Fireball Damage

[Howitzer]

Hi all,

I have Fireball number 12634 at home now after it was sat outside with a particularly bad cover on it for 2 years which has left it quite damaged.

I'm new to woodwork but am a competent mechanic and think it will be fun to do some proper woodwork for a change. I currently have it sat in my garage drying out, I removed the bungs, got all the water out I could find after giving it a wash with plain water.

It appears that the laquer has had a lot of water under it and it all needs rubbing down on the top or even a new one made, which i'm not too worried about as I at least have a template to work from.

The sides however seem to be de-laminating which is a worry, the top layer of wood is no longer attatched and has bowed when it seperated in a few small areas. I don't lknow if this means I could do patch repairs or it needs all new sides etc.

I've added some pictures but if any more are needed then ask away and i'll take some. I only sailed it once and loved every minute of it but I have neglected it badly and it needs fixing as it looked fantastic before I abandoned it.













If there are any books I could read that will help me learn how to repair it or tips and guidance that would be fantastic and very much appreciated.

Dave!

[dirkgently]

YHM

[jon h]

I restored an old Merlin Rocket that was in a worse state than that and, though I say so myself, it came up rather well after a lot of effort. In simple terms, I stripped everything back to bare wood. The biggest danger here is going through the top layer of the ply on the decks, especially at the edges. In my case this was unavoidable in one or 2 places due the the depth of the damage. I had to replace a lot of timber- all of the gunwales and all of the inner edge of the decks, plus several other bits, but from the photos, yours does not look too bad. If there are black stains in the timber, I am told that Oxalic Acid can remove these, but I did not use it myself. Once stripped, sanded and dried out, I then applied an epoxy sealer. In my case, I used SP Systems Eposeal which is very thin and penetrates deeply into the wood. They make a thicker resin for coating- 320. This builds up a thicker coat quicker but is not as easy to apply. I think you are really meant to use Eposeal, then 320, but I used a lot of coats of Eposeal on its own, for the very scientific reason that I had a load left over from when I built another boat (Solo). If you have areas where the top layer of ply is lifting, you may be able to use the 320 resin to bond it down again (Eposeal will be too thin). Work the resin into the crack- a little heat from a hot air gun will help it flow, then clamp flat. Where you have joins opening up, for example between the decks and gunwales, epoxy is once again your friend. Here, you may want to add a little colloidal silica as a thickening agent, but too much and it will go white. There are other filling agents such as micro balloons which are brown, or you can add a little dust from sanding some timber. Once I was happy that the decks were in a decent state, I used Skippers 2 pack varnish which goes on very nicely. In all, there were 12 coats of epoxy and varnish. If it turns out that the wood is too damaged to look decent varnished, you could consider painting it- Hull and deck all in one colour so it looks like a new plastic boat. Done well, it can look OK- I did this many years ago to a Fireball- Number 12505- Painted pale grey all over.

[Benjaminpalma]

Lovely boats. Yours looks well worth saving and saveable. Nice easy project.

Remove all the varnish and paint and leave to dry out thoroughly. You should be able to restore the golden colour of the wood with oxalic acid (buy in crystal form on eBay - try in an inconspicous area first, etc), then a dozen layers of Epifanes yacht varnish. Paint with exterior gloss such as Weathershield (yachting paints probably overkill). Delamination might be curable with epoxy.

Enjoy!

Edited by Benjaminpalma on Tuesday 2nd October 08:39

[schmalex]

I'm sure I sailed that boat a few times in Lymington about 20 years ago. Is there a repaired puncture mark on one of the side decks (port side, I think)? If so, it definitely is, as I put the trapeze harness through it when pulling myself aboard after righting it from a capsize....

[HughG]

I have an enterprise that is in a very similar state which was going to be this summer's project but never happened

[mph1977]

As has been suggested getting it back to bare wood is where you need to start , a combination of chemical ( i.e. paint stripper - the jelly ones work quite well from my past experiences; apply, wait how long it says on the tin, scrape off the jellied paint / varnish and stripper mix then neutralise and rinse - some neutralise with water others want thinners / white spirit stuff) and manual stripping with a scraper and hot air gun

Then you need to find any areas that have gone soft and rotten and repair those or do the whole panel ( if the decks are generally grotty and water stained as well it may be easier just to re-deck with the requisite thickness of of ply given it;s had several years of being poorly / uncovered - but without having a hands on feel of the wood you can only get a clue from photos)

if there are areas ( especially those that will be painted afterwards that areonly partially rotten you can cut back and then rebuild the ply with veneers or modellers ply
and epoxy

as with any painting job surface preparation is what it is all about - a well prepared hull spray painted with decent spraying kit in a reasonable ( even home made booth) can look as good if not better than a car
removing fittings will also figure here ( take photos if you want to retain the current set up - take photos of a newer boat if you are 'sympathetically upgrading') usual caveats aobut checking / re doing reinforcement ( and adding / moving it if you are changing locations for control line cleats etc ... )

speaking of home made spray booths my dear old dad and i sprayed several boats in a large garage with a spray booth / 'tent' made of builders polythene with battens at the bottom that could then be rolled back up and secured against the roof joists and while the finish wasn;t quite up to the standards of the people who were painting boats in professional 'car' type spray booth / ovens it was certainly good enough to raise comment on how nicely they were finished.