Cabin Overhaul

A

ADQdory

New member
Hi all, I am looking into redoing the cabin in my old C-dory. After several years of use the wood has faded quite substantially and most, if not all, the screws have worn out their anchor points. I was thinking about changing out all the wood and replacing it either with fiberglass or plastic sheets(not a big fan of wood). Was wondering if anyone has done anything like this or has any recommendations on any other materials to use.

Also, has anyone ever done an extended transom on a c-dory before? looking into that as well to try and get rid of the engine well and free up deck space or just reworking the transom to match the new style c-dorys. Mine is an old 1981 22'.

Thanks for any help
 
I would not an "extended transom", but you might consider putting an outboard bracket--like the Armstrong bracket--and make the transom solid. This would probably be easier to do on one of the early C Dorys.

Wood is easy to work in comparison to fiberglass. Fiberglass interiors are molded--for example when we were building boats, we molded the fiberglass hulls, and built the interior out of wood, tabbed to the fiberglass hull.

There are PVC lumbers Coosa and Penske boards,, but there are some disadvantages of this, as well as advantages. Plastics are hard to work with for an interior. For single off: wood works well. If you don't like the finish, there are choices: paint or put a veneer overlay. Any screw holes can be filled and the screws reset. If you are referring to screws of "L" brackets to the hull bottom, if they are loose, the screws should be removed, and the holes routed out, and then the wood tabbed in place with fiberglass and epoxy.
 
Difference in terminology I guess, but yes an outboard bracket like the armstrong one is what i was talking about when I meant "extended transom." What I learned them as. I can make one myself since I am a welder and have built a few aluminum boats. Just wasn't sure how the stress of it would play out on the old transom. I want to get rid of the engine well and clean up the deck.

I would use wood, but I am not a fan of the maintenance, nor the patience, of it. I like the idea of plastics and fiberglass. Would you know if I was to fiberglass in a new cabin wall if that would create unnecessary stress in the center of the boat? That seems to be where a majority of the screws have worn out their holes, both where the wall screws to the center board, and where the seating screws to the floor.

I will definitely look into sealing in the holes.
 
You can do a armstrong bracket or a armstrong extended hull. The big difference is that a bracket just places the out board farther back off the hull with out creating any lift. A extension, whether is be alum or fiberglass, is a continuation of the hull and provided lift. Many people don't relies that the alum extension on my boat is really a continuation of the hull. It mounts flush with the bottom of the hull and is the same width as the hull. I highly recommend that you use a Extension and not a bracket. If you are hanging that much weight that far back off the hull and past the design of the hull I would want the added lift of the extension.

There was a cbrat that built a great looking extension of his hull. Full rebuild and extension of the fiberglass lines of the hull. It looked great and he said preformed well. I can't seem to pull up a search of it. maybe someone else can.
 
beer:thirty was the C-dory with the hull extension. The owner / fabricator sold it soon after. Rumor was he bought a Ranger 25sc.

-Dave
 
I most definitely want to do an extension and not a bracket. I want the extra buoyancy. I only plan on mounting a new 90hp 4-s and a small kicker, but I do plan on having a ladder mount because I enjoy scuba diving and would like to do it off my boat.
 
The ladder mount and ladder that Armstrong makes might be a good choice if you're a diver. You can buy the ladder and the mounting for it without buying a bracket and can attach it to whatever you build.

As for wood vs. plastic, you might consider buying some decraguard marine plywood. It's coated on two sides with a laminate that' pretty darn durable and is relatively easy to clean. That's what the factory used in the boats from sometime in the 90's up until about 2005 when they started doing the fiberglass interiors. The biggest issue with the plastic woods is that most tend to droop over time as the plastic "flows" fairly easily. You can't really span long distanced with the plastic w/o multiple supports along the span. Plastic woods (such as starboard) are also a good bit heavier than a comparable strength plywood. Also, in really cold weather or when subject to shock (or worse yet both) the plastic can crack a lot more easily than wood. Finally, the plastic wood is a lot more expensive than a good quality marine plywood. I love starboard for external use and things like cutting boards but it would be too heavy and prohibitively expensive for replacing the interior cabinetry.

If you're dead set on wanting to avoid wood, and you can cut and weld aluminum, that might be a better choice. Sheets of aluminum with a honeycomb spacer can be purchased for about the same price a a similar size sheet of starboard and would provide much more strength and stability for much less weight. Also, the counter and table surfaces could be made from one of the thinner chunks of solid surface counter top materials or you could use a standard piece of laminate counter top.
 
I do like those armstrong ladders, will have to look into them. One of my main concerns about adding the Hull extension, is that i would want to remove the old engine well. Would that have any negative structural side effects? Seeing as the engine well is mounted all the way to the deck.

Also, would there be any negative side effects of glassing in the bulkhead, seats and cabinets to the floor?

Out of curiosity, is there any foam or anything in the voids in the forward v-berth? or is it possible to cut in hatches and use them for storage?
 
ADQdory":3frdieto said:
Also, would there be any negative side effects of glassing in the bulkhead, seats and cabinets to the floor?
Click to expand...

