gasser engine beds

[Rocky]

Hey guys, so I'm pulling my 454s to rebuild, (so I know what I have under those boxes) and I looked at Capt Pat's building tips for the engine beds but it looks like the design for the beds were intended for conversion.
Since I'm putting those engines back in, is there a definite advantage to going flat with the sisters and fabbing brackets for mounts or is Bertram's design O.K. again? I see a crack in my starb. inside bed, and it also does not look perpendicular to stringer, is why the engines came out too.
I will be replacing rear bulkhead and deck supports/deck as well now.
I know, why not diesels, I know.

[CaptPatrick]

If I were building beds for gas engines I'd still build the same configuration as you saw. The inboard ramps on lower beds allows maximum access to the bilge area below the engines.

[Rocky]

Thank you Capt Pat, will do then. Also, I gather the rear bulkhead gets replaced first so I have something to glass to at the ends of beds? Was thinking of the Cabrera bulkhead/kit, I know you would problably "do your magic" with your own bulkhead, I suppose marine ply is out of the question?

[Marlin]

I'm a diciple of the McCrary school of ship building and recreated the engine beds per his way, I epoxied clear spruce 2x4's together using the vacumn bagging system, ran them thru a planner till I got the thickness needed, templated the towers with engine suspended in place, fabbed aluminum towers, made new bulkheads and because of all the benefits of coosa board, this non wood product offers, all new deck stringers , strut and rudder backup plates, rudder shelf, u shape muffler supports. decks and deck /hatch trough system all out of coosa board, my theory is this tecknology is contempory and only Carver and Bayliner would use plywood today, it's pricy but u are making an investment into a classic that will hold it's value and last forever. U can lay the stuff out in a rain storm and it will not warp, twist, shrink, swell, delaminate, rot, grain imprint in the future, tough to initially work with untill I finnally got smarter than the the coosa, have not looked back .

[Rocky]

Thank you Marlin, I have worked with Coosa and do like those benefits you described, not having it warp/come de-tabbed sounds good to me. I just wasn't sure if Coosa could span that kind of distance and still have integrity?
Give me an engine and I'll know what to do with it, but the "boatbuilding" aspect of the project leaves me green! I'm learnin though, thanks.

[ianupton]

Marlin,

Care to elaborate on the 'learning curve' with Coosa?

With advise from Captian Patrick, I found a local source for my Bertram 20 project. Planning on picking up some Bluewater 26 ($198 for 3/4" full sheet) tomorrow.

I'm not planning on doing anything fancy with it, transom core, a bulkhead or two, etc.

Thanks in advance,

Ian.

[Marlin]

It has at least 1million pin holes in it, I troweled with a 12" drywall blade, a couple of coats of polyester resin thickened with microballoons to a consistahcy of mayo{Helmans} on with the sheet laying on saw horses and sanded with 100 paper, I then primed with 545 and skimmed a coat of awlfair onto this surface ,sanded and reprimed, this was done for all bulkhead work. I copied the templates to this surface and cut them out, buy a lot of fine tooth saw blades. For the aft cabin bulkhead I laminated 1/2 to 3/4 since I wanted to install the recess tempered glass windows, I left a 22" door opening to allow for the future installation/ replacement of the refer, I trimmed this opening down to create a jamb leaving an opening for a 18"door, the jamb is held in with 3"fasteners screwed into the1 1/4 coosa bulkhead, I used 4x8 material to cut the bulkheads out of and fabricated a header and sub threshold out of coosa as well, for the bulkhead aft of the engines u may need to span 10' plus ,depends on the model boat u have, I special ordered 12' material{costly mistake} to make this bulkhead, now I would laminate 2 pieces of 1/2 " together instead, for the cabin deck stringers and horizontal braces I ripped3/4 coosa and laminated together with epoxy, I dry fitted everything using drywall screws to hold thinks together prior to epoxy, the bulkheads were fitted and the primer was ground off to allow a layer of 1708 biax tape on each side, embedded with epoxy I then faired that area out with thickened epoxy , sanded and rolled on a coat of Sherwin Williams self leveling epoxy semi gloss primer as my finish coat , this stuff is used in side water tanks commercially. When cutting set up a big fan, upwind ,wear protective stuff and wear a mask , dont ever rub your eyes

[ianupton]

Thanks!

I was curious of you need to sand or prep the surface before adding glass or laminating. Sounds like you don't need to.

Ian.

[Marlin]

probably not, but u don't know what junk has been deposited on it since it was manufactured, scuff it up,wash with water, wipe down with alcohol and go for it

[Rocky]

Thanks for all the great info Marlin. I built hatches out of the bluewater26
but they were too light for my liking, for hatches that is, they were 3/4" TH., and I epoxied 1708 on both sides. For structural member sounds like a good choice though.It's time to gettr done!