Glassing A Canoe

[Arthur fowler]

Hello All,
I recently purchased a CLC sassafras canoe from someone who made it in a class. It seemed to be in good shape but as I was working on her I noticed a split in a lap stitch seam in the area of the bow bulkhead. It doesnt appear that it was sheathed in fiberglass.
I intend on decking and sailing this canoe .
Will the unglassed hull be unfit to put a sail on due tonpressures exerted on the hull?
Should i strip the paint and apply fibeglasa
Thanks,

 

[Jim Dodd]

Arthur, could you post pics ?
Glassing would add extra strength, and for a Sail boat, I'd think it prudent !

I'd address the split in the seam first, and yes, remove the paint before glassing.
Sounds like a lot of work, but in my eyes the proper way to go.

Jim

 

[Arthur fowler]

Thanks Jim!
I think it will be worth it in the long run.

 

[Arthur fowler]

Also , being inexperienced at working on these things maybe a little restoration is a good place to start.

 

[Rod Tait (Orca Boats)]

Glassing a glue lapstrake hull will be a bit difficult as the glass will not conform well over the joints with likely some bubbles under the laps. And you would have to sand all that paint off first. I would look at cleaning out that joint and then inserting some thickened epoxy in there and clamping closed. Can you force the joint closed or is the plywood warped? Is it just the one area or are you concerned with more? A well built glue lap hull should be strong enough to sail. Maybe the overlaps were just not large enough with not enough surface area in the joint.

 

[Arthur fowler]

Thank you Rod,
It looks a bit warped. I'll have to take a better look. I assume that lap was weak and the air in the bulkhead expanded in the sun. . The prospect of stripping all the paint is not appealing and costly if i have someone do it.
The rest of the boat looks fine
Do i need to open up the bulkead deck so i can get on both sides of the lap, clean out the old epoxy and stitch?

It looks to be full of foam.
A

 

[Rod Tait (Orca Boats)]

If that sealed area inside the bulkhead is full of expanding foam, I would bet that the expanding foam is your cause. Can you see if they drilled a hole in the bulkhead and then inserted the tube of the can of foam because if they filled it with wet foam, that stuff can exert a lot of pressure as it expands. But now that it is dry, I don't think that you need to open it up to clean it out unless you can not get that plank to go back into place. You should be able to push some thickened epoxy in from the outside. You will have to first dry test how you plan to hold it in place while epoxy sets. If you can feed wires from outside to stitch up that would be best otherwise some sort of clamping set up.

 

[Arthur fowler]

Great ,Thanks!

 

[JClearwater]

Looks like you got some good advice from Rod and Jim. Just a thought but because it's a CLC boat you might post your question on the CLC forums or contact CLC directly. Most of the problems all of us encounter on our various boats have already been experienced and addressed by someone else. It's just a matter of connecting up with the right guy.

Good luck with your project.

Jim C.

 

[Arthur fowler]

Yes, they hadn't gotten back to me and I was anxious to get a response so I posted this.
They have since and they concur with Rod.
Thanks