TOPIC: Glasspar Seafair Stringer question

Hello, Who here has replaced the strangers in their Seafair? I took out the floor and stringers from the transom up to the cabin so far...but there is some of the stringers left that go past the cabin towards the front of the boat which seem soft also. Do I need to remove my entire cabin to access these? also... how much flex did your hull have after you removed the floor and stringers? Ill have pictures up tomorrow, cannot wait until I get this thing on the water!

hi,i think that since you have gone this far that you might as well do it right and replace the stringers completely. sorry that i can not give you first hand advice on how to do it since i have not had to replace the stringers in any of the sedans i have owned. starting around 1963 the stringers were fiberglass and that makes the later sedans a pretty easy redo. the hull needs to be braced and supported when the stringers are removed. you do not want to build a rocker or hook into it or change the shape of the hull. the transom on the sedan is one of the easier ones to do as the whole back of the hull can be opened up to access it. i am not sure that i would invest the money into coosa board when the original has lasted for 50 yrs? a little more attention to detail when replacing the wood will result in a redo that will outlast you. i use fiberglass resins rather than epoxy also. they are less expensive and only epoxy will adhere to epoxy. the seafair sedans are very popular boats to restore and as a result there is alot of info out here on them. if you are not aware of the www.classic glasspar.com website go to it. there are 28 pages in the forum and quite a few threads on restoring the sedans. if you have more questions i will try to help although i am not the sharpest knife in the drawer,i know where they are kept. skipp

Yea I'm going to have to access that last bit of stringer as I want to do this right the first time around. Ill brace the boat tomorrow, not sure what a rocker or a hook is but ill try to avoid it. I bought 4 gallons of epoxy yesterday so maybe that will cover the transom. When you say fiberglass resins, do you mean polyester or vinylester ? which one do you use if you were doing this job?

Found the answer to my question on the site you shared Skipp. For all glasspar seafair sedan owners: the main stringer in the middle of the hull goes about 3 feet past the cabin walls. You have to remove the floor inside the cabin to access it. I will post a picture I screen shot of another guys boat I found on the web so you can get an idea of what I am talking about and what's under your floor.

Here is the floor off a glasspar seafair sedan, don't know what year but those look like fiberglass stringers

That is the "Miss Tamara" a 1967 sedan currently being worked on by the ECGOA gang. The pic is from our Oct work party. Jon if I can locate them I have the wood Stringer measurements which are also posted on the site Skip mentioned. They are else where on the site and not in the general forum.
Al

morris wrote:

That is the "Miss Tamara" a 1967 sedan currently being worked on by the ECGOA gang. The pic is from our Oct work party. Jon if I can locate them I have the wood Stringer measurements which are also posted on the site Skip mentioned. They are else where on the site and not in the general forum.
Al

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Jon:

Glad to hear you have a Glasspar Seafair Sedan! They are truly great boats.

As my good friend Al already pointed out, that picture you posted of that Seafair Sedan is our ECGOA "Project Seafair" which was donated to us my a Mr. Ferd Johns. That Seafair has FIBERGLASS STRINGERS and as Skip pointed out, those boats are ALOT easier to refurbish because the stringers don't have to be torn out. But, with that being said, we still pulled out the bulkheads and tore up the cabin floor to put down new plywood throughout.

You didn't mention the condition of your transom, but I would highly recommend thoroughly checking that to make sure the wood underneath the fiberglass is not rotted. If so, you will need to chip out that wood and also replace it with new plywood. We have detailed this in our thread titled: "Project Seafair" over on the
www.classicglasspars.com website.

Good luck with your boat Sir!

Hey Al, you guys did some work on those glasspars! Thank you for posting those pics, those were the only ones I found of the main middle stringer that goes through the cab and they were very helpful. I just ripped up the cab floor and now I have access to the whole stringer so next will be sizing cutting and glassing them in so if you do find those measurements they would be really handy. Ill look for them over the weekend also. I'm jealous of the owner of miss tamara, I wish I had those fiberglass stringers!

