The deck has now been opened for two months in a heated garage with a heating mat placed on the deck and heat lamps underneath. Here, I covered the opening in the deck with plastic with a psychrometer (air moisture meter) enclosed. Relative humidity in the garage was now down to 50%. After 24 hours applying heat to the surrounding area, it only got to 60% RH inside of the plastic.

The area was covered with a thin layer of epoxy and wood dust, the balsa set in place and covered with masonite pieces and weighted down to cure. Not shown is that I jacked this side of the boat up off of the trailer bunk (which runs right under the repair area). I didn't want the weight of the boat to possibly deform the hull while I did the repair.

I masked off the surrounding area and coated the repair area with penetrating epoxy.

I could use heat to move core moisture around, but it looked like it was basically dried out the same as any lumber in my shop, so I cut the replacement piece for a trial fit. The outlying holes have been filled, as have the old pop rivet holes. Those will be drilled to accept stainless steel screws to hold the seat box.

The deck has now been opened for two months in a heated garage with a heating mat placed on the deck and heat lamps underneath. Here, I covered the opening in the deck with plastic with a psychrometer (air moisture meter) enclosed. Relative humidity in the garage was now down to 50%. After 24 hours applying heat to the surrounding area, it only got to 60% RH inside of the plastic.

So, in addition to eliminating the deck penetrations, I'm hoping to clean up this mess. You can just barely see the fuel filter screwed to the deck between the gas cans, which are screwed to the deck inside of the battery trays, which are also screwed to the deck. All screws go into the balsa core.

So far, every deck penetration that could be done wrong was done wrong. I found that the little snap fittings for the bimini had been pop riveted (and many had failed because of using aluminum with stainless). Those that had been replaced over the years also had leaked. All have now been removed. I only found a couple of bad spots in the balsa core, and those appeared to be discolored rather than rotten. Again, with the balsa core moisture at full saturation, it is difficult to identify exactly what was leaking. I didn't find anything that made me want to tear off the fiberglass laminate (from below) and examine, but then I'm also really reluctant to go there.

I was able to get a moisture reading well away from the leaking deck fittings when I drilled a hole for the gas tank deck fill. This shows that the balsa core is saturated throughout the boat. The wood looks perfect, but it probably would not have lasted long at this moisture content.

M

The deck has now been opened for two months in a heated garage with a heating mat placed on the deck and heat lamps underneath. Here, I covered the opening in the deck with plastic with a psychrometer (air moisture meter) enclosed. Relative humidity in the garage was now down to 50%. After 24 hours applying heat to the surrounding area, it only got to 60% RH inside of the plastic.

Marco Flamingo
Nov 30, 2015

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