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My brother just purchased a 1979 Vector and we are restoring. I am trying to help him document the process and aid in the restoration. It seems that some of the later Vectors have different features (flotation, fiberglass stringers) than earlier ones from what I have read on hydrostreamforums and screamandfly. I would appreciate any input as this forum seems to have a lot of really good info and a lot of people with good experience. I will be posting additional pics as we go along. Does pic 3 look like rot? We're thinking about drilling a small hole to check.

well iam new to all this two but i do believe the blackish brown spots are rottin spots iam doing a recore my self and just started on mine today look at my post you can really see the rot in mine its 77 vector recore by 265mercman maybe that will let you get a better view and read up on the other two vector post for the recore got some really good info and know hows and help with any questions i really like that color of the boat is the gel coat bad and gona have to repaint it..

i painted mine this past winter i used dupont 2x urthane fullthane polyurthane paint on my vector i used black since its cheaper and never painted a boat so if i messed up it would cost that much and i put a flexiable additive in mine so the paint would flex with the hull and put three coats of clear coat on it

if you tap on the core with a hammer you will see the matting/resin flex alittle if the core is real bad under it and the good spots sounds really hard and it wont move good luck

You're best bet is to drill a couple test holes, if the core is wet at all up there it will be soaked down in the pad.

The best thing for me was keeping my thread going it was a little more motivation, that and everything is well documented.

Welcome and good luck

Hints during recoring is a tyvec suit duct taped tight, baby powder all over any exposed skin and COLD showers.

First pic shows Brandon checking for rot. Second pick is wet balsa. Guess what, like all old hydrostreams it's there. Thanks 265mercman & 77viper for your input. Here's a couple pics.

For how wet that looks you can bet every bit of it will be Just about the same. Someone replaced my core with plain old plywood and I bet there was more water in that wood then actual wood.

It will be good for another 25 years when I get done with mine.

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yea thats the way mine was i got some more done on mine i just one whole side done on mine front to back down to the stringers i have been using a dremel tool with a chisel bit its been working good and taking a metabo or cut off blade on a grinder and cutting it in 5x5 squares then takeing a hamer and knocking the resin off then the dremel again to cut the wood out its a lot of work more than what i thought lol the hardest parts in the pad and getting the drain plug out mine had about a 3 inch would built up around the plug hole then i just kept work it out till i got to the fiberglass on the back and took a hammer and flat screwdriver and knocked the plug out and good suggestions for getting this stuff out quickly would be good too lol glad i got someone doing the same boat at the same time as me cant wait to see the out come

Do foam cores have to be kerfed to match the contour of the hull? Or can you just press them into place?

Looks good. You are on the right track. It all sounds too familiar to me. Keep up the good work. See my 79 Vulture Re-core thread in WIP if you have any questions. It'll be worth every hour you put into it to know it's safe. I documented as much as I could while doing mine. Oops. Still working on it. Bill

whybjorn wrote:Do foam cores have to be kerfed to match the contour of the hull? Or can you just press them into place?

I have not worked with foam coring but I think it needs to be cut in order to conform to the shape of the hull.

The foam I used was already scored.