Rot Fixed & Wood Sculped

Now that the exposed rotten wood had been dug out & removed, I was ready to use the Rot Fix and SculpWood products. This evening, I did just that. I mixed up the 2-part Rot Fix into a squeeze bottle and applied it to all exposed wood on the bottom of the boat. The bulk of it went into the bow and other larger ares of wood removal. Elsewhere, I put it on and spread it out a bit with a epoxy mixing stick (a small brush would have been handier). After that, I mixed up some SculpWood (also a 2-part thing, but not liquid) and filled in the big voids: the bow and a couple other holes elsewhere. It will dry to a smooth but uneven surface, which is OK -- I will come back later and sand it to get the shape right. The goal here was to fill 90% of the area so that I can do the rest with a somewhat thick epoxy/sawdust mixture.

Here are "before" and "after" pics of the bow! (Keep in mind that the "before" shot is actually before I dug any rotten wood out... I forgot to get a picture of that, too late now!) That whole top triangular shaped piece of wood was pretty dug out, and you can sort of see the additional SculpWood that I used towards the top of the photo.

BEFORE: AFTER:

Box 'o Hardware

Here is a box of (hopefully) all of the loose hardware for the boat. There are still some things attached to the mast & boom & random other larger pieces as well. This hardware is almost completely brass and just needs a good cleaning. I'll post "after" pictures later, stay tuned.

Rotten wood removed

From what I can tell, most of the rotten wood from the underside of the boat has been removed. I was expecting much much worse. The main "bare spots" on the bottom of the boat that didn't have paint were actually not rotten at all. The bottom bow of the boat was probably the worst area... I removed a pretty deep portion, nearly reaching to the foam floatation that was put into the bow of the boat. O than that, only a few spots needed to be removed. I found the best method to "test" for rotten wood was to use the chisel to tap the wood... if it was rotten, it'd be softer, which sounded different but also didn't allow the chisel to bounce off of the wood as easily. I used a flathead screwdriver to remove wood from the bow area and used a chisel to remove wood elsewhere in places where I didn't need to reach into tight spaces.

The photo at right is BEFORE any rotten wood was removed. Most of that top triangularish piece was pretty rotten.

I also removed some of the paint/epoxy that was present in order to make a smooth transition later when I apply more epoxy.

The next step is to apply Rot Fix to the exposed wood -- the wood soaks it up and kills current rot while also helping to prevent future rot. After I've done that, I will do a bit of rough sanding, then I will fill the major areas with SculpWood and the smaller areas with an expoxy/Mahogany sawdust mix. A aluminum trim piece goes on the very front of the boat, so I'll have to get creative with the SculpWood so that the piece fits comfortably. Luckily, SculpWood is great stuff and is easy to form.

She be flipped!

After getting the OK from the storage area landlord, we identified an area where the boat can be placed upside down on sawhorses and it's been flipped! The saw horses are 4' wide each; one is across the very back of the boat (aft of the cockpit) and the other is on the foredeck, right in front of the mast hole. The saw horses are padded with some sweet blue foam I found at the yard, and I added extra on ends of the saw horses where the boat curves up, to help support the boat and make it more stable on the saw horses. Before putting the saw horses where they are, I cleaned up the area by removing what was probably years of dirt & mud, along with random debris.

Getting the boat flipped is important so that the wood on the bottom of the boat can be repaired: remove rotten wood, put in filler, sand, paint, etc. It took the help of 3 other guys at the storage yard to flip the boat. I think the boat could be carried by 2 people, but you need at least 3 to flip it over... and having a 4th made the job really simple. On paper, the boat ways 275lbs, but I'm not sure if that is the boat by itself or if that includes the mast & other rigging. The big silver tarp I bought covers the whole length of the boat which is very convenient. It is secured down to the sawhorses using bungee cords. The boat should stay nice and dry now so that none of this hard work is wasted!

My only issue now is finding a little stool so that I can reach the top of the boat! ;)

Getting the lowdown

Sharon, the owner of the boat, met with me this evening to give me a quick overview on how to do some of the work that I will be performing on the boat: getting rid of rotten wood, putting in 'Rot Fix' to help prevent future wood rot, filling holes with either SculpWood or epoxy resin, sanding, priming, painting, & varnishing. I now have a bit of a toolkit to pull from in order to get this thing ready to sail!

Most of the cool products we're using to fix up the boat are from System Three, very cool stuff:

Rot Fix, SculpWood 2-part filler, Phase Two Epoxy Resin:

General cleanup

The boat has been sitting outside and wasn't covered too well, so there was a bit of water in the boat... by "a bit", I mean a few inches! The inside of the boat was epoxied and painted to the hilt, so in theory, the water didn't hurt much. In any case, I bailed it out using a big sponge, and put on a new huge tarp that I got to keep future water out. I also took most parts out of the boat and put them in storage so they wouldn't get ruined.