Glen-L.com

Hi all, I have below the water line almost painted and see it would be a lot easier to paint the sides while it's still up side down. My problem is that I have bumper rails to go on which I will not fit untill it is righted. This means I would only be gluing to paint rather than resin. It would still be screw fastened as well but seems less than perfect. The bond would only be as good as the paint durability right? I also will have rub boards along the sheer. Same situation. I thought about masking off strips for the above mentioned but seems the posibility of errors would be great. Some advise would be awesome. I really would like to paint the sides while shes bottom up.

Kind regards

Wayne

I think I agree with the adhesion only being as strong as the paint. I'd be a little nervous too. Why are you waiting to attach the rub rails? My guess would be that you're not sure where the rails should be until the boat's in the water?

What kind of paint are you using? Possibly, you could use a repairable paint that could be sanded, the rub rails attached and then repainted. I'm just thinking.

This might be a question for Oyster.

hi Wayne-
thru bolt the rub rails into the topsides. They take lots of dock action and need more than screws to attach them. make sure you hit the longitudinal or add material then drill and use 3M 4200 on the bolts/holes. Can be removed later if repairs are needed.
-Billy

My two cents, paint the hull completely while its upside down. When folks turn the boat over, adjustments are sometimes made to the sheer, or what I call cleaning up the shape along the profile. There is nothing wrong with sanding the paint to allow for the bond but there is nothing wrong with bonding sacrifical rails to painted surfaces taping it off which also allows you to remove them and replace them which occurs in many boats that takes a lot of abuse. Check out this thread for a side note. This can be done with the wooden parts too.

A bit off topic, but i also suggest in numerous cases that you actually prime wooden rails with some oil base primer that also gives you the advantage to remove and replace the parts. Priming also allows oil based caulking to keep its base in tack. What happens over time is that in using raw wood against some of the caulks and beddings is that it sucks the oil slowly out of the caulks and turns it to chaulk like residue.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8428&p=55192&hilit=PL+caulking#p55192

I need to research what you you are building, but the above thread is a previous post concerning bedding compounds that both work as an adhesive and a bedding compound with examples of metal rails that actually protect your rubrails too, preventing damages to the wooden parts, going further.

Wow guys - trying not to hijack this thread for it is a good object lesson.

But you just stopped me from making a serious error. I was going to inbed my rails into the sides so that the leading edge would dissappear into the sides and not be blunt.

If I am looking to replace this rail on occasion, I am definitely not going to route this thing in.

Now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

dave

The down side of bolting rails on you cannot always get to the nuts on the inside of the boats, especially foward. With proper bedding compounds this does a pretty good job with holding and keeping movement in check. In the case of a boat hanging up on pilings and the likes, you actually want wooden rails to either splinter or rip which saves you from sometimes sinking the boat. The inwales on most boats does a good job in holding fasteners when applicable.

figure the wood would get pretty eaten up if it got hung. but better than the hull. my purpose was not to lose the rubrail when i needed it the most sometimes not good logic huh
-Billy

Thanks for your replys everyone.

Dave, I know the exact location as per plans but it would be so much easier with the hull righted. I am using International Yacht Paint. I have considered painting the sides then sanding back where I needed. Because I love sanding so much. God help me I won't be sorry if I never see another peice of sandpaper again.

Billy C, Are you saying I should bolt the rub rails on without any adhesive so as to make a more simple job to remove them if nessecery? I do like the sound of that. I don't have any longitudinals on the Bonanza but are planning on taking the rub rails a little further forward so as to end on a frame. I thought I would reinforce the inside ply with a coulpe of laminations of say 6mm. What is 3m 4200? Is that a lock tight compound? If I through bolt the rub rails how should I finish the outer edge. I was hoping to have exposed timber but I see a few guys wrapping them with stainless edging. I have no experiance with this product.

What do you guys mean by a bedding compound. Is this a non adhesive cushion?

Thanks again

Wayne

hi Wayne-
here is a link to the 4200
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/e ... 8HT14PGTgl
it will let you remove the rubrail without destroying the hull or finish and seals the mounting area so no water gets in.
on the rubrails i repeated the stainless rubrail that was used along the coverboard/topside junction as do most of the antiques that we are emulating. I thought it was a good idea to thru bolt and reinforce as i did all my cleats and have easy access to the bolts on my style hull. Oyster has been building or repairing boats for a bit longer than most of us... he suggested just screwing it to the hull instead of thru bolting so you may reconsider that.
-Billy

Heck he worked on the Ark!!!

