Replacing the head sole in a ’78 33

By: Oscar Gelpi
Boat: 1978 33

email: fezziwig1@comcast.net

The sole in our head starting feeling a little spongy a few months ago and not long after started to crack.

The Problem

When we peeled back the plastic one piece flooring it was obvious that the wood below had completely rotted away.

No wood under this section that caved in until it cracked

In order to repair the wood below we would have to remove the plastic floor. Our primary tools were a Makita 3 ½” cordless circular saw and a Black and Decker cordless reciprocating saw. A hammer and a broad flat chisel were also essential. We made cuts into the plastic and underlying wood (where wood still existed) and chiseled out the pieces.

Cutting and chiseling away the flooring

We cut out all the rotted wood, which was almost all of it, and scraped, chiseled and sanded off all the wood from the underlying fiberglass. It appears that the original construction was a piece of plywood ¾” thick glued to a thin fiberglass skin.

Wood and plastic sole cut back, exposing thin layer of fiberglass

Next step is to cut a ¾” thick plywood piece to roughly fit into space. Then 3 coats of West’s epoxy on all sides of wood piece before installing.           

New subfloor fitted in place

After it’s fitted we made up a thickened West’s epoxy and spread it on the fiberglass. We put the wood on and set some blocks on it so the wood would flatten and make a good bond with the epoxy. All gaps were later filled in with more thickened epoxy.

Concrete blocks help to make a good bond

While that was drying we took thin strips of veneer provided by our shipwright to make a template for the new sole. If you’ve never done this before it makes it a breeze to make exact odd shaped pieces for projects like this. You just score and snap off lengths of the strips as you go, laying the pieces along the edges of the space you want to duplicate. The next piece gets attached with the use of a hot melt glue gun and so on until you have a framework that’s an exact duplicate of the space you want to fill.

Veneer template

Take your template and clamp it to your sole to draw your cutlines. Here we are using a teak and holly veneer.

Holly and Teak veneer

Once the veneer is cut and fitted you can attach it with contact cement, thickened epoxy or even tack it down with small brass nails. I replaced the old metal trim with a small piece of teak L-molding, attached with brass nails. I also caulked around the edges to keep out water.

The finished product.