Actually, that's a strong/good way to attach furniture and bulkheads. The downside (besides that it can be labor intensive/messy) is that you then can't remove any of the furniture very easily. A good compromise might be to glass in tabs but only bond them to the hull (mold them to the furniture but with a release tape in place), and then screw the formed tabs to the furniture. Many of the Albin boats are done this way. It's not quite as strong as fully tabbing both sides, but that strength would not be necessary (and after all, you are replacing angle brackets and short screws, which basically provide no strength - not that much is necessary - at least on my era 22 Cruiser, the interior plywood furniture is not really structural.).

I re-did some of the angles in my boat for two reasons: One is that they were just "regular old" metal, and the other is that they were screwed directly into the hull core. I considered tabbing (which is what I would have done on a sailboat, for example), but then decided to try something different for a change: I epoxied stainless brackets to the hull, and then attached them to the "furniture" with stainless screws. It's nowhere near as strong as good tabbing, but that's not really necessary -- and it is much better than what was there originally (holes into core were sealed/filled with epoxy and not re-used). Also, the furniture is removable should I want to remodel/repair/clean/etc.
 
Beer:thirty did not do a full hull extension--one could weld up a bracket which was a full extension. It looked as if the wooden extension had some issues with mounting the kicker, if you look at the photos. If you are a good welder, you would be better served by making a hull extension out of aluminum. Some armstrong brackets do give floatation, including the Tom Cat which gives some floatation. I agree with Tom's assessment, if you are going o put a modern 90 4 stroke, that you will want more floatation. As an engine is set back from a hull, it needs to be raised about 1" per foot of setback (without a full hull extension.

As for glassing in furniture and bulkheads--there is a right way, and wrong way. The right way is to put in any wood, or glass bulkheads, with foam between the hull, in a trapezoid form--even 1/2" thick is fine. The foam spacer is the thickness of the panel on one side and about 1/2 thicker on the side against the hull. You will spread out the attachment to the hull with progressively narrower layers of glass. For example the first layer will be 4" of mat, then 3" of glass cloth, and finally another 2 1/2" of mat. This avoids a "hard spot" on the hull, and spreads out the load.

But if you are going to use fiberglass, you have to either build or buy panels of fiberglass. This is not all that easy to do, but of course can be done. You need a table for lamination--and some "nonstick" on the surface--lay up a couple of layers, then a core--for example Nadicore is light and costs less than marine ply, then lay up the top layer of mat and cloth. When you join two pieces of glass, you have to radius the outside of the attachment, glass over it, and blend it in, then gel coat. A lot more work than wood is. But I have a friend who built a 63 foot power cat almost entirely by himself using this technique. It took about 12 years to do this working about 10 hours every day.

Using the Decraguard or any cored material (aluminum, or fiberglass), you still have to finish the area where the core is exposed--and want to avoid sharp corners (which can cause injury).

The question if removing the engine well will weaken the boat: If you bring the new transom--where you fill in the old cut out for the motor, up to the deck cap level, and cover this with fiberglass blended into the old transom, and then make a radius to the cap on the deck, to the transom (Make the cap of the deck at least 4" wide aft--and also leave about a 4" cap across the transom, there should be enough strength. There has to be several layers of glass--and I would be using some mat and roving--again you are going to have to learn how to do fiberglass work, and what is necessary. In my opinion, this is more difficult in many ways (including physical effects of fumes, glass fibers, having to wear a full suit and respirator), than simple wood working. But I have done both. I would not use aluminum to fill the transom notch, and then bolt it into the sides of the hull--this will put too much load on where the bolts are--you need to be spreading out loads, after you remove the splash well.

I don't know if the resale value of the boat is important to you or not. The quality and aesthetics of modifications, will have a profound effect on the future value of the boat. It may be harder to sell a boat which is modified.
 
ADQdory":2uvxvul9 said:
I<stuff clipped>

Out of curiosity, is there any foam or anything in the voids in the forward v-berth? or is it possible to cut in hatches and use them for storage?
Click to expand...
This depends on the model year of the boat. In general, there is more often foam there than not. However, to answer your question, yes it is possible to cut hatches there and use it for storage. Many have done this and there's more than a few threads of discussion on this matter. Here's a link to one such thread. I'm sure you can find many others by searching the site with terms like foam, v-berth and hatch.
 
Thanks for the I advice Thataway. I was definitely not looking at filling in the transom void with aluminum. I dont like bolt holes in fiberglass, thats the current problem with my motor. I would definitely want to fill it in with fiberglass.
As for the extended transom, I want to do it full width and only extend it 14"-24", depending on how much room I would need to tilt the motor.
As for resale value, Im not too concerned, but will try to make it look professional, and not slapped together.

Thanks Roger, will try and look at some threads about it.
 
I also have a 81 Classic. My boat has storage under the hatches in the v-berth. No problems there but everything that we don't want wet MUST be in a waterproof bag.

I repaired my cabin with wood covered with fiberglass. Had to cut out quite a bit of the cabin rear wall to get rid of the rot, but now is strong and sealed. This might be foolish but I used hardwood plywood. Just sealed it with epoxy before adding the fiberglass and more epoxy. For holes that didn't hold the screws any more, just drill them out and fill with epoxy (thickened). Then pilot hole and replace the screw.
 
Back
Top