Re-assemble

 It feels good to finally be putting stuff back on the boat rather than removing it.  I have cleaned and polished all the lifeline stanchions and the bow and stern pulpits.  I have made all new mounting plates and backing plates for all of the a fore mentioned pieces.I matched each plate with it's hardware and marked and drilled holes so they would line up properly.  I used those mounting plates to mark where to drill into the deck.  I fussed around with the locations for the stanchions to get them spaced properly.  Even spacing did not work out well so they are a little closer together at the stern and farther apart forward.  It was time to make some holes.  

In my nice new deck I proceeded to make 50 NEW holes in her skin.  The bolts holding down all that hardware are 1/4-20's so I drilled over-sized, 5/8" holes with a forstner bit.  Drilling through the top laminate and the core and stopping at the lower laminate skin.  I then mixed up some thickened epoxy and injected, via a large syringe, the epoxy into the holes filling them up to the top.  About 3/4 of the way through the holes the epoxy left in the cup kicked off and I had a smoking mess.  I made up a new batch and finished the remaining holes, trying not to over fill or under fill.  When all of the holes had been potted and kicked, I spent the next hour washing the entire boat again from bow to stern.  This would be the last time I can do it until all of the bolts have been set in place.

 There were a couple of holes where the epoxy swelled up and crowned.  I lightly ground those down and then began to drill 5/16" holes down through the center of the epoxy plug all the way through lower skins.  This was followed by counter sinking the entire 5/8" hole to allow more butyl to fill the void.  Now if any water should make it's way down the bolt it will pass through to the cabin without soaking the core and ruining all my hard deck work.  It takes a couple extra steps and is time consuming but it is the only way to guarantee the core will not fail again.  I spent a lot of time shortening all of the bolts.  they were all a half inch too long and since I was using acorn nuts for a nicer finished product in the cabin I had to cut them all off.

The bow and stern rail are all mounted in lockers so regular ss nuts can be used.  I then dry fitted all the backing plates, nuts and washers.  The final attachment with the butyl will happen when I have someone else to be on the outside to prevent the the bolt from turning while I tighten down below.  When using butyl the bolt can not turn or it compromises the seal.