On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:09:59 -0400, "mr.b" wrote:

2 questions.
Has anyone ever heard of this procedure being done from the interior
rather than the exterior of the boat?

Also, can anyone give a ballpark estimate as to the expected cost of
loosening the lead ballast on a fin-keel and re-sealing/repairing the
joint between the two?


I did extensive core replacement, but from above. Reasons:

1. Easier to work. Working fiberglass is hard enough without trying
to do it overhead.

2. My non skid areas were imbedded glass beads. Possible to repair
the non skid and blend it so the repaired areas were not obvious.

3. my boat was old enough to need a complete cat poly job anyway, so
no paint matching problems.

4. the heaviest structural part of the deck is the underside, that is
the heaviest glass thickness and heaviest woven roving. At least mine
was. I didn't want to disturb that.

5. when you put new core in, end grain balsa in my case, you want to
wet it in to both glass layers well and fully saturate it. Difficult
to do working over your head. But from the top, you can just lay it
in like slices of bread, cutting and trimming until you get it just
right, then begin the process of permanenetly installing.

6. I didn't want to cover or remove everything on the inside that
might be impacted by the work.

7. I didn't want to be enclosed with fumes, dust, etc.

8. In my case the core had gotten wet, and the water had frozen,
cracking the outer layer of glass and gel coat, so some repair from
the top was going to happen anyway.


On the second question, if the lead ballast is loose, it needs to be
adressed. If you have simply have a seam, but the lead keel is still
soundly in place, you don't need to remove it in my opinion. That was
the case with mine. I filled the crack with an elastic caulk at each
haulout, prior to painting. Did fine.

Frank