this is my first post on here, i need some advice lots of advice actually.
my girlfriend and I have been very lucky and been gifted my partners grandads boat that he built by himself back in the mid 60's.
however there is a lot of work to be done to it to get it back on the water ie:repainting/bodywork fibreglass work and lots of TLC.
the good news is we have a good engine and the body does not look too bad so far.
our biggest problem is i have no idea where to begin, i am absolutely willing to put in all the hard work and i know this will be expensive and time consuming but totally worth it in the end.
from what i know of the boat it was built somewhere around 1960, originally it was built for skiing on the lakes in rural western Australia.
many years later the family moved to esperance where he converted it to more of a fishing boat with lots of add ons to the original bodywork.
the body is made up from marine plywood the fibreglassed over. is this standard practice?
my biggest question is do i need to remove all the fibreglass?? and take it back to plywood surface?
or can i simply remove the bits that have chipped off?
if i need to remove all the fibreglass then what is the best method? grinding/sanding?
i still have a little bit of work before i get to that, but looking for knowledge now its proving very hard to find what i need online.
if anyone has got some links to previous builds/restorations that would also be very useful.
i am sorry for my complete lack of knowledge but i've not really been around boat work before to have any understanding.
if there is anymore info you need please let me know.
looking forward to hearing what you all have to say
I hate to be a downer on this, but you need to be very careful with this form of construction. Sometimes the fibreglassing was done much later, to extend the life of a hull which was showing it's age. Bondwood, used correctly, lasted for many decades, even when in full-time immersion. There are still Sambraillos over here, ex-crayboats, built like this, in use as large pleasure boats. It really comes down to how well it was built originally, and how well it has been maintained. If kept dry, the bondwood certainly won't rot, but, if the outer skin was leaky, water can sit inside there for a long time and cause the ply to soften.
Take particular care with the strength of the transom, it was where most of this form of construction failed, IIRC. The best type of "fibreglass" sheathing used was Dynel, where they used a cloth instead of the chopped strand mat. I am only going on old memories here, as I had a couple of bondwood commercial boats back in the day, it was a very common form of boat contruction here in WA in the rock lobster fleet. Lots of TLC needed to keep them in top shape.
You would probably be best served finding a wooden boat building forum--they are out there, and have a lot of accumulated knowledge.
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