this is part two of changing this to
this and making sure that the upper shroud chain plate bulkhead will never
deteriorate again hello we are Patrick that Rebecca
Childress on the valiant forty brick house
we are currently hauled out in Richards Bay South Africa going through the boat
doing a lot of things making some modifications and getting this boat
ready to Atlantica but first we have to finish up this project isolating this
wood bulkhead from any possible leakage from the upper shroud chain plate and I
made one template using two pieces of cardboard it’s a lot easier to do it
that way and then tape them together then we’ll bring them downstairs lay it
out on top of the FIR mica and then start the cutting process for me the easiest way to cut plastic
laminate like Formica or wilsonart is another brand name is to use a laminate
trimmer and that is a small router that spends a two-bladed cutter at very high
rpms and in this case I’ve already marked out the template onto this big
sheet of plastic laminate but it’s just too big to deal with I want to cut it
down to a smaller size and make it more manageable so I’m setting up a straight
edge hold in place with clamps and then I’ll run the base plate of the laminate
trimmer along that straight edge and make that as my first cut to cut out the
finished product on this job I’ll be using two different cutter bits these
are both 90-degree bits as opposed to beveled bits beveled bits would
generally be used on countertop edges so that you don’t have such a sharp edge to
rub against the orange bit in the machine right now I would use as a
plunge bit making plunge cuts in the center of large sheets of Formica to
open up an area that would then be made larger later on in the work process to
make a long straight cut using that orange bit the base plate of the machine
would then write against a straight edge that would be clamped to the work the
yellow bit has a ball bearing roller guide on it so that will follow any
profile that is clamped below the work surface of the plastic laminate whether
it’s straight or curved this is the same yellow roller bearing guide bit running
against a straight edge cutting a piece of polycarbonate and it will be just as
straight and smooth as the guide that the roller bearing is following these
bits rotate in a clockwise direction looking down from above so it’s best to
move the machine at a direction so it tends to throw the chips and bits away
from the work rather than into it it seems nothing ever fits right on the
first try so a little marking here and there and then a trip back down to the
ground it was easier actually to put 150 grit paper in
sandir in sand to the blue line rather than set up the laminate trimmer and try
to trim it out that way I had a problem when I went to the
hardware store to buy the glue that I needed to put the Formica on to the
bulkhead I asked the clerk standing in the aisle for contact cement and no
matter how I asked him he assured me the smallest amount that they had was a
50-pound bag so I was standing in the paint section I knew it had to be close
by and then I finally saw the cans on the shelf contact adhesive they call it
in these other countries so we had a good laugh about that one
but I finally did get what I needed so now we are ready to stick the first
piece in place this smelly solvent based adhesive works far better than the
useless water-based contact adhesive and generally it takes two coats on the
Formica or on the plastic laminate and I’ll just put one coat up on the wall in
this case I’m just putting some around the perimeter this is risky business
once this stuff sticks together there’s no manoeuvring it around it has
to be a perfect exact plop up against the wall and there’s just no room for
error so I’m just going to put some around the edges here it doesn’t matter
if it’s not adhered in the center there’s going to be a bracket to hold a
shelf in the middle and some other things so it’s going to be well adhered
but it’s most important right now is just to get it glued in around the edges
without messing up the project now that little projection up at the top left of
the sheet of plastic laminate that’s where the old chain plate hole used to
be but that’s all been filled in with epoxy and fiberglass over on the outside
it’s totally sealed because we’re going to be making a new hole on this side of
the plastic laminate so I made another template to match the front of this
cabinet took that down cut out the Formica plastic laminate and then I mark
the inside edge of the door opening with a magic marker
and I’ll take that back down cut that out again it just makes it a little
easier for putting on the contact cement and doing the final cutting do the exact
dimensions of the door frame work with two coats of contact adhesive on the
backside the plastic laminate and it is all dry
almost dry to the touch of a fingertip to the glue it’s ready to set this in
place it’s a very delicate precise operation to make sure everything gets
lined up exactly if I really made a terrible mistake there’s a chance of
getting a hair dryer set on high or using a clothes iron or maybe even a
paint stripping heat gun set on low to heat up the plastic laminate and
especially the glue underneath to loosen it up to pull it apart and then give
myself a second try today is a lucky day now to route out the inside edge of the
door frame so I set up the yellow bit with the bearing guide set that just
deep enough to right inside of the door frame in to cut the plastic laminate
going around in a clockwise direction so it throws all the chips and bits away
from the work I just slowly follow the inside of the doorframe until the base
plate of the laminate trimmer this won’t go any more we get hung up on the far
