EricsonYachts.org has opened the season for raising funds to support the expenses of the site. If you would like to participate, please see the link below for additional information.
Thanks so much for your continued support of EricsonYachts.org!
These photos are incredibly helpful. I’m contemplating my screw pattern now. Did you find this to be sufficient or overkill? I was thinking with the table pedestal screws in place it, I might not need as many around the dinette.
By coincidence I just screwed down all of our sole pieces with new bronze square drives. I used a standard countersink bit to clean up each hole. I also, for the first time, slightly increased the hole sizing in the sole so that the screws do not bind (they only have to hold well in the FRP substrate. )
I was actually thinking of hand tapping into the TAFG but I'm not sure how thick it is and if it'll "hold" the threads without ripping out although most of the resisting forces would be side to side not up and out....I think.
Tapping worked well for me. There seemed to be enough thickness in the TAFG although there were 3-4 screws that didn't hold well. Hand tapping might work better than my high speed combo drill and tap to preserve threads. I have taken the floor off once since installing 4-5 years ago. No issues with screws coming loose in the meantime. I would say that most of the force is up and down not sideways. The TAFG is not perfectly level so the sole flexes ever so slightly in some areas as you walk around on it. Glue would bond more of the sole to the TAFG than the screws do, creating a more solid feel, but I prefer being able to remove the sole easily.
Good to know about tapping treads. When I pull the first section off I think that I'm going to try a "test tap". The "sole flexing ever so slightly in some places" might be fixed by applying some double sided tape to the TAFG, just enough to reduce the flexing but not too much to damage the T&H when you have to remove it??? I watch "Captian Q" on YouTube who does reviews on boats for sale mostly in New England. A great channel for learning about different boats. On a few of his vids he prefers a matte finished T&H because of the danger of slipping on a wet deck when the boat is healed. Makes sense to me.
After making "test pieces" out of 1/4" styrofoam insulation board I realized that I was basically doing double work.
I used the bronze screws with the idea of leaving them exposed but didn't like the look and ended up counter sinking and plugging them. The bronze screws were a pain to work with and I broke quite a few.
Wow! That’s really thick. No problem with tapping that thickness. Do you think or do you know if the thickness is relatively the same through out the top of the TAFG?
I’m also going to “tag” the bottom of my sole sections too which will be much easier to find since I’m screwing it all down. Have some temporary sole / template down now and it just looks strange.Yup! When our sole sections were cut out in 1988, someone wrote "O-34 108" on several of them underneath. When refinishing recently, I used a black marker pen to renew those. I also put my name nearby on one of them.... (Probably never happen, but if stolen and recovered I can prove the boat is mine.)
Three coats of new varnish on the bottom sides, now.
The labyrinth called the TAFG on our E32-3s have always been sort of a mystery and written about many times on this site. Water seems to appear and disappear before and after a sail. I have a leak, someplace aft...I think, that delivers water to the main bilge but only sometimes. It can rain like the devil and the bilge will remain bone dry, or a light rain can leave a half inch of water but I suspect that it maybe water from another part of the hull that gets into where I can see it in the main bilge after a spirited sail.
