Restore the bumpers
Before I could begin framing in the deck, I needed something round the edge of the hull that I could attatch things to. It is this strip of wood that I am referring to as the bumper since it's main purpose is to protect the hull from any side impacts.
The old bumper was built out of two square piece of lumber laminated together. (3/4") It then had a 1" half round piece of wood nailed to the edge to remove sharp edges.
I decided to go with a slightly different approach. I took 6 pieces of cedar and laminated them all together (using contact cement) with a slight bend in it to follow the contour of the boat. Once everything was on the boat, I then took a router to the edge to give it the round edge that the old one had.
The cedar is not as strong as the old bumper, but by adding more layers, it is pretty close to as strong, and by laminating rather than nailing the edge on, I think it gained some extra strength.
I joined the bumpers to the hull using an epoxy resin with microfibers as filler. This provided a rock hard bond and also made the laminated cedar bumper more rigid.
When building the bumper I made sure that on the one side there was a 1/4" lip to accommodate the deck plywood, and the other side had an 1/8" lip to accommidate the fiberglass hull. The result is a smooth finish that I will sand and then fibreglass.
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