Floor frame project

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Floor frame project

Postby Slim » Sun Mar 28, 2021 11:08 pm

After three seasons of dealing with ill-fitting, inward slanting, half busted up floorboards with little nail heads working their way out to gouge unsuspecting bare footers, the time has come to take some action. As one who uses my boat for cruising exclusively, often sleeping at anchor under the cuddy deck (usually not a good night's sleep but the scenery is hard to beat...) my primary goal is to create a level sleeping surface. It may be a stretch, but perhaps I could go from "floorboards" to "cabin sole" Ha! not likely, but there is definitely room for improvement. For now, my priority is the forward floorboards and if all goes well, maybe the cockpit will get the same treatment.
So the plan is to scrap the old floorboards and start from scratch. If my boat is like all the other early DS1's, then you are all aware of just how loosely the original floorboard assemblies fit. The little crosspieces that hold the boards together only vaguely fit the shape of the hull, making the whole unit pretty wobbly. My plan is to make floor frames that will lie perpendicular to the hull using some scraps of black locust I have. Those will get epoxied and fiberglassed in place and then I'll make new floorboards out of some 1/2" ash boards my neighbor milled up for me from a log saved from the firewood pile. I am thinking that the new floorboards will be attached to each other using strips of metal fastened to the undersides. This will allow them to still be removed to two sections even though the frames will be permanently attached to the hull.
Progress has been good so far. Lots of scraping away at many layers of old paint to expose raw fiberglass to glue the frames to. Then a lot of figuring with level/straightedge, etc. to determine a plane to shoot for. The boat is off the trailer for the winter and I have it blocked up mostly level on the waterline in a tarp shed. Hoping that the hull is supported roughly the shape it is while floating. I definitely notice when putting it on the trailer that the keel rollers push up, somewhat distorting the shape of the hull. I want to make sure that the frames are attached well enough to resist this deformation while on the trailer. We'll see.
Here's what I've done so far:
28482861

Frames glued in place with thickened epoxy. Hard to see in the pictures, but I cut the inside lower corners off at a 45 degree angle to allow for drainage. It wasn't till they were glued down that I realized that water will still get trapped above the stringer bump-outs. Hoping this won't be an issue. Probably not while on the water since the rolling of the boat should keep any water moving, but sitting on the trailer, I reckon little puddles will form there. Next step when the weather warms up again is to cover the frames with 4 oz glass and run it out onto the hull a couple of inches.
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Re: Floor frame project

Postby GreenLake » Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:42 am

+1 on the idea of maintaining four sections. That way you can lift them, even underway, to access the space below, whether to retrieve a split ring, or dry your bilges.

Idea: leave a cutout for a bilge pump hose in a few places. Just so you can stick it down to the bottom without needing to lift a section. Preferably where you don't step.

Water will puddle in different locations based on whether the boat is afloat or not.

You don't write whether you are going to use a cardboard or thin plywood template. That would allow you to get the outline perfect (but also double check that the supports are level).

Have you considered the relative elevation of keel rollers to your bunks? I set the bunks, then fit the rollers from below, so they only take full weight in the front, Rearmost one, is not supporting anything, all the weight there is on the bunks. It's even 2" below the hull. Bow will still run along it on launch/retrieving, but the bunks take over, lifting the rear. From that point on, the boat glides on the bunks as I winch it in, and that means it will always follow the winch line, not roll off the rollers, even if at a slight angle.

Hard to describe, but works really well. Here's a picture:
2798
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Floor frame project

Postby tomodda » Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:53 am

GL, what's the board next to the rollers for?
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Re: Floor frame project

Postby GreenLake » Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:02 pm

It's a gangway. Useful on the rare occasion I need to walk all the way to the end to clear something.
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Re: Floor frame project

Postby tomodda » Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:47 pm

That's what I thought, but given your previous piratical proclivities, I feared the very worst!
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Re: Floor frame project

Postby Slim » Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:10 pm

Keel rollers- I redid my trailer bunks last spring and added a roller and ended up slightly raising the rollers so that they support some weight of the hull , evenly distributed between the four of them. I figured this would ease some of the strain on the flatter part of the hull, which was already deformed from 50 years of too narrow bunks. Also I was hoping to make it easier to push the boat off the trailer in shallower launching spots. I was once almost thwarted by a falling tide and shallow ramp, saved only by detaching the trailer from the car and pushing the whole rig out into water deep enough to float my boat full of gear! But the higher rollers do definitely highlight the flexibility of the hull and the various strains trailering entails...
For sure access beneath the floorboards is essential, and I was thinking of having some hinged access flaps or removable pieces above the deepest part of the bilge on both sides. I’d like to be able to secure the whole floorboard assembly down so in case of capsize it doesn’t just fall out, but also have it be easily releasable without tools to access the area below. I have never capsized my boat, but can too easily imagine not only all my gear, but the floorboards as well floating around my wave-washed and wind-blown boat while I struggle to right her.
How do other DS1 owners secure their floorboards/gear?
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Slim
 
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Location: Vermont

Re: Floor frame project

Postby tomodda » Mon Mar 29, 2021 9:59 pm

First of all, if you flip a DS, then you've got bigger problems than just the floorboards. On most DS boats, the floorboard aren't secured at all, they just lie there (insert bad joke here). As for gear, anything I don't want to lose is tied either to me or the boat. Under the cuddy, I usually tie things to the mast, in the cockpit to the underside of the thwarts. I'm meaning to come up with better tie-down points, but will do for now.
If you truly want to secure your floorboards, then I'd suggest wooden toggles. This gentleman has a nice page on how he did it on his (wooden) boat:
https://www.facebook.com/david.luckhardt1/media_set?set=a.10152490959158646.1073741865.519763645&type=3
For a DS, you'd have to epoxy some pads into the bilge. Good luck!
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