Soft Cabin Sole

[mjsouleman]

solid flooring

I have a 35-3 with competely ruined floorboards, due to a combination of poor P.O. maintenance and a salt water pump under the galley that cracked and nearly sank the boat. Being a slow learner, I have replaced rotten "teak and holly" plywood soles on my last three boats with "teak and holly" plywood (with the accompanying enormous hassle), and disappointing (at least to me)results. I have decided that I have had enough on my "last" boat. We (my carpenter and I) are going to rip out all the junk (again) and replace it with ¾" solid mahogany tongue and grooved (by us) coated with epoxy on the bottom and varnished on the top. This will cost exactly the same as the T & H junk, and about half what real teak would cost. I will also use the opportunity to clean and paint the bilges and repair mystery wires and hoses that traverse the bilge area, and apparently go nowhere. I'll take pictures and let you know how it goes - anybody want to talk me out of it?

steve naulty
E 35-3 "anodyne"
galesville MD

Please post. This is a topic with considerable interest.

 

[Loren Beach]

If recreating the OEM teak and holly sole is visually unimportant, enough to consider another wood and type of joinery... then it might be time for a "current technology" synthetic T & H sole. No worries about rot, and nowadays they are nearly indistinguishable from the very-expensive real veneer plywood product. Or, would that be blasphemy?

 

[Christian Williams]

Note that the Jsnaulty post above is from 14 years ago, and I don't know what he means about "junk" T&H. I found the current product to be good quality, although a little hard to find locally.

To Loren's point, I looked for synthetic flooring, and couldn't find anything suitable for a model such as the E38, with a sole that's pretty expansive, and like it or not, a design feature that is visible and underfoot all the time. Might work on other models, though, and would certainly cut down the finishing time.

Some models have a plywood sole set in a TAFG designed to receive it, and that replacement is time consuming but just measuring for new panels, shaping them, and then the numerous coats of finish. Others, like my '84 E38, use trim, and the job gets fairly complicated. Video here.

 

[Nick J]

I think the distinction between soles placed in a TAFG pan (I'm thinking some of the ##+ models) and soles laying across TAFG ribs is important. A TAFG pan provides the structure so you have more options when looking at synthetic materials. When the sole goes over TAFG ribs you have to replace structure as well and I haven't seen a synthetic floor that has structure to it. In that case you have to lay down some kind of substrate and plywood is usually the most cost effective way to do it. Once you add the cost of synthetic flooring to marine grade plywood, I'm wondering if your nearing the cost of T&H plywood.

 

[Mr. Scarlett]

Here's what I'm dealing with right now. Hopefully it makes sense. The stringer is to the left of the batteries. The middle pic shows the tabbing to the hull and the cutout for the fresh water tank - you can see it bearing right down on it. The last pic shows the other side of the (delaminating) stringer. It is obviously not structural as it is not tabbed on the fwd side, nor does it contact the hull. Call me crazy but I think I can remove/replace it without ripping out the cabin sole. I bet I can scribe a piece of G10, marine ply or solid wood to fit without removing the existing stringer in an easy day (sealing edges with epoxy if necessary). Then remove the stringer, support the sole, clean up the compromised weld on the FW tank and smear it with JB Weld (it's worth a shot!) in another day. Then install/tab in the new stringer, shimmimg as necessary over a third day making this a typical month long boat project