Haines V15 rebuild

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

I recently found a very dilapidated original Haines V15 on a trailer without a motor. It was in pretty terrible condition, but I thought it was worth giving it a 2nd chance.

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These little boats were a direct copy of the Bertram V15 (but for the flooding keel), that Haines used to build under license for Bertram Australia and were the forerunner of the Haines V16.

When I got it home, I cleaned it out and had a good look at the ugly:
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Someone had already had a go at replacing the transom, but it was such a poor effort that I decided to do it again from scratch. For some reason, the "repairer" decided to cut off the back deck to get access to the transom, but then cut the back skin off and replaced it from the outside. Just a rubbish job and the perpetrator obviously knew it, as She sat in the open for long enough for the new work to begin rotting! So I pulled up the floor which had also been replaced, to discover a whole new world of Jerry build.

Instead of replacing the stringers, raw meranti timber was roof screwed to the rotten original stringers. There was nothing to bite into, just the original poorly rolled fiberglass skin, as the original timber has disappeared. The hull was pretty badly banana'd, so I put the boat onto a cradle, set up a bimini frame to carry a tarp, and set to work.

IMG_3795.jpg You can see where the rot had attacked the "new" transom.

IMG_3809(1).jpg I ended up removing the inner skin as well, and set up a braced melamine mold to rebuild the transom from the outside in.

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Poly resin and marine ply transom.

Next, lots of grinding:

[Kevinwd1]

Looking forward to watching this rebuild. Being new to this ,I ‘m finding out how much work and time it takes to do a rebuild.So keep posting your progress as it’s good to see how it’s done

[giddyup58]

Hi again.

For the record, I purchased the boat on 4th Feb, 2023 and started work 12th March, 2023.

What I neglected to say in the first post, was that to get the boat truly level, I have previously mucked about with water levels and measurements, but nothing beats the ease of a digital level on a 2.4 alloy straight edge.
I hot glue tabs under the outer chines, lay the straight edge on them then use the digital level
The spreader timber brace built onto the rear cradle is then levelled as well, so it's an easy point for reference and holds the back of the boat in its correct position.
Obviously, that was part of the set-up prior to cutting the old transom out.
IMG_3808(1).jpg

After the transom was done, I turned my attention to the big woof in the hull, so after a 3 hour grinding session, I released the stb'd stringer and the aft bulkhead, then set about straightening the hull.

You will notice that the bulkhead has been released everywhere except the outer edges, so I could then see if the hook could be removed by wedging off the now released bottom of the bulkhead.
IMG_3827.jpg

Also, the stringer has been glassed on the "uphill side" only, so if I need to, it can easily be released for further fine tuning of the hook.

It took ages, but eventually the 2 stringers were in and fully glassed after I got the hull to an acceptable level of fairness:
IMG_3833(1).jpg

Rear bulkhead next. The tom is to get the rear section fair.
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Front bulkhead next. I also glassed heavily over the semicircular stiffener between outer chine stringers and keel :
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Aft section was set up to support rear hull, brace the transom and a drop floor to carry the 2,500gph bilge pump and a 30 litre removeable plastic fuel tank.
The floor is not glued and glassed in at this stage:
IMG_3847(1).jpg

The keel was next. I didn't think to take photos, but those very old deep V's had a carry-over stubby (almost) full length keel, about 25mm deep. My 19C has one as well.
I always thought the boat would perform better if it were to be removed, so on this boat, I filled the internal "well" of the keel with timber coated with sticky tape (so nothing will stick to it), then ran a couple heavy layers of 225csm and 450db across the top, to bind the inner skin of the hull.
The intention is to remove the keel in one piece when I turn the boat over to repair all the hull stress fractures, and then glass the outer skin together.
If it doesn't work in the water, I'll reattach the keel, but I am very confident that won't be necessary.
In an earlier build, the HH 1600SO, I turned the keel into a 175mm wide plank, but that didn't help it, I don't think, because it was stupidly overpowered, and being an old boy, I was too gutless to drive through the chine walking and get it up onto the plank.

Next job was to get the floor cut out from a single sheet of 12mm marine ply, which is about 30mm too narrow, but that's easily enough fixed. The ply does land on the outer chines, so there's plenty of contact area to epoxy glue the floor and then fill the gap to edge with ply off-cuts which will then be glassed over with the rest of the floor, giving a flat full width floor, with no gutters down the side as per factory, 55 years ago...
IMG_3855(1).jpg

More soon...

[Tracker]

I'll be watching this. Loved the v19 build. All I can say is you must love the fiberglass itch.

