Thread: Newby seeking advice! - woodern boat restoration.

If you want to be in the water in a few weeks ... DON'T TOUCH THE PAINT.

Well ... that is my opening comment ... just to get attention! But really .. to do a proper paint job you need to get rid of all the flaky stuff which probably means going back to bare wood by the way.

This is a HUGE job with a traditional boat. Get some use out of it but look at the painting next winter. Just patch up any exposed timber. It will look crappy, but at least you will get some use.

With the rotten area you can tap around the area with the handle of a screwdriver.
TAP TAP means good wood
Thud Thud means rot.

Any thuds and you can just push the tip of the screwdriver in a little to make sure it is or is not OK.

DON'T DIG UNNECESSARILY ... my suggestion about painting and also the rot is the same. Work out the extent BEFORE you start digging away at the boat.

Boats almost never rot from the outside in so you need to inspect inside the boat which is probably where.
TAP TAP and thud thud ... occasionally the tip to check.

Get a good idea of where the damage is.

Always check adjacent woodwork too.

The places for rot are right up in hte ends of the boat. Usually around the perimeter of the transom and following the stem which the planking attaches to up in the bow. Also check the timber where the side of the boat attaches to the deck and follow that along.

TAP TAP, thud thud.

When you have checked all of this ... then we can talk.

Don't dig at the boat. Mark with a permanent marker if it starts getting complex

Best wishes
Michael

If the boat has been painted it is almost impossible to strip and follow up with a clear finish. Often you can do some of the solid wood detail ... but it is too hard to go back to clear if paint has been applied directly to the planking.

Sometimes a boat will have been clear finished before painting ... in this case the paint will not soak into the timber grain.

If this is the case .. thank your lucky stars.

MIK

Hi, thanks for your advice so far.

When myself and my friend bought the boat we checked around (as well we could, using the Tap/Thud method) for any obvious rot and the only area we found was the bit I mentioned before. I d have to check back, but when we checked it did not appear to run very deep into the wood, ie there was nt much of an area that was thudding rather than tapping. As I said this area is on the upper side of the boat.
The idea of rot just had me a bit worried and i did nt want this allowed he chance to get anymore widespread.

We checked the transom (as we d seen described on another site) and it seems completely solid, and there is no evidence of rot there.

With regards to the wood on the boat i mentioned sanding and painting up/varnishing, this is just the upper interior of the boat (the flat sections). Under the flaky paint the wood appears to have been previosly clear varnished and at some stage paint just applied over. Was thinking with two of us this might not be too big a job, as we only planned to do these upper sections. The deck of the boat is marine carpeted (which we may replace).

I will attempt to get some more pictures this weekend if this would help.

Thanks,

Mike

Originally Posted by Mctuff

The deck of the boat is marine carpeted (which we may replace).

I will attempt to get some more pictures this weekend if this would help.

Thanks,

Mike

And the hair stands up on the back of the neck...

Is the carpet on a false floor , or glued to the actual hull planks?
cheers
AJ

The main section of the boat has a false floor of boards which then have the carpet on this. I have nt attempted to look underneath these as yet. At the front (under the small covered section) the ply boards can be removed, which i did at the weekend to remove some rainwater which had got in due to the cover being left off for a while by the last owner. When these are lifted can see down to the original planks of the hull construction.
I found that by lifting the boat, on the trailer, I could drain this water from the bungs at the back - this suggested to me the floor is just placed on top and not solid down to the original planks.
From the look of the inside of the boat it is obvious a previous owner has done quite a lot of work on the boat to make it look as it does now.

I'm interested to know if you can buy good rot proofing products there ?

Soak in some good copper based product if you can get it .

One put out in Oz was "Blue 7" which was very good but you cannot buy it here now , the government won't let us !

Another was the product you painted on rot proofed logs when you cut them but we cant buy that here either now.

If anyone knows how I can get a good product here in OZ please tell me ?

On your problem ,Cut away the rotten stuff back to good timber. get whats left to dry out as much as you can then soak in whatever product you can fo a few days . The rot proofing will have ideally soaked a bit into any small bits of rot left .When dry shape up a piece of timber to fit in (or a couple of bits . Mix up an epoxy glue and glue it in . When hard ,cut away the excess ,plane ,sand and cover with a good epoxy primer and paint.

If you are serious about clear then you will need to look at the type of fill timber used to match colour and grain and make it a tight fit at the exposed top. Perhaps after the repair route a section 1/4 " deep and fill with the required finish timber.

