You got me, Tom. I would re-bed all the hardware on the deck anyway on such an old boat, so why not pull everything off this winter. The core would be 1/4" most places, but 1/2 in the cockpit sole, pretty much the same as the 15, altho the 17 will have a little more glass. Pull a bolt and measure the thickness that way. The glass itself is probably no more than 1/8 or 3/16 except in overlap areas and around the mast step and chainplates, so the thickness of the core, if any, should be obvious. We did use foam stringers around the chainplates in the early days; it was strong and I know of no problems with it. We went to balsa because it was less hand work. Jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Smith, Tom" <Tom.Smith@itron.com> To: "jerry montgomery" <jmbn@innercite.com> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 2:48 PM Subject: balsa-core
Boy, it sure doesn't look like this 75 I bought has a cored deck/cabin top Jerry. It's obvious all three hatch covers (1 forward and the two lazaret tops) have a core, but man, the rest of the horizontal surfaces look solid to me. The boat I bought was built in April of 75. It's got those lovely half-round strengtheners running beam-wise on the inside of the cabin top. Cored? Not cored? What?
But I must say I like how the M17 sails. Jane is much more comfortable with the bigger boat feel. Cool boat. t
Tom Smith Electric Systems Itron Inc. 509-891-3674 tom.smith@itron.com www.itron.com