side on the far right side but that’s no problem we’ve got a solution coming up
and it isn’t doing it by hand putting the trimmer bit in an electric
drill allows one to get it into some very tight places but the electric drill
runs at a much slower rpm so you have to work slow and carefully or risk chipping
out the work this boat is 43 years old and there’s
things that just fall off of it like these cleats that are supposed to be
adhered to the fiberglass hull and they hold up the horizontal deck slats so we
cleaned things up a bit of sanding mix up some thickened epoxy with Caviezel
and butter it all up and squeeze them in and then find something to help hold
them in place until the glue sets taking everything apart to do the rebuild on
this project not everything especially the teak pieces come out intact so some
of the trim has to be glued back together with epoxy oftentimes clamps
won’t hold it but rubber bands do fine and the rubber
bands they don’t really get epoxy done it doesn’t adhere to well through the
rubber bands and they can easily be sanded off anyway and that is sips job
the whole time I’m inside doing this work sip is outside sanding teak and
doing all the varnish work all of these flats were originally
installed at the valiant factor using common steel grads so over the decades
those grads just turned into a rusty mess they barely held anything it was
really the compression fit the good work of the carpenters who cut exactly right
and is that compression fit that was holding most of these slats in place and
then the big problem was getting those rusty nails out of the wood they would
just fall apart so most of them I had to drill out and then use putty to putty up
and smooth and over those holes for reinstallation of all of these slats I
used stainless steel pan head screws and set up string lines to follow to try to
get as straight of a line as possible and the time came before putting up the
fiberglass ceiling panel to cut the new access hole for the chain plate but
first I put up very thick duct tape to help protect the new Formica and then
using a multi-tool did a vertical plunge cut right up through the very thick
fiberglass decking and it would be easy enough to avoid that hole from outside
of the boat the multi-tool is a great tool to have on a sail boat and it has a
blade that oscillates side-to-side and obviously can get into some very tight
places to make sure that there was no rotten balsa coring in this area we
opened the area up and dug everything out and then built it up with layers and
layers of 1708 which is biaxial cloth with a chopped strand mat backing is
solid it took a bit of reaming with a drill bit to open up the chain played
hole and then this whole area was painted the chain plate was installed
and then sealed in place with butyl sealant butyl tape actually and the heat
gun was used to help liquefy the butyl a little bit make it more pliable and then
crammed down into the gaps on either side of the chain plate for many
applications especially around chain plates I prefer butyl in a caulking gun
tube it’s just more pliable it’s easier to pump into the voids but unfortunately
this butyl tube is empty but I save it just to show everywhere
trying to buy more of it it’s american-made butyl and that’s the only
kind of butyl in a caulking gun tube that is worth using Chinese all the
foreign made butyl is just a lot of junk and it just isn’t the same stuff after
that the only thing left to do was to install the shelves which was easy
enough and then figure out what to do to replace that ready old insulation that
was on the inside of the hull up in the stereo cabinet so let’s go into the
marine store and see what they might have for insulation to glue up along the
hull so the option for insulation to glue up
on the wall was this rubber mat or this rubber mat 12 millimeters thick which is
a little bit less than 1/2 inch and it felt like a rubber exercise mat and it
came in either black or like early american-made cars black there was no
option here on what to use so unless you’re dealing with Space Shuttle winged
tiles where you can put a blowtorch on one side and comfortably put your hand
on the other a half inch of anything available at the Marine store isn’t
going to give us much insulating value aerogel is another super insulator but
aerogel and space shuttle wing tiles are bit pricey and certainly limited
availability especially for gluing up on the inside
wall of sailboats so if you know of anything that works especially well
that’s affordable for cruisers for insulating the inside of their sailboat
if you can leave that information down below in the comments section that would
be a great help to a lot of people so this insulation is really there to help
prevent condensation inside of the boat don’t click off just yet we have a video
progress report on the outside work of this boat
well the bottom is already for copper coat all the puttying and patching and
painting on the outside has been done we’ve gotten a lot of work done on this
boat over the last 7 months there’s still a few more things to do but I’ve
got a lot of video to put together so we have a lot of DIY videos coming up so
thanks a lot for watching I hope this was worthwhile for you and if it was
please give it a thumbs up and also click on the subscribe button if you
haven’t already thanks a lot and we’ll see you soon a sip
hey there’s my friendship yeah yeah thanks do you got it all
started SIPP went to work full-time for a contractor here so I’m happy to give
them a start and now we’ve got a lifetime job forever and this is our new
guy the little rainy day today so we’re just finishing up polishing up some
propane tanks do a little sanding on them and primer good rainy day work