Hey 1960REDg3! I'm about where you guys were in that pic. Floor torn out, stringers crumbled out, and Wednesday I pulled the transom out. I saw one of the eye hooks for trailer tie down was loose so I hooked a tie down to the back of my jeep and to the eye hook, started to ratchet and bam! the eye hook shot out. Inspected the wood, it was wet. I am so afraid of wood now its unbelievable. I spent about a thousand on coosa board so far because I never want to do this again. Thank you for the link, Ill study it closely!

here is where I'm at after today

and a transom pic. that wood left on it is only a 16th inch thick. I need to sand it off

Jon, If your bulk head is as good as it looks try to ease the old wood out from underneath it first then slide the new cabin floor underneath and glass in. This is less labor intensive then removing and glassing them back in. However you decide to proceed please feel free to ask questions of John, Mike and myself.
Al aka morris
g3 Marque club Rep ACBS.
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hi jon. i see that you have gotten al and john's attention. al and john are knowledgeable guys and i see from your pics that you are now ready to start the rebuilding process. i know you will be happy with the results. skipp

Hey Al, I was able to get that wood out the way you recommended. I am going to cut the pieces for the stringers and the floor on Tuesday. Do I need to replace the transom first? What order should I put it back together in?

jon,the transom and stringers can be worked in either order,but some food for thought,i would do the stringers first in order to restore some rigidity to the hull. that way you are not likely to deform the hull putting the transom in. skipp

Jon did you find the measurements on the other site? Or are you using a string line and level?

Thanks for the tip Skipp, will do

Al, I couldn't find those measurements and I was going to ask you how to go about measuring them out. Guess I have to use string and the level method. Any advice or things to watch out for while replacing the stringers?

Jon I found the measurements sent you my phone # by way of this sites message box. If not in your e-mail check your spam file. Call me I will get them to you thru regular e-mail.
Heck just call 1-804-712-0671.
Al

Al, thank you again for those measurements, greatly appreciated. I cut my main stringer today, took me 10 minutes to mark and 10 minutes to cut. It would of taken me hours to measure that thing out to exactly those measurements. I feel much more comfortable with this build now. I will post pictures tomorrow. the stringer is actually in 2 pieces because my coosa only cones in 4X8 sheets, I have to glass those guys together, and maybe even brace them with some SS hardware. I have a question regarding the transom, does anyone know how thick it was? Also, to my knowledge the splashwell plays a large structural part in the integrity of the transom, is this correct?

Glad I could help Jon. The original base(stern) section of the transom was a solid piece of Douglass Fir roughly the size of a 2X6 cut down to fit the bottom of the stern. The sloping transom it self was 1&1/2 inch thick laminate plywood. Was your splash well a bathtub style or shallow style the early 59 and 60 sedans had a deep well and the later sedans had a shallow well. They are more for the integrity of the beam than the transom. I thought I had done my first transom wrong because you will have to long screws to get the sides of the hull back to the splash well. I am eager to see pic's of your progress.
Al

I thought the stringers would be in today but I had another setback. She's playing the ol' 2 steps forward one step back game. As rotten as my main middle stronger was, the wood at the base was in great shape I had to dig all of that wood out of a 3/4" deep channel made by the resin the factory used to glass it in. My lack of woodworking tools didn't help ether. I did get the first part of the middle stringer set in place and washed all the glass dust out so first thing tomorrow morning I will glass it in. I'm also thinking about replacing the bulkhead cabin walls with a donor boats 1/8" thick hull sides made of fiberglass. Although not original, it has a nice layered wooden look to it and I think (I hope) it will hold up to saltwater better then the wooden panels, we shall see...I do want to keep it as original as possible. My splashwell is sloped, not bathtub style. I will take a pic tomorrow. So with the wooden stringers and the sloped splashwell and original teal trim color what year do you think it is? I could not find any identifying plates or numbers anywhere. attached is a picture of the stringer sitting in place

first part of the main stringer, those measurements were on the spot!

its not uploading, I will try again tomorrow

good to see that you are making progress. as to a guess on the year of manufacture,60-63. 59 was the first year and the only year the bathtub well was used,by 64 fiberglass stringers were being used for sure. there have been some 63's found that had the fiberglass stringers though. skipp

Glasses in the middle stringer today, its looking good! tomorrow I will do the other 2 and the bulkheads. Started up my 1975 evinrude 70hp it runs like a charm.

Looking good Jon. Are you going to wrap the new stringers in glass cloth?

I don't think so, since the outside layers of that coosa board is fiberglass already and the stuff will never rot, the coosa board sure is expensive...but its worth the piece of mind. they are as solid as a rock, absolutely no flex what so ever. it feels like the whole thing is made of resin! it also restored much of the rigidity of the hull...makes me worry about all the other guys out there boating with rotten stringers...I now see how important they really are.

Cool, looking forward to your completion and launch.

I am restoring a 59 Glasspar sedan with a bathtub splash well. I am at the point of stinger replacement, just replaced the transom. I am hoping you could send me those magical stringer measurements. I have been trying to find these for some time. As you can see, I was not lucky enough to have the fiberglass stingers.

Here's a pic.

dgann,

WELCOME ABOARD.

yours, satx