I have a 1973 36' Gulfstar. At some point in her history a PO cut out the top skin of the decks, removed the balsa core, replaced it with some sort of foam (not sure what it is, it may be klegecell, it is dark yellow and dense). He then put the top skin back on, hopefully with epoxy, and covered the decks with treadmaster.
There is a section on the aft deck where the top skin is not adhering to the core. I don't think there is any rot there, there isn't any sag or any thing like that. But if you step in the right place the top skin makes a snapping or clicking noise and bounces just a fraction.
My surveyor suggested drilling some holes and shooting epoxy under the skin then weighting it. I know this is a bad idea with a rotted or wet deck, but in this situation, where I think he just didn't get the skin glued down would it work?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks
"Clicking decks"
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- Master of the Arcane
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If you're sure you are in the foam core, repaired area, and that it's dry, go ahead and inject some epoxy. I presume you'll pull and replace the Treadmaster so that you won't see the repair. I would not drill holes for a bolted repair which would be pretty localized.
An easy two afternoon's work that will pay almost instant gratification.
What do you suppose is generating the actual 'click' noise? If it's just clicking down agains the core the injected epoxy will likely cure it forever. If it's been oilcanning you might look carefully around for the place that it's been flexing and make sure there's no cracking in the skin. You may need to repair the skin as you rebond it to the core.
An easy two afternoon's work that will pay almost instant gratification.
What do you suppose is generating the actual 'click' noise? If it's just clicking down agains the core the injected epoxy will likely cure it forever. If it's been oilcanning you might look carefully around for the place that it's been flexing and make sure there's no cracking in the skin. You may need to repair the skin as you rebond it to the core.
Although, it sounds as though the top skin has "simply" delaminated from the core, which is the foam. So I can see where you could try re-attaching the top skin to the core with epoxy. That wouldn't involve getting the epoxy to penetrate the foam, would it? I would think it would be bonding the top skin to the surface of the foam.
Granted, there might be more wrong, and the PO may not have done the repair properly, but at this point it seems like it wouldn't hurt to try the simple epoxy-bonding-skin-to-core approach..... right?
Granted, there might be more wrong, and the PO may not have done the repair properly, but at this point it seems like it wouldn't hurt to try the simple epoxy-bonding-skin-to-core approach..... right?
- Chris Campbell
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