Salon Floor Rebuild

[Jim 5757]

We're attempting to replace the rotted plywood floor on our 1973 Morgan 28. This boat has an encapsulated full length lead keel. Original 3/4" ply is heavily tapered at the edges and 'glassed onto the hull where the hull curves down to meet the keel. Unfortunately, the underside was not impregnated with epoxy prior to installation , so now the wood is mostly falling apart.
What has us puzzled is the 1/2-to-1" thick dark gray-colored epoxy putty slathered over the top of the plywood. Anyone out there seen anything like this? I don't know if this stuff was original or did someone use it to cover up a problem???

 

[Bill Roosa]

If the interior fiberglass gelcoated around the (above and below) the floor-hull joint? I would not suspect that the OM glassed in the wood floor while they were glassing the hull. It would make things a lot more difficult. Makes more sense that it was glassed in after the hull was layed up and finished.
So you might be able to grind out the joint down to the hull and reinstall the wood floors.
good luck

 

[Jim 5757]

Yes Bill, you are correct. The floor was glassed in afterwards. That's what I'm up to now...I'm adding some pics to illustrate:
the rectangular thing in the center is the top of the lead keel, and the little white thing is the anchor locker drain (1/2" PVC tubing). It's not clear in the pic, but the keel drops down 3 feet back to form the bilge area. I was puzzled as to why they didn't extend the drain tube back to that point?

 

[Bob J.]

The plywood sub floor in my sabre was the kind of same way. The sub floor perimeter was glassed to the hull with filler & fiberglass tape. Then bondo was skimmed over the sub floor & exposed hull for the sole to adhere to.
I ended up using a wood chisel to remove the sole , very time consuming job.

 

[Jim 5757]

Thanks, Misfits...glad to hear that we're not the only ones! I was hoping to do 2x4 cross members every 12" and install 3/4" pre-finished bamboo strip over that - I believe I saw this in SAIL magazine - but now I'm unsure since the floor is only flat for about 12" either side of centerline. Beginning to think along the lines of teak & holly ply after replacing the sub-floor. Your thoughts...?

 

[Bob J.]

I have the same problem, flat in the middle then follows the curvature of the hull. I'd like to "piece" together a floor also but with the curvature of the hull, not sure it will work out. I was thinking of just buying a box of some cheap floating flooring from Home Depot & playing with it this spring to see how it works/looks before spending $ on the real thing.

 

[Jim 5757]

Just finished chopping the floor out from the head. There's a fiberglass shower pan in there! Thank God we never tried showering, 'cuz the drain is just a hole in the plywood subfloor then trickle into the bilge! Of course, the plywood in that area is rotten as well...
Since there's an inch or so of epoxy over the plywood anyway, I think I'll just install the plywood an inch or so above where is was originally and we'll end up with more ventilation under the floor. After 4 hours chopping today, I'm SO done for now....