Here I have flexed the piece to show how the balsa is not solid and that in between the pieces water has passed through, stained, and maybe even mildewed. Fortunately, there was no rot.

The next balsa core issue was the foredeck. This is the worst of the bow pulpit mounts looking from inside, looking up from the V berth. I could tell that there had been moisture on the through bolts, but I thought that it was from condensation on the inside. That could be part of it, but there was also wet balsa surrounding these fastenings. I bored them out from the inside to check for moisture, allowed the deck to dry out, and provided an epoxy core when refastening.

Psychrometer in the boat shows high humidity at first with the garage heat at 68. It later fell to 64%. Still, it is going to cost me $75 a month to heat the garage and dry out the boat. (Update: two weeks later it was down to 54% in the garage.) (Another update: my heating bill was up by more than $100).

This is a piece that I coated with penetrating epoxy a week before. Penetrating epoxy soaks in to rotten wood, but barely penetrates good wood. This wood, although water saturated and stained, was good. One problem with applying penetrating epoxy too soon is that it can hold moisture in. The piece (showing the puncture wounds made by my moisture meter) was still at 26% when some of uncoated pieces that I had torn out were already down to 18%, so I have to be very patient and let this dry out.

Here I have flexed the piece to show how the balsa is not solid and that in between the pieces water has passed through, stained, and maybe even mildewed. Fortunately, there was no rot.

This shows how the balsa core can form little paths for water. This piece is actually upside down from how it sat in the hull. All of this is stained but still structurally sound. The little hole is from being poked with my moisture meter, not termites!

Another picture of the removed balsa showing the scarf joint preparation for connecting the new epoxy/glass top laminate. I knew that there was a reason I hated fiberglass boats. Grinding down the glass was horrible. Also shown is a 160 degree heating pad that is moved around over the cockpit sole to drive out moisture. I also used heat lamps under the boat. Be careful with those. They can get very hot.

I put the seat box/cockpit panel back in temporarily so that I could work on other projects. You can see that the pop rivets at the aft of the port seat box were the primary problem. They are spaced closer together, so the moisture did more damage. There are five or six other rivets where the balsa is bad, but those can be fixed without removing the fiberglass. Actually, the reason I put the panel back in is to measure for the Tempress access hatch that will be covering my heater, if all goes well.

M

Here I have flexed the piece to show how the balsa is not solid and that in between the pieces water has passed through, stained, and maybe even mildewed. Fortunately, there was no rot.

Marco Flamingo
Oct 15, 2015

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