Planning ahead for stringer repair

[awesomesteven]

So I guess its going to be my turn for a stringer repair in the off season. In order to not feel the punch in the gut of buying all the materials all at once I'm going to slowley buy what I can little by little. I have a place for lumber, carpet, fiberglass and poly (and I'm pretty sure I have all the tools I am going to need).

I am going to start buying the wood for the stringers first but don't really know the demensions that I need since I haven't torn out the floors yet and was wondering if anyone could help me out with that. I was wondering what the length and width of the stringers are before they are glassed over. I'm thinking I'm going to do doug fir for the stringers just for the sake of not having to make many cuts.

So....width and length of stringers for an '86 Sunsport?

[haugy]

I don't know as to the wood, but your best bet is to get it all apart (down to bare stringers) and then see what you need. You may only need 2x6's (example) but then when you get it open you see an opportunity to reroute something better or change the design a little to suit what you feel may have been a weakness or pain. At that point you may then want to get your supplies.

I learned long ago building vehicles that I would always get what I thought I needed first. Then many times, I would need something else or not at all and ended up sometimes wasting money and time.

Get into the project, then find out what you need. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but that's just my opinion. Take pictures, tons and tons of pictures. The reference later will be good to have. As well as for other people in the future.

Good luck! There are many who have gone through this, so help is here.

[Salty87]

true that ^. buying supplies that you end up not needing blows.

dimensional lumber vs plywood...there are pro's and con's to each. either way, you will probably find 1.5" main stringers and .75" outers. the engine mount area will require add'l fabrication. the lengths of the stringers are prob around 14' for the outers and 17' for the mains plus engine area extras. there might be a middle stringer under the playpen. not sure about 'sports but there's one in the saltares. it's significantly taller than the stringers but not very long.

you'll be shaping the crap out of the bottoms of the stringers. you should be able to cut the old stringers out in large sections with a sawzall. keep them for later reference or at least keep the fiberglass skins. if your stringers are really rotten the skins might be all that's left but that's fine. rotting stringers are heavy mofo's with all of the saturated water.

something else that's handy is to leave small pieces of the lip of the floor for later grinding. you can run strings between these points to keep a reference of floor height and therefore stringer height (minus flooring thickness). you'll grind the points down before laying/glassing the new floor. lots of ways to keep or mark reference points but make sure you keep some or the cap might not fit quite right when everything goes back together. i had to trim some of the interior wall on my topcap because my floor ended up a fraction of an inch too high.

it's daunting to get started but the factory did not use skilled labor. think things through and you'll do fine.

[awesomesteven]

Thanks for the help guys!

[jasun]

One thing I did after I removed the stringers is as I ground the old bedding material (use a chisel and hammer on the big glops to avoid un neccessary griding and dust) was to only do about a 2' section at a time and with a sharpie, draw a line where the old stringers set. This helped me when I built my new stringers and when bedding them:
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad38/jasunderland/boat%20rebuild/null_zps65d00ab8.jpg (http://s919.photobucket.com/user/jasunderland/media/boat%20rebuild/null_zps65d00ab8.jpg.html)

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad38/jasunderland/boat%20rebuild/null_zps2ef30e2a.jpg (http://s919.photobucket.com/user/jasunderland/media/boat%20rebuild/null_zps2ef30e2a.jpg.html)