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WTF? gap under pad

teamhart2

teamhart2

Well-known member
Hey guys, so while I was waiting for some resin to setup this afternoon, I decided to sand out those cracks I had on the bottom of the pad to see how deep they went and how big a project it was gonna be to fill them. So I got threw the cracks, which appeared to be mostly surface stress cracks and uncovered a few small voids, figuring I was there anyways I sanded those out and eventually got to the wood in the pad. The good news is that it doesnt look like water ever got to that wood, the part I dont understand is, theres an almost 1/8th inch gap between the fiberglass and the wood the whole way across the pad. Got a test little piece of plastic and I'm guessing this gap runs the length of the pad or at least 3 feet forwards and back from where I was working. Id say it must be the wood pulled away from the fiberglass as it aged, but theres no sign there was ever resin on that wood.

So WTF? is this something anyones seen before? is it normal? Does everyone with a predictor or enticer from the 80s have this issue?

The fiberglass layers here are probably almost 1/4 inch thick, so its pretty strong, banging with a hammer youd never guess theres a void there, so do I try to inject something in there to fill it? or make my patch on the area where I had the cracking and keep an eye on it?

Did I somehow buy the crappiest boat checkmate ever made?
 
Ouch, not good. Sounds like the glass de-laminated from the pad.
If you are planning on light power and never running the boat above 45 mph, then you could maybe inject something in there. The problem with that is it will deform the pad creating all kinds of nasty handling problems.
I would grind off all the glass until you hit some that is still bonded and re-glass it. This will insure a good bond, and a flat pad.
 
I dunno, I have a hard time believing it delammed, not because I dont think that it would happen but cause the little hole i have is right on one side and on the edge you can see the bondo right down to the fiberglass and then the gap starts. It looks more like the wood was never touching the fiberglass, plus the outer layer of the wood looks immaculate, no sign any resin was ever on it. I'm wondering if this is common, and no one ever realizes it. Like I mentioned I banged freakin hard on this thing with a mallet before when I was worried that pad might be rotted, and again today after finding it, and there is no hollow sound or any indication that there isnt wood behind there.

I was willing to tackle a pretty big project, but I dunno if I have it in me to redo the whole pad.:pissed:
 
Gap

I think I'd call Checkmate and see what they say. On my Enchanter the balsa wood was not glasssed to the bottom but it was very wet. I thought the bottom floor was sound, it felt solid but sitting in the sun while I was fitting pieces water was sweating out of the glass.


Art



If it's slow it must be an OMC.
 
Yea the weird thing about this is that its definitely not rotted or wet. Ive seen it from both sides now, and even cut into it a little to be sure from the top.

Any recommendations on who to contact at checkmate?

No one wants to volunteer to drill into their pad and check if they have the same thing for me? haha if everyone else was riding around with this same thing I would just patch it and go.
 
It sounds as if the balsa core was never bonded to the hull..if thats the case, I would remove the existing core by cutting around the perimeter of the interior pad. I would grind the remaining surface and clean the corners. I would then recore the pad with end-grain balsa core set in a bed of puddy before reglassing over the core.
 
the pads in these boats, or at least the ones of this vintage are plywood not balsa, the balsa starts on either side of the plywood, unfortunately I already glassed all that back in and dont really want to cut all the pad plywood and everything out, especially since the wood isnt rotted or anything. Any thoughts on filling the void with epoxy or something? I know gus said he thinks itll deform the pad, but I think that is underestimating the strength of the fiberglass here, even on the edges of the little hole I have there now, laying under the boat, pressing up with two hands on the hollow area I cant even get the edges of the hole to budge any closer to the plywood.
 
so im thinking i might try to mix up a soupy batch of resin and milled fiber (so its not just resin and inject it from two holes i wanna drill from the inside through the pad- front and back until I get it coming out of the current hole. I know this isnt an ideal solution but I figure as long as the void is filled it will act the same as if the wood was down against the fiberglass. Plus it cant be any worse than whats been there for the last 20 years. Lemme know what you all think of that idea.
 
TH2 do you have a picture of the area in question? Maybe that might help the guys here see what you're talking about.
 
i like the the idea of drilling and then injecting to poly into the holes. then just run some tape over them till it cures. i would use a floor jack to apply pressure to the bottom once its all filled.
 
yea the jack is a good idea Matt, Ill get some pics up in a bit. also gonna find a tester to see if its the entire length of the pad.
 
goddamn my old man

for some reason even though every guy my age i know would have carried out that plan, today I picked up a thinny tape measure to throw in the gap and measure how far Id have to fill..... and pulled out a little bit of moisture. So because of some sense of doing a job right my old man instilled in me, I knew I couldnt leave it. So I figured Ill have to replace it, anyways I cut out most of the pad and didnt find any rot, but the gap had some moisture in it, so Im glad I did it. Luckily I have some plywood around to fill it back in and some 12 inch tape and matt to glass it in over the core I already replaced. Anyways at least I wont have to worry about throwing a 150 on it at a later date I guess.......

beforeDSC01438.jpg

after
DSC01459.jpgDSC01457.jpg
 
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