Wood rot and filler

weephee · #1 (**permalink**) 07-05-2009

Hello. I have asked questions on this forum before with great success so i will try again. Some of you might remember that I purchased a 27 foot Columbia sailboat and I'm in the process of getting it ready for either a late summber launch or early next spring depending on how many issues I am confronted with. The latest problem involves wood rot from a water leak. There has been a water leak where the wire for the VHF radio antenna goes through the cabin roof along side the mast wires. This leak has been around for quite some time as the teak plywood veneer is rotted at the roof. This is the wall between the head and the companion way to the berth. It is attached to the main vertical wooden support for the mast which is OK and goes from the roof down to the bilge. I don't think I can get it out for replacement so I'm stuck with trying to repair it. I expect it has some structural importance wrt helping to support the mast. I found a product called Abatron Wood Epoxy which is a wood filler with claims to be stronger than wood and bonds well. Is anyone familiar with it or can suggest any other product that would work in this case. The top 12 inches of the plywood piece is rotten. Would I be better to try and splice a new piece in. Any help would be most appreciated.. This is the only wood in the boat that has suffured from water leaks. Thanks

jjns · #2 (**permalink**) 07-05-2009

I would think that anything on the order of 12 inches requires a proper repair. If it were me, I would be cutting and scarfing in a new piece of plywood.

Water, like everything else, is subject to gravity, you may want to take a really close look and a pointy little screwdriver to the bottom of the same bulkhead prior to any repair, nothing worse than spending many hours on a repair just to find the other end is in the same condition.

I am sure there will be many more opinions soon.

peikenberry · #3 (**permalink**) 07-06-2009

All that stuff is, is epoxy resin with wood flour as a filler.You can make the stuff yourself. It is commonly use in stitich and glue boat construction. However the previous advice is the best. Rot is almost impossible to stop without cutting out the rotted wood and putting in new wood. Do it right the first time or be doomed to do it again.

svHyLyte · #4 (**permalink**) 07-06-2009

Quote:

This leak has been around for quite some time as the teak plywood veneer is rotted at the roof. This is the wall between the head and the companion way to the berth.

The "wall" is a structural bulkhead and plays an important role in maintaining the strength of they yacht. And don't be surprised if you find that the compression post does, in fact, have the beginnings of rot where it is in contact with the bulkhead. Mold and rot never rest.

If you are sure you have stopped the leak, you "might" be able to drill small holes in the material and thoroughly dry it out and then inject "GitRot" which is a very thin epoxy into the wood. On a vertical surface this can be a difficult and time consuming process but it can be done. Once that has kicked off, you would then overlay the damaged area with a backing plate that extends from the underside of the deck to the undamaged areas of the bulkhead--epoxied to the bulkhead and fastened with screws.

The foregoing will work but a proper repair would be to remove and replace the damaged wood entirely and "sister" the repair with a backing plate as described above.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

sailingdog · #5 (**permalink**) 07-07-2009

The bulkhead is structural, and repairing it with thickened epoxy is really not a good idea. You basically need to do a proper repair job on it and need to seal the VHF coax cable exit properly. What I would recommend for the VHF antenna cable is to use a through-deck PL259 female-to-female connector. This would allow you to disconnect the VHF cable anytime you need to drop the mast very easily while providing a very sold water tight connection for it.

Your options for repairing the bulkhead are either you replace the bulkhead with a new one or scarf in a new section to replace what has been damaged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by weephee

Hello. I have asked questions on this forum before with great success so i will try again. Some of you might remember that I purchased a 27 foot Columbia sailboat and I'm in the process of getting it ready for either a late summber launch or early next spring depending on how many issues I am confronted with. The latest problem involves wood rot from a water leak. There has been a water leak where the wire for the VHF radio antenna goes through the cabin roof along side the mast wires. This leak has been around for quite some time as the teak plywood veneer is rotted at the roof. This is the wall between the head and the companion way to the berth. It is attached to the main vertical wooden support for the mast which is OK and goes from the roof down to the bilge. I don't think I can get it out for replacement so I'm stuck with trying to repair it. I expect it has some structural importance wrt helping to support the mast. I found a product called Abatron Wood Epoxy which is a wood filler with claims to be stronger than wood and bonds well. Is anyone familiar with it or can suggest any other product that would work in this case. The top 12 inches of the plywood piece is rotten. Would I be better to try and splice a new piece in. Any help would be most appreciated.. This is the only wood in the boat that has suffured from water leaks. Thanks

weephee · #6 (**permalink**) 07-08-2009

Thank you for the responses. I looked at removing the pieces that have some rot and I don't think they're removeable without ripping out the head and the floor so I will try and splice in a new piece. I also have room in the head to put in an additional 3/4 plywood vertical support & screw it into the existing pieces. Thanks again.