[Rhodes22-list] Soft deck and core replacement.

[The Rhodes 22 Email List]

Hi Rummy:

Interesting article: There are many ways to skin a cat and which way is best
depends on the  particular circumstances and inclinations of the individual
doing the work. Here is a link to another article in Good Old Boat on the
same topic:
http://www.goodoldboat.com/reader_services/articles/delamination.php 

Everything I have read about epoxy tells me that epoxy by itself is too
brittle. You can hit solid epoxy with a hammer and it will shatter. In boat
construction it is the combination of the epoxy and wood that gives the
strength and moisture resistance of the epoxy and the flexibility of the
wood that you need. So while I am sure an area of solid epoxy works fine for
small areas I would worry about pooling a large amount of epoxy as the deck
core. Cost would also become a question for larger areas. The other problem
for me is that by the time you have drilled dozens of holes and then ground
down the surface, you might just as well have removed the skin in one piece,
replaced the rotten core with wood and epoxy and then bonded the skin back
on. That way you are not guessing where the rot is as you can actually see
it. 

I should mention that in my case the deck had become soft over a large area
but the skin was not deformed. So a fix for a small area would not be
appropriate. In my case I had read a number of articles where I was told
that one can identify where rot is by tapping with a tack hammer or wooden
handle. Good luck with that! After seemingly hours of tapping I still had no
clue so I started to remove the skin in chunks where I guessed there would
be rot only to find that the wood was solid - just detached from the skin. 

The tapping could not distinguish between an air space and rot - at least
not for a person with my level of experience. Drilling into the core is
better but even that was not conclusive for me. That was one of the reasons
that I went to the extreme of removing deck and completely removing the
core. In doing so I discovered that the one area that actually had rot had
sounded rock solid when I was tapping because it occurred around the air
vent for the holding tank on the bow where the fibreglass is twice as thick
as the rest of the deck. Personally,  I would not trust tapping as a
reliable indicator alone. Nor would I trust a moisture meter as that turned
out, in the hands of a presumed "expert" to be dead wrong as well. I would
want to get in there and see it firsthand. I really wanted to know that I
had replaced ALL of the rot and I could not see how I could be confident of
that without being able to see the core and what I was doing. From what I
learned taking the deck off, and if I were to do it again under the same
circumstances, I would cut around the entire foredeck and lift the whole
skin off - hopefully in one piece. I would then replace any wood that was
wet, inject epoxy into the plywood if drilling indicated air space between
the layers of the plywood and then re-bond the skin to the core using epoxy
mixed with high adhesive thickener. Then I could rest easy and save a
considerable amount of work over what I ended up doing. I would hate to
think that I went to a lot of work fixing one spot now knowing that there
was another wet spot a few inches over that I missed completely. 

Hopefully these articles and discussion will at least give anyone who is
considering major deck repair a number of alternative strategies that they
can consider.


Graham 

-----Original Message-----
From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
[mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of The Rhodes 22 Email
List
Sent: October-31-14 3:50 PM
To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Soft deck and core replacement.

Graham,
Attached is an article I saved several years ago about doing a repair to
soft or totally disintegrated decking. I can tell you from personal
experience  that the methods mentioned do work.
 
Rummy
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