Ceiling Replacement and Pleasant Surprises

[Foswick]

The ceiling on our boat was installed in 1975 when popcorn ceiling still seemed like a good idea. There are no glitter flecks, but they would not seem out of place.

Even if it did look good, once, it has 50 years of funk and gunk. This photo actually makes it look decent. But it is some weird PVC-like film glued to a thin plywood panel tacked to the roof between the teak beams. There is virtually no cleaning it, as the plastic is degrading such that we are afraid to touch it. What is not pictured is a small section where a previous leak caused a bit of that plywood to rot away and the plastic popcorn film to start to peel off.

After much procrastination, we started the project of replacement, yesterday. We are installing tongue-and-groove in place of the popcorn.

So, we rough-cut a bunch of that tongue-and-groove and sealed/painted it, then headed out to pull off the first panel, not sure what we would find. I had two assumptions, though:

1. The plywood panel would be glued to the cabin roof and we would have a bunch of scraping to do before installing anything.
2. The cored upper deck (cabin roof) would exhibit some core damage that would have to be repaired above that spot where the panel was water-damaged.

In a series of events that rarely occurs (i.e. everything went smoothly), we had some pleasant surprises.

First, those panels are just tacked on with short nails and they popped right off. No glue - no cleanup - just clean, exposed fiberglass, which brings me to ...

... the discovery that the upper deck is not cored at all. There are, apparently, wooden ribs above the exposed teak beams. These are encased in a generous amount of fiberglass. But, between these ribs, it is solid glass. I can see where the leak was. A loose bolt holding on the teak rail on the upper deck had apparently been leaking. But, that bolt just goes through solid fiberglass, so no chance of core rot. The whole roof (what we've exposed so far) appears in great shape. I honestly was not expecting that.

Some of the construction details of this boat are kind of interesting. So, I'll start taking more photos of this process.

We are going out in the morning to replace the section we removed.

 

[Rich Stidger]

Are you certain that you have a boat? Projects like this don't usually go very well on boats......

 

[rgranger]

Are you certain that you have a boat? Projects like this don't usually go very well on boats......

....and..... you broadcasted your good fortune....now that it is out in the universe... it is time to steel your nerves.

 

[PaulK]

Maybe he has confused the sea gods and slowed their reaction by using the wrong vocabulary. Ceiling on a boat is generally wood that lines the insides of the ribs - the hull. The underside of the cabintop is the overhead. It is confusing.

 

[Foswick]

The underside of the cabintop is the overhead.

... unless I am sitting on the cabintop. Then it is called the "underbutt" - not the same as the poop deck.

 

[rgranger]

Then it is called the "underbutt"

my new favorite word

 

[Foswick]

We finished the first of about 10 rows and I'm pretty pleased with the results, so far.

This is what was under the old panel:

The black strips on either side are 3/4" industrial Velcro we put in place. The tongue-and-groove boards will be mounted using Velcro so that I can easily remove to inspect or repair. When we removed this panel, we came across a couple of bolts with loose nuts. They appeared to be the bolts that hold the companionway cover to the cabintop. But, upon further inspection we discovered they had been cut off from above and new screws were installed instead.

My deduction is that the cover was originally held on with bolts that were secured by nuts on the underside of the cabintop (the underbutt). For some reason, a previous owner had to remove the cover but could not access the nuts, which were covered by the ceiling panels. So, they just cut them off and replaced them with big beefy screws (which are what are currently used).

So, I decided that our ceiling would be easily removable. This will make it much easier to inspect, access wiring, etc.

We laid a few boards to test. They are cut to more-or-less stay in place with just friction, but the Velcro just helps.

The Velcro holds almost too well, but we were really happy with the result. So, we finished the row:

You can see what a difference this is going to make.

This row took us about 3 hours and I think cost about $40-$50 - almost half that cost was just the Velcro. I did not trust my cuts to be as precise as they needed to be, so I cut everything about a millimeter too long, then used a belt sander to shave off the last tiny bit and get each angle just right. The teak beams are remarkably parallel for a boat, but not perfect. So, I had to tweak the ends just a tiny bit here and there to get a perfect fit.

Now that we've got a bit of a groove going with our process, I expect it to go faster except where we need to cut around things like the light and dorade vents.

But, it'll have to wait. Got some cruising to do. We'll hit this again in a couple of weeks.

 

[jssailem]

The results look great.
Only question I had looking at the void between the “UnderButt” and the new Overhead is did you consider insulation in the void?

 

[rgranger]

BRAVO! Looks fantastic. I really like how you made the pannels removable. That will pay dividens down the line. And it looks really nice.

I like @jssailem 's suggestiont to put some insulation in there. You can get heat relective foil from ULINE. It might knock a degree or two off of the interior cabin heat in the summer and help keep the cabin a little warmer for those shoulder season sails.

I would also think about replacing the original through bolts for the companionway hood. "Big Beefy Screws" will hold until they don't. Might not be worth the trouble if you are only day sailing on a lake but...If you think you might go sailing and get caught in a real snotty situation, you don't want stuff coming lose while dealing.... A through bolt is only coming out if the boat suffers a catastrophic event.

 

[BigEasy]

Beautiful results! Gives the cabin a ”classic“ appearance. Amazing the various methods that manufacturers used to line cabin surfaces.

 

[Foswick]

Thanks. No, I hadn't considered insulation, but that is a great idea, especially since I have collected a BUNCH of that insulation over the past few years, trying to figure out something to do with it that doesn't involve the landfill.

We will be replacing the bolts too, I think. I need to pull that hood off to see. Maybe there is a good reason they did what they did, but I expect it is simply that they couldn't easily get to the underside. My assumption is that there is, therefore, some sort of hole on the deck surface where the bolt used to be, but which is covered by the hood. So, at very least, those holes need to be filled, if there is some good reason not to use them.

I'm a bit confused as to how it is currently screwed on. I removed one of the screws (when I discovered it was not attached to the bolt stub on the underside). It was about 1 1/4". The hood lip is maybe 1/4" thick. And, the screw does not protrude on the underside. So, that seems really thick, considering it is solid fiberglass. Of course, it was built in 1975 ... but still.

I don't know, I'll see when I get the hood off - something I'll probably do in a few weeks.

By the way, I cannot describe the smell of the old panel that we removed. Let it suffice to say that the smell of the boat will be getting a big upgrade. Sort of a combination of decades-old cigarette smoke, musty funk, and ... maybe bad cheese? The boat doesn't ordinarily have much of a smell, so opening the ceiling was kind of like a time capsule for the nose.