I have some rambling later this evening, I have you know when I am done gluing that will hopefully clarify my opinion on the rail issue, actually stemming from the "ark" days. Remember I am only one in the mix of the bunch and would like for anyone to make their decision to what may the best for your individual setups and boat design.

rambling time....
When using rubrail fasteners they should be counterbored and either covered with bungs or wooden plugs or filled over with thickened glues. In most cases you will not be able to hold any head or hardware in most cases unless the heads are glued in place which has been installed in the counterbored holes. Even then they can spin since getting something to hold the head may not be possible with the limited amount of space the the leftover glues which takes some work to remove in most cases.

Sometimes after your boat ages and if you use stainless steel hardware and throughbolt them, unless you have purchased the absolute best, corrosion always seem to occur on the nuts and threads. This complicates removal in confined areas. Its also quite possible with stainless that you will gawl the aged threads which fills the nut threads too and still not get the nuts off. Heck when folks use mechanical means to run in screws or even use hand tools with a ratchet head, this also will gawl threads unless you go slow or lubricate them when using small fasteners. So also keep this in mind when using any stainless steel machine thread fasteners and nuts.


I am not always a big fan to use the glues with bungs as removal is almost always impossible to do to. But in most cases people do glue them in and you can just drill out the bungs if you wish and then take an ice pick and clean up the heads the rest of the way.

But in the case of a splintered rail, you can normally sheer the wood from around the hardware and will do so if bedded with a flex compound. If solid glue up has been used for the rails making them stuck to the hulls, you will need to use several methods that includes some verbal abuse too.


Flush installations of hardware gives water a route to enter into the hull edges. But you can go that route if you plan on using a metal rail over the edges. Just make darn sure that you plan your hole pattern in advance, having the rails in hand. Of course this can also change in some of the areas so don't let that be a gauge thats etched in stone.

If nothing else for the more narrow rails, stagger your holes off center of the rails so that when you fasten your metal you will not run into the problem that the fastener obstructs the top screws.

Most cases your metal rails have a six inch hole pattern too. Brass rails normally come through without holes. SO they require punching and counterboring. Bending brass will require different procedure to bend and I won't get too involved on that.

Rubrails can be one of the important structual portions of your boat or they can be add ons, transferring and carrying loads, displacing the stresses from one end of the hull to the other. Inwales work in unison to also do this and acts as a good landing for fasteners from the outsides.

Conventional fastening will do the same as any amount of thru bolting simple because on a boat with its ever changing shapes and profiles require some form of hardware along the rails every eight or so inches to insure that you pull the rails in snug enough to eliminate voids or hard turns in proper boat work. No amount of a nut on the outside will hold better than the amount that we normally use to do the proper installations of the wood rails.

You want a continuous flow which can be achieved and should be using your eye at the end of the day. While boat plans will give you an overall perspective and numbers inwhich to build your boat, each person cuts and sets up their boat a bit differently and you should look at both sides when you flip your boat over before beginning your work on the sheer and caps if applicable..

Scuffing up paint after the fact is quick and simple job. Also when bedding to a painted surface, this also keeps your bedding pliable as I described earlier and will make any removal if needed much easier than bedding to bare woods. A good adhesive caulk will for sure bond and hold properly too without any issues when using the fasteners. Basically you can almost use plummer putty to do the same if your fit is right except it does not come in large enough quanities to do boats. But the costs is also higher when comparing apples to apples the same amount of a generic brand of good adhesive caulk.

As a side note fiberglass boats that have two components moulded and have little to nothing to hold the cap and hull together along the rails or joint, will normally be done with rivets or thru bolting, The hulls thats being generated here normally allow and call for structual components along that region which is usually the inwales which also gives you even a hidden cushion when you fasten the hardware into the hull portion such as the plywoods.

Each design is different and some restrict access to that area which complicates any potential removal of the hardware in covered deck boats. But over time folks will find that seldom you will need to remove wooden parts in pleasure craft unless water gets into the seam which is minimized by flexible bedding compounds such as the 4200. The issue with using all the 3m products is the added costs incurred these days. While there are numerous beddings that incorporate adhesive properties, in a framed and plywood boat this is not always necessary.


In lieu of flexible caulks many do use the epoxy to bed the rails in place. In these cases you can also use the fudge factor of miscuts and even improperly faired sections and allow the rails to float across these areas with the thickening agent used in the epoxy to create a shim like component when cured to make up for these areas. The eye is about the only way you can find these when bending battens or rails around the continuous run of a boat.


The enviromental concerns over the course of years has caused many products to use the same bases for their so called perfect product and come in packages that are different in name only. Also there used to be only one or two manufacturers of numerous step up products used in the boating industry. But as always after a new product comes on the market at high dollar prices, there is always someone to come along and redo the product under a different name and sell it cheaper.

Holy crap Oyster, That would take me hours to type. Thanks so much for that. A very imformative reply. I'm thinking I will paint the sides now and throughbolt the rub rails and bed them on a flexible compound of some sorts.

Thanks again to everyone.

Wayne