Save-A-Boat - The Forum for Plastic Classic Rebuilds!

I have heard from a couple people in the past that some of the west coast Tritons are cored although I never saw one until today. Actually I have seen this boat before but did not realize that it is cored. The boat belongs to Robert Heggen of Fortman Marina. I posted some pictures of the major restoration work that he is undertaking in another thread - http://www.plasticclassicforum.com/view ... 0577#30577. Rob showed me the core on his aft deck where the deck is about one inch thick. Rob said that his fore deck has the classic symtons of delamination - sponge feeling under foot. I guess it is true no two Tritons are identical...

All the later (3xx and 4xx) West Coast boats seem to have cored decks, although the cabintop is still solid glass. Mine (#450) is balsa cored. It seems that only the early Aeromarine boats were built with solid decks. While attractive from a maintenance standpoint, the solid decks are thinner and thus less rigid than the cored decks. You can also be sure that the solid decks are pretty heavy, and that weight is up high in the boat. It's not doing wonders for the righting moment.

Thanks for the info. I did not realize that. I also agree with you that cored decks are attractive from weight point of view but I really like solid glass deck for the ease of installing deck hardware. A couple of years ago I took almost all of the deck hardware off to repaint the deck and I remember thinking then boy I am sure glad that I don't have to think about water going into the hundreds of holes I had to clean out (well I still do but at least I was able to be pretty casual about it).

West coast Tritons have other disadvantages though, the hull thickness I discover from the through hulls I had to replace/add is a little over 1/4 inch only! It's also nearly impossible to get access to the cockpit storage area through the galley. Therefore, it is impossible to add a large fuel tank. The built in fuel tank under the cockpit is FG and presents a big problem with the newly formulated ethanol gasolin. The built in water tank under the sole is a good idea but I will not drink that water. The FG galley top sags and is the first thing I threw out after I bought the boat from the PO. The mast spreader go through the mast with a solid steel bar with aluminum spreaders just attached over it with cotter pins. Over the years the corrosion in the spreader area (both spreader and the mast) is unbelievable. I had to have Svendsen cut it out and put a partial sleeve around the mast and then installed regular spreader base outside the sleeve. Anyway, there are many adavantages and disadvanges but I will never say "west coast Tritons are better" or "they are built like battleships" because that is simply not true.

I worked on jets, for the Navy, that had laminated skins. As I recall, they used a phenolic honeycomb material. I wonder how that stuff would work in our decks?

My mom used to be a mechanic for United airlines, and she brought home a few chunks of that stuff.
it was amaxingly strong, you could take a two foot by 6inch peice, lay it across some blocks and jump up and down on it without deflecting it at all.

Think you can get it without facings, which are pretty flexible until bonded to the skins,so they could be used on curved surfaces. Hardest part of using them I think would me ensuring secure bonding to the skins after installation.


Ken.

keelbolts wrote:I worked on jets, for the Navy, that had laminated skins. As I recall, they used a phenolic honeycomb material. I wonder how that stuff would work in our decks?

Check out www.nida-core.com. This sort of thing is already fairly widely used, though its benefits over other core materials, as always, are debatable.

That looks like it. What's the down side to this stuff? It seems like it would be light, strong, and rot-proof. Cost maybe? I guess that anytime you have to run a fastener into or thru the deck, you'd have to fill the void with epoxy.