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

With the underfloor done to the point where I was happy with the shape of the hull (4.4.23), it was time to get onto much more mundane jobs.
IMG_3846(1).jpg

All of the green deck molding gelcoat was in a terrible state. There were a million micro cracks all over it.
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I have found that the best way to fix it is to actually grind off the gelcoat and to then epoxy glass the entire area. In this case I have decided to use the Basalt Twill weave, 260gsm.
I used 400gsm DB on the V146R wave breaker boat (same problem).
On the V19C I found the same micro cracks on the reverse chines and did the repair using the basalt twill weave, which was much easier to apply than the fiberglass DB.
It has been parked on its trailer outside for about 2 years now, with no sign of degradation.

Full suit up, gloves, earmuffs and respirator to grind off the gelcoat, which took a full 3 hours. And I was using the ripper disc!
RSI attack and 3 weeks later, I still have "trigger finger".

But I ground off 90% of the foredeck, all of the aft deck/motor well, and the flowcoat from the aft deck as well.

I fitted the aft deck back onto the hull so I could work out the floor configuration under the well.
Managed to get a 30 litre tank and a 2500gph bilge pump into a recess under the well, after decreasing the depth of the well.
Fit new false floor, glass in from the top, let it go off properly, flip over, cut off original floor, grind fair, glass, done!
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Also managed to repair the butchered front face of the aft deck, where the combing had been hacked away:
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To finish the glass work on the aft deck, I repaired 5 large holes in the well, and ran a 50mm tape of csm around the vertical sides of the deck, where it slips over the hull.
This area was severely compromised by the sheer number of pop rivets that were used to bond hull to deck.
I will be glassing the 2 together when the time comes.

Next, I removed the rest of the deck to give unencumbered access to the front 1/4 of the boat. Too hard crawling under to grind and do glass work.
I fitted the keel from forward main bulkhead and it was then that I decided that I needed a decent size fuel tank up f'r'd, so I got a 40litre "Hulk" tank and fabricated floor and rails to hold it in place.
As it turns out, I had to extend the floor a further 200mm fr'd:
IMG_3890.jpg

While I was there, I removed the anchor locker floor and fabricated a new one, 18mm thicker and heavily glassed top and bottom, in case i wanted to run a Lone Star GX1 drum winch in the future.
I added a thick prop from aft end of the locker floor to the fuel tank floor (which is supported by the keel girder) and replaced the towing eye timber backer while I was there. Good thing too, as it was also rotten.
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I then ran the same 50mm wide 600csm "band" around the entire joining flange of the hull, for the same reason as I did the aft deck. All nice and stiff now. Trial fitted, no probs...

Last thing I was was putting off, was the "final grind".

The side pockets were rotten and the hull sides needed to have the white house paint and flow coat removed in preparation for a new flocoat job.

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And new side pocket uprights were fabricated:
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And that brings us up to date.

[giddyup58]

Hey, forgot some stuff.

With the foredeck, I had to fill the hole that had been cut in as a hatch to the anchor locker. Don't know why, but it was done.
In their absolutely ham-fisted stupidity, the modifiers chose to cut through the foredeck stiffeners. The deck had absolutely no strength.
So I fixed it by glassing in a fresh 6mm ply core.

I epoxied an 18mm marine ply pad under where the anchor launcher/roller would be fitted and continued with a 12mm pad down the centre line further aft to become a glassed in backer for an anchor cleat, or perhaps for a hawse pipe for a Drum Winch to be mounted under the fore deck.
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Also, the dashboard stiffener, which actually is a structural member of the foredeck, had delaminated on both sides. Which were fixed:
IMG_3887.jpg

Lastly, there are 5 large repairs in the engine well.
1 on port side, 1 on forward face and 3 on stb'd side.
The 1 on port side had a cup screwed onto the inside, to give clearance for a hydraulic ram, and the others all seemed to be begotten attempts at fitting slop stoppers...
How did the boat never sink?
IMG_3896.jpg

I have a 1997 Mercury 90hp 2 stroke for this boat, and ol' mate Cyril is back on the job and giving it the once over.
When he's done, I'll get it home and painted.

I have a good braked 1,500kg Dunbier trailer that only needs 2 cross members replaced, so we are looking pretty good...

More soon after this darn rain clears...

[Dignity]

Hey Giddyup, I feel like you might as well build a boat from scratch with all the effort you've put in.

[chris69]

Hey Giddyup, I feel like you might as well build a boat from scratch with all the effort you've put in.

Now we’re would be the fun it that it’s all about the challenge the hulls alright it’s the wood that’s let’s them down.

[Dignity]

Now we’re would be the fun it that it’s all about the challenge the hulls alright it’s the wood that’s let’s them down.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy Giddyup's no nonsense posts, I'm in the process of rebuilding my dash after it had been hacked about previously by the dealer, I should have ripped it completely out but did a lot of rework, now suffering the itch.
Looking forward to the next episode.

