Bulkhead Repair Plan
In between battling and investigating the leak situation I’ve been planning the main bulkhead repair and thought I would post the plan so that any lovely readers can comment or give me their thoughts/tips on it before I jump in.
It basically breaks down in to 8 steps:
Step 1. Remove all rotten wood from bulkhead
Step2. Make a replacement cut out from 18mm marine ply which will fit the hole
Step 3. Place new piece into hole, join using Rabbet joint and glue in place leaving a small gap at the bottom. (Gap is optional and only needed on thin skinned vessels, see next step)
Step 4. Fill gap below new plywood with foam to avoid plywood resting directly on the floor and creating a hard spot on the hull. (only a real problem on thin skinned vessels)
Step 5. Make fillets either side of the bulkhead to round out the sharp corner joint. Epoxy putty can be used for this.
Step 6. Key the entire area to ensure decent adhesion from fibreglass
Step 7. Fibreglass in the whole area, overlapping the joins by about 100mm. 3 layers of 600 roven woven fibreglass (is you use chop strand go with a heavier fabric) will be used with slightly decreasing surface areas for each layer.
Step 8. Sand down ready for finishing.
et Voila. Thanks to Dan Gibbons and his colleague as well as the guys on the Ohlson 30 Owners facebook page for the comments, advise and suggestions :)
