Ranger 28 deck repair

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Nov 22, 2010
1
Ranger 28 Lake of the Woods
Hi all,
I'm co-owner of a 1976 Ranger 28. This year we are having to do repair work on the deck where there are a number of soft spots. I wonder if anyone knows whether the deck core is marine plywood or some other material. Your help would be greatly appreciate. Thanks.
 
Jul 9, 2004
80
Yamaha 30 - Sidney
Hi all,
I'm co-owner of a 1976 Ranger 28. This year we are having to do repair work on the deck where there are a number of soft spots. I wonder if anyone knows whether the deck core is marine plywood or some other material. Your help would be greatly appreciate. Thanks.
I had to do a fair bit of core repair and remounted all my hardware on my old 28 and here's what I found.
- Coachhouse and decks are pretty much all balsa.
- There is plywood on the top of the cockpit coamings where the winches are mounted.
- The foredeck is balsa with a 6" (maybe 4"?) wide plywood strip on centre that runs from the bow back to the hatch.
- Can't remember for sure but I think there might be a bit of ply under the mast step, but I know for sure there's mostly balsa nearby.

I did all my repairs from the outside, and repainted after. Would've been a really ugly job going from the inside, but might have been a better job in the end. I found that there is a void that runs along the deck/gunwale all the way from the bow to stern. Which is why as I worked from the cockpit forward I kept getting interior leaks in the stern. (I had drilled a bunch of "drain holes" inside.

You can pretty much assume that if you've got a soft spot you may as well cut out a big section. I drilled 3/4" holes for epoxy and just kept drilling more & more to get rid of the black goo that used to be epoxy.

Gotta run.
Craig in Sidney BC

Edit: Reason for the recoring was a lot of soft spots that the "so-called surveyor" neglected to tell me about. (Another story) I'm pretty sure that none of the hardware had ever been re-bedded so there was a lot of seepage into the core.
I ended up pulling all of the headliner out of the main saloon. There was no convenient way of accessing all of the hardware backing without removal. It also allowed me to drill a lot of drain holes for the core. The vinyl was ok, the zippers were mostly shot, and the foam backing was crumbling. Although I had many ideas/plans for replacing, I never did. Just painted with a kitchen/bathroom latex (anti-fungal) that matched the bulkheads.
FWIW, I loved my 28. Was a great sailor and pointed like nothing else!
 
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May 18, 2009
71
Beneteau First 38 Portland
My Ranger 33 was the exact opposite - 1/2 inch marine ply everywhere with added balsa at all the spots that needed strength - chainplates, genoa track, under mast.

I did all my repairs from below, removing large sections of the headliner with a roto-zip, scraping out the existing core, then glassing in the same materials, and in some cases, re-using the removed headliner and in others, using new material. Granted, it was a little bit messy - took awhile to get the last bits of epoxy out of my hair ;) The first efforts used acrylic resin, but I switched to epoxy on the next section, as the cure time was too quick with acrylic. You can't detect that any repairs were made unless you know where to look. You can see some photos at http://www.frontiernet.net/~jgurley/boat/index.html under "Port Deck".
 
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