recoring the sides of the cabintop

[Bob L]

My inevitable deck re-core job is still percolating in my mind. I'm completely familiar with the cabin top and side deck process, thanks to Tim and other web posters, but none of them seem to mention the sides of the cabin top.
I can envision cutting off the vertical side skins and re-coring that entire area-it wouldn't be much different from the decks - only vertical. But what about where the cabin top turns down to the sides, or the sides turn to the deck? I couldn't sleep at night knowing there was old balsa in there. Any thoughts on the process?

[dasein668]

I'm not aware of any boats that have cored sides. Certainly on the Triton the sides of the house are solid glass.

[Tim]

My inevitable deck re-core job is still percolating in my mind. I'm completely familiar with the cabin top and side deck process, thanks to Tim and other web posters, but none of them seem to mention the sides of the cabin top.
I can envision cutting off the vertical side skins and re-coring that entire area-it wouldn't be much different from the decks - only vertical. But what about where the cabin top turns down to the sides, or the sides turn to the deck? I couldn't sleep at night knowing there was old balsa in there. Any thoughts on the process?

It's rare to find a boat that has cored vertical surfaces like the cabin trunk sides. They do exist, but I'd guess with some certainty that you probably don't have to worry about this.

Exploration of your own boat will refute or confirm this, but I'd be surprised to hear that you found core in there.

[rescuesailor]

My True North has cored cabin sides as well as top. Naturally they were rotten as was the deck. All the sides were cored with small blocks of plywood and I have replaced them with the same. The curved sections were not really that difficult. I simply cut one inch by three inch blocks and glued them into place using epoxy and cabosil. I then filled all the areas in between with thickened epoxy and finally re-installed the skin. The one inch width allowed me to easily stay in the radius of the curves and the inner skin fit fairly tight. I made sure when I did this job to leave about three quarters of an inch around all the portlight openings and filled with solid thickened epoxy. Around the forward hatch I drilled several holes in the cabin top and used CPES epoxy. I did this prior to replacing the side core material. I injected enough epoxy until it ran down the sides. After letting the CPES cure I filled the holes with West System Epoxy and faired out the surface. I still have some cabin top areas to complete. I believe I will remove some inner skin to get to large core areas and use the CPES for the smaller places until the entire boat is done. This is one job I do not want to have to revisit. I now understand why it costs thousands to have this done at a yard.

David