Should I worry?

C

capt. meares

New member
I posted yesterday how I discovered that a leak was coming down inside my cabin from my anchor nest...

UPDATE...Today I bored out all the holes with a larger drill bit. To my surprise, this took out all the moister/rot, and left dry light colored balsa wood on all the holes except one. The one hole that was the closest to the point of the bow had quite a bit of rot. I removed it all (I hope), with a dental pick, and a sharpened bent nail by hand. I made a second drilled hole to reach farther back and remove more rotted balsa. I estimate the infected area was about the size of a silver dollar, only oval shaped. I then beveled, taped off the bottom and filled all holes with epoxy.

I am fairly confident I got at least 95% of all the rot out, should I lose sleep over any small bit that may have been left behind that is now soaked with resin? If a little moister was left could this come back to be a problem?
 
Probably nothing will come of it, and since you have filled the holes, it would likely be difficult to go back and change it now. OTOH, I know myself well enough to realize that sort of thing would just "sit" on my mind, so I'd make sure to get the last 5% out before filling them the first time (having gone that far, I don't stop until it's all totally dry core). Hopefully your brain is not like mine :wink

Just curious: Did you wet the holes out with neat epoxy and then fill with thickened epoxy? Or did you just fill the whole thing with neat (plain) epoxy? It almost sounded like the latter, but maybe you were just being succinct.

Glad to hear the problem was fairly confined.

Sunbeam
 
Yes sunbeam, my brain is exactly like yours, I cant stop thinking about it. You are right, if I am going to go that far I should have done it all 100 percent right the first time. I guess I rushed a little because I wanted to get it all sealed up while the weather was nice. No I didn't wet the edges, I just filled it all with regular epoxy.

I have been trying to research what happens when a little moister is trapped and sealed like this. Obviously it will rot and mold but how much? Will it just keep going and going or will it eventually die out?

I have decided I will do surgery #2 and come at it a few inches from the other direction. I think I will cut a small square out of the skin with a small dremel disk, and search for more decay. I will remove the bad and clean it all the way up to the original epoxy repair and fill the rest. One bonus is none of this will be visible when its finished because it will all be covered with the anchor nest. Any advice?
 
See my post on the other thread, which was posted originally.

You might want to keep all information on one thread, for the future, since this issue is not all that uncommon, and it does come up fairly often.

With cored hulls, most repairs involve removal of the core, when it is more than a small area--and I would consider what you have found to be a small area, so far.
 
Uh-oh, your brain is like mine. Sorry :mrgreen: I doubt you would have any real-life problem from that 5%, but if it bugs you then that is a problem. Also, just filling with plain epoxy is not the best, so you could fix that too if you went back.

Over the years I've had a couple of "second thoughts" or epoxy goof ups and had to go back. One thing is that if it's just a hole, and if you do want to go back and re-do it, it shouldn't be that bad. Just get the epoxy out (drill, Dremel, etc.) and go at it again. Any little bit of epoxy that remains is not a big deal, typically, so that helps.

If you do re-do it, I would first wet out (generously) the hole with neat epoxy, then go back and fill it up with thickened epoxy. Neat epoxy in a large piece is rather brittle; filled epoxy (with appropriate filler) is more durable. I would use colloidal silica, WEST structural filler, or a combination of the two. Just wet out the hole with the neat epoxy, then you can fill the rest of it and go on and fill the hole. You don't need to let the neat stuff tack up since you are not trying to get it to stick overhead.

Or you can use WEST 610, which is a tidy, pre-thickened epoxy in a caulking tube. A bit pricey if you went to build a boat with it, but easy to use and if you don't already have all the fillers and etc. it can even be economical. I use it quite often now.

You'll want to let the epoxy "over mound" the hole a bit (or else let it shrink and go back and fill a second time). I usually mound it (taping off around hole), then go back when it is in the green stage (rubbery) and slice it off with a chisel - makes it perfectly flat to the deck that way. Or you can let it harden and then sand it off, but then you have dust to contend with.

Or have a brain transplant :lol:
 
rogerar":38gokgo5 said:
Antifreeze kills the rot fungus.
Roger
Click to expand...

Partly correct--Ethylene glycol which is the toxic antifreeze will kill most fungi. (It can easily kill animals and people, if safety precautions are not used) Propylene Glycol (non toxic antifreeze) will have no effect, and can be corrosive under some conditions.

Getting the Ethylene glycol to the area involved is a bit of a problem. Then the area needs to be dried out--and eventually infused with a low viscosity epoxy (as I noted on the other thread by meares). The usual epoxy which is purchased penetrates poorly, in comparison to water, and low viscosity epoxies such as CPES.

It is interesting that old ships which have been under water for centuries are treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) over a long period of time. I saw the VASA many years ago not too long after she was raised, and she was constantly being sprayed with PEG for 17 years. The drying process continues (she was raised in 1961). Again, there have been some experiments done on small wooden boats with PEG (which is less toxic than EG, but not entirely safe either). PEG would not be appropriate for the plywood or balsa cored materials.

I grew up on wooden boats, and we used Cuprinol (the original was copper dissolved in solvents--with a high concentration of copper sulfate, and other copper salts). It was a very effective and toxic material. Today's Cuprinol is nothing like that of the 40's and 50's. Unfortunately It would also not really be the best agent to treat an area of dry rot.

Some of the materials allow less adhesion with epoxy, even when completely dry--but that would not be a problem here. I probably would not use a toxic material--but would rather completely remove, and or infuse the areas with a low viscosity epoxy.

As to the filling material for any significant area, you want to create another core--wood, foam, glass fibers, etc are all used. As mentioned, I would not just use pure epoxy resin. Depending on the composition of the original material, I had used Cabosil, various density filling agents (although micro ballons have traditionally used, if the area is too thick and not re-encapsulated in glass, I might choose other fillers).. I also have used circles or squares of glass fibers: everything from mat to cloth to woven roving, with epoxy to fill the void.

It might help if we knew where the leak is under the deck, and a photo of the area you have uncovered and fixed so far.
 
Thataway, I noticed the leak coming directly from a bolt inside the cabin, that was fastening down the anchor nest on the bow of the boat. The nest was installed incorrectly with no bedding compound and just a piece of rubber between the aluminum and the fiberglass. The actual holes for these bolts were good after I bored them out to a larger size. The rot was in a separate drilled hole that wasn't visible under the anchor nest until I removed it.

Thanks for your help.
 
Since there does not appear to be any distant migration of the water, you should be fine, by just routing out the area directly under the holes and surrounding.
 
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