J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Drying Balsa Core with Vacuum and Heat

I just peeled back most of the area that I had recently tried to dry (after pulling 48 oz.). A couple of interesting things, first near the keel the skin was .020" thick and about 25" outboard from the keel the glass was . 005" barely more than a sheet of paper. Now I have ground some deteriorated skin away when I was cleaning the hull up, but I doubt it was that much. I have 29 oz. biaxial cloth on hand and had been thinking to take that to the waterline, but that would be much heavier than what is or was there in the first place, so I will have to sort out another layup schedule.

The other thing that is modestly interesting are the previous repairs. Hard to say if the damage under and around them happened before the repair or was aggravated after, but the damage in the balsa is much bigger than these quarter sized repairs. Near to the keel there is some solid wood evident that I exposed with my saw cut. I will be grinding all of that area back to expose more wood so the new glass can bond to those surfaces. I would also expect to be wrapping the glass repair down onto the keel itself. I want this area to be as strong as possible and I don't want the edge of this heavy glass to end anywhere near where I have made my cuts or the faired back sections.

I think I will work on drying the sections above this patch once I have replaced the core in this area and have glassed it in enough to create a seal.

Once I have started actually filling this all back in I will move the updates back to the main MaJic Carpet rebuild thread.