TOPIC: Pour in floor verses wood

Good day

I am considering whether to use a pour in composite to replace the wood in my lap line hull.

I would like to keep this boat as authenic as possible but if there is a better way that will not affect the looks to any great degree I must consider it.

I do not know enough to make a qualified decision.

What are your thoughts.

The picture only shows a couple of spots but there are a bunch more just not as big.

Is the core showing clear signs of rot, or is the top lay of glass failing? It's hard to tell by the picture. If the wood is still good, then just tearing off the old fiberglass & re laying a skin on it will do. If the core is bad, the hard part will be getting it all out. I've never seen the core of a Larson - I don't know if it's Balsa or plywood.. Builders cored hulls with both, and some other matrerials as well. Pouring a floor seems like it would be extremely difficult to do, and I have no idea how it could be done in a boat like yours, because the "floor" is actually the hull of the boat. That means there is no "flat" area to work with.

From what I can tell so far is that they used wood for the floor and stringers no plywood was used there.
As you can see from the pictures the wood is there but soft to the touch.
The top layer of fiberglass has delaminated itself from the wood. I can pull up fiberglass chuncks.

the wood looks to be Douglas Fir. You sure that it isn't doug Fir plywood cut into strips? I've see that done on many boats over the years

It is hard to get a big picture of what the floor looks like, can you pan out and take a few overall pictures?

I was able to use marine ply on a Crestliner. I believe I used 2 layers sandwitched with fiberglass cloth and epoxy. The 1/4 inch ply allowed it to "bend" a bit with weights on it.

I know that the Little Falls built boats used cedar strips for the wood core. They were laid in the hull bottom after the gel coat and the first layers of fiberglass were shot in. It was then encapsulated with subsequent layers. It was to give longitudinal strength to the laps, with inner crossmembers to give lateral strength. Are they soft or soggy? Cedar is a naturally soft wood, with much the same characteristics as pine or fir. If they are soggy or show signs of rot, get rid of them, if they are just soft, they should be just fine with a new top layer of glass. You really can't use sheet goods here as you have to follow the bottom contours of the "laplines", that's why they used strips. If you do cover the floor with some type of sheet or balsa-core, you'll be left with voids where the laps are and leave yourself open to all types of dynamics that were not intended for this hull. It looks like you are tearing out the inner bottom just where the center of the boat hits the front seat bottom. This area might be different than it is as you work your way further away from the middle of the hull.

Lee Wangstad

The boat is a Courtland's out of Cornwall Ontario

The boards used in the hull are a soft wood ( my bet is on Lee so cedar it is) but the board used for cross member is hard wood (hard to put a mark in it).

There appears to be 12 boards/strips of which 2 would at this point would defiantly need to be replaced. The rest seems to be more of the fiberglass delaminating itself in spots where a crack has started, then water and dirt got in. The wood is dry and not rotten but it you tap it around that spot it sounds loose but if you tap up the same strip a foot away it sounds solid.
The bad spot is in the middle of the boat with the two center strips being the ones that have to be changed.



The rear seat could be cut out with a good box cutter.

I see I see said the blind man.

The two boards that require to be changed out don't go the full length. They join together and stop just under the rear bench seat.

There is still a heck of a lot of work ahead of me but finding this out definately puts things in a different perspective.

The core we removed in ours was cedar....

Hows the resto going Thawk Sr, haven't heard from you for a while...