Plastic Classic Forum

Wow, it must be a first, people actually liked my advice...aka bullEDITED FOR CONTENT BY WEBMASTER. Must not let it go to my head.

The Censors wrote:Please refrain from posting any profanity. Thanks.

I'm envious of that setup. Simple and it looks great. My thoughts on the air flow issue... Before putting in my little Webasto heater I spend a good long time with 3" duct and the metric stuff it came with. I duct taped different blowers and a ceramic heater to the ends and tried blowing it aro...

On the subject of heating with the cookstove... For awhile I was sailing club boats here in the PNW that did not have heaters--a cold and wet prospect. Over a number of trips on different boats, catalina 27, bristol 22, etc, I tried a number of methods to heat the cabin. Most successful: on the cata...

If you have more money than you know what to do with, I might recommend the Webasto heater (2000 in my case). Pros: I didn't have bulkhead space nor did I really want an object to kick on the deck. It is small, hidden, automatic and blows lots of hot air. Cons: It is expesnive, consumes power, more ...

Since I'm in the middle of a similar project I'll chime in. I decided to suck off the bottom of the tank (I have a top and bottom port pre-installed in the Todd tank) with a bit of a j-trap to facilitate getting as much of the sludge out as possible. The tank is also mounted with a very slight tilt ...

The bit of modification to the companionway hatch was well worth the effort. Didn't realise you were that serious about pictures Tim, could have saved you the effort of linking them if I'd have known. The tabbing extends about 3 inches on either surface--staggered an inch per layer and three layers....

Thanks for the info guys. This was indeed an easier project--except for the dust everywhere... A few additional bits of info: Wood Strength Specs: here Project picts (most are up): here I didn't end up leaving any tabs of tabbing behind for later alignment and still managed to get it back within 1/8...

So I see lots of votes for Simple Green and a few flammable ones. Now perhaps I've worked in labs for too long, but it is not my cleaning agent of choice. However, I was thinking that to a certain degree the bilge residue is engine related (when it sticks that well it seems to have some hydrocarbon ...

Thanks for the wonderful thoughts. After long thought and a bit more research I think I have to replace the bulkhead--no ifs ands or buts about it. Here's why: On most Cal's (Lapworth) there was this ingenious beam under the main bulkhead instead of stepping the compression post (or mast on some mod...

Check with your local plastics dealers. In the Seattle area Port Plastics carries a pretty good range of the standard thicknesses (up to 2" thick) and will sell pieces for much better than McMaster usually. If you need more than 2" thick it will most likely be a special production run (at ...

Thinking more about this and looking at it more I'm beginning to think replacing it would be a good idea. The only way I could see saving it would be to cut out the outboard 8" and make some form of a cored fiberglass tab off the hull. The remaining bulkhead could then be tabbed onto this. This...

Very good list! I only have two comments about it. 1) If you want to find something lost at sea, orange is the color to go for. Yellow is terrible in flat light, especially from the surface, dark blue is actually better in this case. So if you want to increase your visibility with the ditch bag, fin...

First off before I get to Tim's wonderful comments. No, I haven't found a fiberglass gusset with my minimal probing. I'll look today. There is an extra peice of wood on the backside but it doesn't appear to be covering one. It is a deck stepped mast. It has a solid teak compression post that has suf...

Tim, Ah, a question I can answer. The replacement windows are from Bomon Marine in Canada. I talked with Mark Plastics down in CA who made the original Cal windows which I think the boat might have had when I got it. They each had a polycarb sticker on them yet Mark swore up and down he only ever us...

So I've finally gotten around to posting some of the picts of my long drawn out insulation project. You might ask what isn't long a drawn out when it comes to boats, but this has been going on now for one and a quarter years. This has been a full year longer than I naively thought, a cold one at tha...

Since I noticed someone else broaching this subject, kinda, I thought I'd leap in...under a new thread since it seems a bit different. My question is this, when is replacing the entire bulkhead required and when should it just be repaired? And if repaired, what is the best way to go about doing it? ...

Might try DeBond 2000. Was recommended here at the local Fisheries store as a way to remove just that. And so far I have to say it's worked well with the silicon I've used it on (maybe I just have special old silicon that it likes though...). Spray it on, wait a few minutes and it all wipes right of...

The thought 5 years ago when I went through asbestos abatement training was containment and wetting. If its a large scale removal then all sorts of regulations apply and particle counts have to be taken to monitor air quality inside and outside the containment area as well as PPE, air filters, etc. ...

I had good luck where I worked cleaning up the housing of our Bluefin Robotics AUV (had an ABS housing) simply by sanding. It seems that ABS oxidizes a small bit and changed the yellow to a browner yellow--wrong color for search and rescue in the ocean but I didn't chose it. I'm guessing that waxing...

My two cents to the discussion: The straight line bit on lightning is not really true, but rather an oversimplification of a few factors, namely the impedance in the circuit for a longer run and the potential field between the charges. I'm skeptical that jumper cables would in the end do much, mainl...

Looking around McMasterCarr one day I discovered a surface mount GFCI device (part # 72155K73) that I'm intending to install with the circuit breaker so that I know all the boats 120VAC wiring will have GFI. It seems like a logical solution, although I haven't tried it yet, and is blackboxing the en...

We use Citrol and Penetrol at work for most of our cleaning which admitably does a pretty good job, although we're dealing with back deck equipment usually. Any scouring agent will help the first time or two but make it harder and harder as you'll be adding more small grooves for things to take up r...

According what I got back today from the DLNW it would be ~$800 (CV05) for the parts. This is of course omitting the cost of putting a bulkhead in place that the thrust bearing could rest against. I tend to like the idea of a drivesaver better, thanks for heads up Tim. It'd be easier to find an inch...

Brian, You bring up a load of great ideas. The mounts are not torn and the engine compartment isn't sealed or insulated--it does however have my finally working webasto heater in it. I haven't checked the alignment yet but will soon, nor looked at the prop to see if it is even close to balanced. But...

So I've been trying to decide the next major project to jump into (really should be electrical but...) and have been toying with the idea of making the engine a bit quieter--read into that a lot quieter. Its a small inboard Universal 12HP 2cyl. diesel that has old mounts, needs a rebuild, etc. But w...

I've found that cutting the panels to close tolerances only partly works. If the points forcing the curves are foam, the foam will deform or be cut through in time. And for my case, many of those points almost have to be foam. The real issue is I have a hard time putting a 6" radius on a panel ...

Britton, Some questions because I'm also going through this at the moment, except on a Cal 29 in Seattle on a cold lake. How are your fiberglassed blocks turning out? This is the biggest problem I've found with the Armaflex since under point loading the foam degrades. Here is my solution: Take a 1&q...

Reading this post has been very insightful. However, I can't help but wonder how much more helpful (and thus should I purchase one) the DA part of the sander is. I'm currently using a regular 7" polisher/sander for heavy inside paint removal with a 36-grit flap wheel. I've found at slow speeds ...

The price for Armaflex AP sheet here in Seattle is as follows: 1/2" thick, 48"*70' is ~$300 1" thick, 48"*35' is ~$315 I didn't price the adhesive they recomend, the paint (although any good latex paint will work they said), or NP or any of the other products. For 1" I think...