replacing interior

[pmontesano]

Great site.

After years of appreciating C-Dory's, I am now an owner of a 1992 22' Cruiser and had a wonderful summer exploring and slowly making the boat look less tired. It needs some TLC but is sound. I bought it out of SE Alaska and the boat was green from years in the wet environment...it is again white with a blue stripe now.

I am wondering if there are aftermarket interiors available instead of my having to make the pieces that could use replacing.

Any input would be helpful, I am sue I am not the first person who has faced this

Thank you,
Peter

 

[rogerbum]

Great site.

After years of appreciating C-Dory's, I am now an owner of a 1992 22' Cruiser and had a wonderful summer exploring and slowly making the boat look less tired. It needs some TLC but is sound. I bought it out of SE Alaska and the boat was green from years in the wet environment...it is again white with a blue stripe now.

I am wondering if there are aftermarket interiors available instead of my having to make the pieces that could use replacing.

Any input would be helpful, I am sue I am not the first person who has faced this

Thank you,
Peter

Nope - no after market interiors. I thought about making some pieces for my 22 and having plans drawn up for laser cutting but I never got around to it before I acquired my Tomcat. Now that the boats have gone to fiber glass molded interior, there's also less reason for anyone to think about making an after market interior. Finally, each boat is just a teeny bit different in the fiberglass layup etc, so if you want a really good fit of cabinetry against the fiberglass, you pretty much have to do it for your boat. It's a big PITA since nothing on a boat is flat or square and every cut of wood pretty much requires that you measure the angle or trace it onto the wood with a compass.

However, if you ask specific questions like - what do people use for wood, countertop materials, table tops etc., I'm sure someone here will have an answer.

 

[thataway]

Decraguard plywood with with teak overlay pattern. The surface is "formica like". It can be improved with a coat of Cetol as we did in our 1992 C Dory.

Most folks make their own furniture and alternations. For teak parts H & L Marine in S. Calif. has made a number of add on parts, and perhaps some original parts. AFI also has a line of teak products.

The beauty of this vintage boat is that is is very easy to modify or re-do the interior. The plywood is not structural, and it attached with "L" brackets. SS brackets are best. Be sure and over drill the hole size in the bottom inner glass layer, then undercut, fill with thickened epoxy and then put a pilot hole in and screw in the L bracket.

Hull sides are fairly thin--be very careful about drilling holes, and using screws--it can be done, but epoxy, 5200 and even hot glue (temporary) are used to attachment to hull and cabin sides.

Good luck--welcome aboard, and enjoy the forum and wonderful people!

 

[Sunbeam]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new, now-white-again C-Dory :thup

One advantage to the interior basically being square-cut panels held together with angle brackets, is that (at least on the pre-fiberglass-interior 22's I've seen) it doesn't look like it would be too complicated to remove the old panels and use them to pattern duplicates in whatever material you'd like, then fasten the new ones in place.

This is in contrast to a more "shipwrightly" interior that would require serious deconstruction/reconstruction cabinetmaking skills.

Sunbeam :hot

 

[RonJr]

Peter, I replaced the interior of Beagle - a 1987 cruiser. One benefit of doing it yourself is you make it what you want. I used marine plywood and laminate. In a couple of hours the interior was out, used the old pieces as templates (somewhat), was fun putting back together. It was a good excuse to purchase a new Festool saw. Good luck.

 

[pmontesano]

Thank you all for the speedy and helpful input.

The boat is shrink wrapped in my yard and most of the interior already out and in my garage---most of the floor brackets were rusted through and I have start a primal cleaning to be finished in the spring.

My tentative plan was to get some marine plywood and use the originals as templates then I go ambitious and had notions of making the boat look 20 years younger as well.

Over the next few months, I will look for the materials suggested and plan to get her ready for the super minus tides in May 2013 when I have a week off to go clamming across the bay from Homer, AK with a few families.

Please do not fear insulting me with basic input, I fished for a living years ago but this my first C-Dory!...I also now have a family and safety is #1.

Peter

 

[rogerbum]

Prior to selling my CD-22, I took out all the brackets that held in the cabinetry, drilled out, undercut and filled all the holes in the floor with epoxy. I then used fiberglass tabs to replace the metal brackets. I got that idea from Thataway Bob. That process gets rid of a ton of unnecessary holes in the floor that can provide a way for water to get into the balsa core. When finished, I repainted the floor with a good epoxy paint. As long as you have the interior out, I'd recommend that you go through the same process. It's not that hard and the finished product will last a lot longer. Here's an image of one of the fiberglass tabs. It's a bit hard to see once it's painted over. This is looking down from the top. The metal bracket on the side is holding the cabinetry together.

 

[thataway]

Here is another view of the fiberglass tab, not as neatly faired and painted as Roger's:



This is from above looking down toward the floor/bottom of the boat. I agree would not put the angle brackets back into the core--just tab the cabinets in.

 

[Sunbeam]

I agree on eliminating the screws into the core - especially if you're "in there anyway." I've got about half mine done now; I'm working my way around the boat sealing off the core in various places.

Although I've done (and still do) " traditional" fiberglass tabbing (so I have nothing against it), I decided to try a variation on the theme on this boat. I've been using some of the Weld Mount products (studs, footman loops, etc.) and they use methacrylate glue to do the fastening. I started to think about whether I could use it in my angle-replacement scheme, and decided to slice up some of the fiberglass angle I have and do some experimenting. Luckily (since I'm traveling and don't have access to all my usual shop stuff), at the time I was at a boat shop where they were also interested in using this technique. So they made a bunch of samples and tested them to destruction. It took a lot of "destroying" and made me feel it was a viable alternative (in this situation; I'm not saying it would replace tabbing in truly structural applications). Another thing was that I visited Triton (they currently build the C-Dory) and they gave me a tour and boat-chat; they have been using methacrylate in quite a few places on the boats.

A couple of side benefits:
--There is no need to sand and prep the fiberglass and the cabinet panels in the same way that you do for tabbing (dust, etc.).

--The furniture panels are still removable in future (the angles stay attached to the boat).

I don't have photos yet (have been meaning to start a thread for my boat projects, but I'm too busy doing boat projects :wink), but the basic idea is this:
1) Remove metal angle and screws, slightly overdrill hole into core, dig out a bit of core, coat with neat epoxy, then fill with thickened epoxy.

2) Slice up a piece of pre-made fiberglass angle. Prep it as desired (leave it bare, gelcoat it, paint it, etc.)

3) Hold angle up against cabinet panel and glue the bottom leg to the hull with methacrylate glue (I have some Weld-Mount glue on hand, but 3M also makes a "stand alone" methacrylate).

4) Fasten top leg of angle into cabinet panel.

Tabs are still a great way to go - I just post this as an alternative to consider. The main thing is to eliminate of the unsuitable (metal-wise) angles and the holes into the core.

Sunbeam :hot