TOPIC: Another Transom

Started on the transom of my 68 crestliner Explore today. I knew it was rotted out but I have found out something about Crestliners. On the transom the outer skin is only about 1/16 inch thick. It is made only of resin covered by gelcoat, no glass in it.On the inside is mat and it is only about 1/8 inch thick. The wood in the transom was 1 inch plywood. On the outside of the transom they put a piece of 1/2 inch plywood covered with resin and held on by alum. screws. So now my idea of doing a poured transom has gone, and it looks like i will be cutting out the insde and putting some glass on the inside of the outside part of the transom, and be going to 1 1/2 inch plywood inside. Here are a few pic of the treasure I found.
All the wood is wet and getting wetter the deeper I go.

Looks like ya got a good start on it Skip, good for you!

Frank

Looks like fun

From the photo, it looks like the outer skin is thin glass- Chop or mat- I don't think that resin alone would stay intact...

Do you think that outer plywood is original, or was it added later to try to fix a weak transom?

Are you going to have enough clearance to make the repair without popping the cap? It would save a lot of time & trouble if you could.

The outer transom is just resin and gelcoat. I took a piece of it and scatched off the gelcoat and put it uned the old microscope, no glass at all. just resin. The plywood on the outside was factory. The drain tube that went through it were alum. and one piece from the inside to the outside. It has some factory numbers on it also. I think it was an after thought as they may have been haveing trouble with the transom only being originally 1 inch thick. The alum transom cap is 1 1/2 inch wide. Figure that one out.

Boy Skip, that is a mystery. Most transoms are 1 1/2 (or a bit more), so no surprise about the transom cap. Hard to believe they screwed up at the factory. Usually they would either buy 1 1/2" plywood or laminate their own with two pieces of 3/4 like a lot of us do. Good luck with it!

Frank

I found this in my Perusing the internet.

www.retrocrestliner.com/1961catalog/1961%20catalog,%20page%205,%20explorer%2017%20imperial.jpg

Looks like the Exterior wood transom is original as you surmised. If she were mine, I'd get out my 4 1/2" grinder with a backup pad and som 24 grit paper. If the stern is not supposed to have a curve in it then remove the exterior piece and clamp a 3/4" piece of plywood to cover the entired stern for reinforcement. Then grind out the entire transom to the outer skin.



Clean it as good as possible with Acetone, coat with resin and lay a couple of layers of 1.5 oz CSM and then one or two layers of 1708 biaxial cloth over the entire stern and wrap around the sides of the hull and onto the bottom of the hull approx. 6". Start from scratch fabricating new wood pieces for both the inside and outside. Here's how I do transoms.

(Click the Image to Enlarge)

I am a fan of Seacast, but with only an inch gap and no true outer skin, I might do as MyFlamigo suggested. But where do you stop grinding? You need to attach that outer skin to the sides of the boat. Lots of painting required.

I really can't see how/why they made that boat without glass under the gelcoat?
Is the whole boat like that I wonder?
Skimping on the transom is not a good idea?
Are these boats rare, or commom on the bottom of lakes and rivers.

Thanks for the imput guys. I was thinking about seacast and talked to the company today and they suggested that I should make the transom thicker.They said that a 1 inch transom would not be very strong and would not recomend hanging a 700 merc on the back of it. Soo I have decided to make it out of plywood. 1 1/2 inch thick. I am going to cut out the inside transom and lay glass on the inside of the rear first. then put in plywood and cover that with mat. I will be extending the mat auot 12 inches into the hull so that I end up with a stronger hull structure in the rear. I have not yet decided on resin or poly yet. I was surprised that the transom was made so weak in these boats, and the hulls are not all that thick to begin with. At least this is not my first transom I have replaced, just the first one in about 30yrs. I guess the reason you dont see many of these boats around is because the transoms have all fell off them. It is too bacd because they were a pretty nice boat back in the day. Skip.