[giddyup58]

Long weekend, rain gone...Time to get little boat moving again!

Got the side pocket uprights glassed in and side pocket floors scribed and dry fitted, Everdured underneath and glassed in.

I spent a fair bit of time with final stringer height adjustment until I was happy that I couldn't get it any better, then bit the bullet and epoxied the floor down.
It had already been dry-fitted and the underside Everdured (no need to glass - just needs to be waterproof).

That was done and screwed off (not too many 1.5" 6g S/S - about 20 from memory and all countersunk and heads bogged over).

There was a 30 mm gap between the edge of the floor and the vertical rise of the chine, and it got much wider towards the front, so I made up packers from 1/2" ply and set them in poly bog which I made from 50:50 micro balloons and cabosil, and left it all to dry overnight.
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I had a go at it this morning and faired the packers as flat with the floor as possible, then prepped the whole lot for glassing.
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The width overall was too wide for the Basalt (1m roll width), so I struck a centre line, measured 500mm out either side (width of "glass" up centre of floor) struck another line 75mm closer to the centre, being the overlap for the 300mm basalt full length for "tabbing" in edges of floor to hull, which would go down 1st.

That went surprisingly well, considering it was done outside, in the sun, with 225csm followed by 260gsm basalt followed by peel ply:
IMG_3910(2).jpg IMG_3911(1).jpg

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And, as luck would have it, I didn't have enough resin left to lay the centre section basalt, but that is not a bad thing, as I will be able to properly prepare the job for the centre piece, instead of rushing it.

I really want to then get it all flow-coated (top edges already masked in preparation for glassing hull to deck) and the deck re-fitted, so I can turn the hull over to get on with removal of the keel and repairing all of the stress fractures under the hull..

More soon, if the weather holds...

[Dignity]

Giddyup, did you inject resin into the holes before screwing the floor down, just a thought that could be a point of ingress at some time.

[giddyup58]

Hi all.

Just had a couple of productive days on the little Haines due to the good weather and having purchased some more resin...

I got the centre layer of basalt fiber down yesterday, but it was a bit more involved than the result would indicate.
The 225gsm CSM had to be cut to size, as did the basalt and the peel ply.
As the deck is over 2m long and my arms aren't, I rolled each of the products and applied the resin about 400mm at a time:
IMG_3917(1).jpg IMG_3918(1).jpg

Next step later in the day, was to get the flowcoat on:
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That was all looking pretty good, so I loaded up the spray gun with 2pac gloss black and speckled the new work (before the deck went on):
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I then fitted the deck and the engine well, but that took a lot of fettling as it was so badly finished from factory.
I noticed that the deck had a "banana" bend to it if aligned to the original mounting holes, so I chose to fix it and lose the bend.
It was not as straight forward as I had hoped, as I had to make allowance for the mounting of the gunnel rubber, which has nothing to attach to.
That will be taken care of by fitting an alloy "L" section and attaching the rubber to that. I used this method on the old reverse chine Haines V19C rebuild, and it was quite acceptable.

So I had to trim the bottom edge of the deck molding to get it level. If not done, it would play havoc with the gunnel rubber.

Anyhoo, I got it all straight and level and it's now ready for bonding to the hull and attaching the alloy gunnel rubber support.
The bottom edge of the blue tape was the cut line.
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I am itching to get the boat turned over, which will be a challenge, as I'm on my own.

But I have a plan...
.
More soon, hopefully.

[chris69]

No just make a cradle and strap the boat to it tie a rope to the other side and lay some tyres down and pull it over if you can get something to get some higher point to pull it up once its on it side you half way there or just knock on the neighbours door ive flipped my own boat by myself but with someone else its would make it better, you can cut some ply on a curve and screw it to the craddle in 2 places so when you get it on that edge it will roll over very easy if you get my drift,were there is a will there's away and you look very handy to sort it out have fun.

[Kevinwd1]

What sort of spray gun setup do you use to do the speckle .Also how much time do you have after applying flowcoat before you have adhesion issues with speckle due to the wax in the flowcoat
Regards Kevin

[giddyup58]

What sort of spray gun setup do you use to do the speckle .Also how much time do you have after applying flowcoat before you have adhesion issues with speckle due to the wax in the flowcoat
Regards Kevin

Hi Kev.

I used a cheap gravity gun, 2mm tip, 2pac paint neat - no thinners - wide open fluid delivery, very low air pressure (almost off), and experiment with fan.
You can adjust the size of the blobs that get spat out with air pressure.

Quick acetone wipe and the 2 pac will stick. I've done it after a few days and no ill effects. Careful on verticals, as it may run a bit. Play with it off the boat. A very small batch goes a very long way.