. We got on the cobia strong this year out of St.Aug. They weren't cruising the beach up our way most were caught on the nearshore wrecks and reefs or on rays between 30' and 50'. I saw very few rays with fish on them along the beach this year. Good luck on the cobes.

after 8 hours of sanding i had enoulf for the day. i really thought i would be done with the sanding today. fat chance. had i known it was going to be this much work i would not have taken the seabird out yesterday. i though i had most of it out the other day,but once i started sanding i realized there was alot left in there. it would have been easier, but someone had done it once before, and did a pretty good job. in fact if i was doing this boat to sell i would not of even touched the front of the core. i tried to position the boat so the sun would shine under the deck for the pics. in two pics you can see previous repairs. other two are progress pics. my origonal idea was to sand the hull untill i got to the bare glass that came out of the mold, but with the thickened resin used to hold the core down, im haveing second thoughts. mainly cuz grinding fiberglass really sucks. hopefully some one will look at the pics and tell me how much farther i should go. thanks for the help, mike

some of the guys pointed me to use a grinding disc from express composites. attached to a 4 1/2" grinder it made life way much easier and saved alot of time.

Yes, The grinding disk from Express Composites is a metal disk that goes right on a 4 1/2" grinder and will cut your grinding time in half from using paper disks and you will not need to change it like paper disks. I used one on my vulture and it was a huge time saver. Check out my project vulture thread. Link is in my signature. It was Chets disk and maybe he can post up a picture of it. It cost about $50 but its a lot cheaper then going through 20+ paper disks and way faster.

Here is the disc from http://www.expresscomposites.com/ it's not on their online catalog so you have to call to get one.



I would go all the way down to the original glass, here is mt vking just before I put the core in it.


Looks good so far though, it's a lot of work but so worth it the fist time in the water.

I wanted to take all the chop gun glass out but heard it was not needed as long as it wasn't defective. These hulls are so thin that after you get thru the chop it is easy to go all the way thru the hull. I found out the bad way. I used a 4 1/2 inch grinder also but used a different type of disc . These are alot cheeper and can be found at local hardware or welding suply. They are around ten bucks and come in various grits. I used 36 grit and only used one and it is still good for many more grindings. I keep them around for grinding and finishind stainless. A 120 grit will smooth out a stainless weld to look like a factory bend.

thanks for the info on the different typs of grinding wheels. probally not going to do much grinding till this weekend. i got a major case of fiberglass itch. couldnt sleep last nite couldnt stop itching. makes work really misierable. deffienitly wont be grinding in shorts and t-shrit any more.