[Public-List] Cockpit Floor

[Mel Martin]

Gord, Mike, George,
Thanks X 10^6 for your suggestions, links, and advice: my courage to  
do this grows by leaps and bounds. I do plan to add additional  
reinforcement to the floor (if they'd done this when installing the  
inspection port, I wouldn't have to do it now. The inspection port  
weakened the floor sufficiently that every time someone jumped into  
the cockpit, the integrity of the skin was challenged. Eventually, the  
skin cracked, water seeped in and did its damage to the core. Now the  
core is mush and the floor is buggered!)

Anyway, I think I'll need to reinforce the edges of the lower skin all  
the way around, and glass in some stringers athwartships. The  
suggestion to frame in the hatch while replacing the core is a good  
one. I'm still dithering between plywood and balsa for the core. Since  
I am also replacing the fuel tank (the original was rusted paper-thin  
on the bottom, though the top looked as good as new), I'm not sure yet  
how to configure the hatch.

When I bought her, I knew I was buying a boatload of work, but I don't  
regret it for a single moment - she's a beaut!