Thread: 125 class restoration, am I on the right track?

There's no such thing as "treating" rot. The only cure, if you don't want it to come back, is to cut it out. It needs to be treated like cancer and is often called this. You can use magic goo's in a can if you want, but they don't treat, so much as temporary hide rot.

Your concerns about a neat wooden patch aren't necessary. This is because epoxy (BoteCoat) is a wood butcher's best friend and under putty and paint, you'll never know of the repair.

It's a multi stage process, first is removing all of the rot and suspected surrounding areas. Basically you cut and grind it back, until you're sure you're back into good solid material again. Next, you'll fit in a patch of the same thickness material. It doesn't need to be a precise fit, just within say a 1/4" (6 mm) or so. Grind a significant bevel on all exposed edges (damaged area and the patch), so the epoxy will have a place to live, without standing proud of the surface. Brace the repair piece it into position from one side, so it's flush all around and as you've guessed, tape the seams, so goo doesn't run right through. With this prep performed, you can wet out the other side and lay in material (fabric, but not mat). Add enough material to bring the beveled areas nearly flush. Back fill these areas with thickened epoxy and smooth out as best as you can. Repeat on the opposite side of the repair. Now you have a mechnically sound repair that looks like crap, congratulations.

The finishing process is just like doing body work on a car, just using different materials. Eventually you kncok the surface flat and flush to surrounding surfaces, with successive application of fillers and elbow grease.

Log onto www.WestSysm.com and - System Three Resins, Inc. and download their user's guides, which will cover the techniques you'll need. You may also (if you haven't already) want to look through previous posts here for these types of repairs. The procedures are the same for each, though the application can sometimes offer some interesting "twists".

Thanks PAR.

It sounds like you are confirming the grey is in fact rot. I'll cut the grey areas out then and patch properly. Given the splits all follow the centreline of the internal floor battens I may be lucky enough to have no visible repairs inside the boat. I was concerned about repairs being visible through the clear coat.

Is there a technique for cutting scarf andgles that match in the hole and the patch?

There's no good way of cutting in patches and not having them visible under a clear finish. The only option (in this case) is precise patch fitting, which will test your wood working skills.

Scarfs are the tradisional method to make these repaires, but the slope on the scarf is typically 8:1 or more, so 4 mm planking will have scarf bevels 32 mm wide. Cutting these is tedious to say the least, if working to have a clear finish result. If someone brought me a boat like this and asked for a clear finish, I'd charge 4 - 5 times as much as a painted repair. You'll put at least this much extra effort into preserving the clear finish, over the repair.

With a painted over repair, you don't need to be precise, again as epoxy will hold fine and putty and paint will hide your sins. Another approach you might consider, is a faux wood grain paint job over the area, then clear coat over this. This way you can be a wood butcher and get the repair done in a reasonable amount of time, yet simulate the wood grain under clear. I do this on antique boat repairs and have gotten pretty good at matching grain and color. It takes some practice, but isn't a hard skill to master.

The gray areas, may or may not be rot. Many pines can stain like this when wet for and extended period. The wood may be fine and only sanding will tell. You should be able to see this as you start grinding away for the bevels. As to the scarf bevels, most will rough cut them with whatever rotary tool is handy, then fine tune them with a sharp chisel. I have some jigs I can use with relatively flat scarfs, but under a clear finish, you'll still need to be very precise.

PAR, you are a legend. Thanks you for your input.

Only in my own mind . . .

Coming along well. Thanks AR for your input so far.

I'm looking for direction from any members who know on two fronts please:

First, working outside the hull, I've removed all fittings and sanded the outer hull back to bare timber, faring compound, or resin over tape as applicable. There is no sign of tape around the centrecase openings and looking inside the boat there are thick epoxy repairs around the forward end of the centrecase, presumably to try to stop a leak from inside rather than out... which even to be would not make any sense. Am I right in now sanding inside the centrecase to bare wood and taping around the opening? I also have to re-tape a damaged tape section about a foot forward of teh centrecase.

Second, (I hope I am not going over old ground here but fear I am) due to old peeling off tape inside and numerous repairs, I am re-taping all around the cockpit floor where it meets the seat/tanks and centrecase. I have been advised to use fillet the (roughly) right angle internal angle with filler/epoxy mix, then tape and epoxy. Then, coat the entire bare ply floor with epoxy/tprda then two coats of epoxy prior to sanding flat and clear coating. While I am sure this gives a beautiful finish, is this overkill? The boat is stored indoors.

Recent photo for interest:

IMG_2325.jpg

Hope this project can help feed the enthusiasm of others as other paosts have done for me.