If clear coating get a stripper on the old paint but you are unlikely to get it all off.

On the floor fresh water causes the rot so between floor and hull will be a likely spot for more rot and if the hull needed glassing then that is probably why.

Cheers tytower,
Had a look today and removed most of the the wet/rotten wood. Am now going to let this dry out then look at it again this weekend with a view to treating it with a rot proofer - still looking around for a good product, so any recommendations gratefully accepted!
Re the clear finish, I have decided I am going re paint some sections, but there are a few bits I may see about clear varnishing - as the wood has had varnish then paint applied over the top in a few areas. Still deciding on this, but think it is a more realistic idea.
Where the rottten bit is/was I am just going to paint to match the origianal colour so hopefully it ll match its surrounding areas.

Thanks for the advice so far!

Mike

Could you see any cause for the rot in that area. I know there was the abrasion on the outside ... but have any ideas from the inside. Is there are shelf or something inside that contacts that area that could collect or hold water. Or look like there is a water track from rainwater coming down the inside of the boat or something like that?

A butt block on the inside?

Oh was it glassed on the outside? if there was a gap between the glass and the timber that would hold water between the two.

Michael Storer

The only cause I could see was the strap. The abrasion has left the wood exposed. The strap was soaking wet and had a bit of fungal? looking green on it. The boat cover had nt been on properly so the strap will have been wet and in contact with the exposed wood for a while as the boat has been stood for about a year on the trailer.

Originally Posted by tytower

Another was the product you painted on rot proofed logs when you cut them but we cant buy that here either now.

If anyone knows how I can get a good product here in OZ please tell me ?

You should still be able to get CCB (copper - chromium - borate) from a treated pine/landscape supplier.
You can't buy CCA (copper - chromium - arsenic) over the counter.
CCB works nearly as well as CCA & seems to take glue ok.

Otherwise, look up Dave Carnell chemotherapy for rot - glycol & borax.
I wouldn't trust glue over glycol / borax though.

cheers
AJ

Thanks AJ
Cant buy CCB either now . Check it out , they can sell you treated pine logs ,posts etc but nothing to seal the ends. ( QLD)

On the Borax and Radiator additive , reading what comes up in Google now is not as detailed as what I have read and tried in the past. I made this up and tried it with pretty poor results. You have to get the radiator fluid with the highest active ingredient and mix in and dissolve the borax powder and then boil off the water.

I was pretty careful to stay true to the recipe but some Oregon exposed to the elements was treated and was rotting again in about 3 months so it did not get tried again. I still have about 4 litres of the stuff left . I guess I will have to give it another try. On Plywood this time.

Originally Posted by tytower

Thanks AJ
Cant buy CCB either now . Check it out , they can sell you treated pine logs ,posts etc but nothing to seal the ends. ( QLD)

I'm off-shift Friday - will try to wander past softwoods & see if CCB is still available
here (SA). Works a treat, but am nearly out of it.

Glycol/borax are water-soluble so no good where they can leach out. Have had good
results with Glycol alone inside a TS16 which had no paint & some minor surface rot
on the inside of the hull. Also on items such as carpet in a 6x4 box trailer, bathroom
walls, and tinea. 18 months down the track, all 3 need re-treating. Have never tried adding
Borax - simply sprayed or dabbed with Glycol.
cheers
AJ

Howdy,

That is very unusual, but I guess completely probable in the light of no other evidence.

I wouldn't necessarily get super concerned about anti rot treatment. The boat is quite old now, and only has one small area. Keep it dry and well ventilated and I can't see much cause for concern.

The localised rot really proves the point of what a gem you have here!

Fix the local area of rot - you can simply cut it out and put a new piece in. You could try to scarf a bit in, though this can be a pain. So seeing it is up in the end of the boat you could replace the part, attaching it as per the original but you can glue a buttstrap on the back of that one plank to hold it all together.

Make sure the buttstrap is only glued to the back of that one plank if it is a rivetted structure. If you get any glue between the repair and the adjacent structure movement will just break that glue bond.

Then re-rivet.

Buttstrap should be similar thickness to the original plank and the ends need to overlap the undamaged section by 10 times the planking thickness at each end. So if your planking is 10mm the butstrap needs to be 2 x 100mm = 200mm longer than the damaged section. Use epoxy for the repair ... I would guess.

Michael Storer