Removing Rot

Hello,

First Post! Been soaking up all of the great info here over the last month or so. Has given me the courage to tackle a restoration project of my own. Just acquired a Trophy 2302 last month & am hoping to have her ready for Lake Michigan in the spring!

Would like to offer up something that really worked for me today in gutting a rotten bow pulpit. Fought with a multi tool & chisel for about 20 mins & got frustrated. Pulled out a 2-5/8 hole saw & popped a bunch of overlapping holes just through the laminate. Then I pulled the center bit out of the middle of the hole saw & went to town. Smooth sailing & was able to get all of the rot out in less than an hour. In fact I was really surprised how much control I had with it. Tip it sideways like a grinder or plunge it into the rot then rock it sideways to pop out huge chunks. Pic below is of result with only the hole saws use. Didn't see anyone using this method before so I thought I would share. Must have pulled 35lbs of water logged trash out of it in the end.

Remaining glass shell is 1/8" solid glass & is in pretty solid shape except for a couple edges that need a little attention. I am thinking about re-coring it with EPS in the non mounting locations.

I understand that EPS will not work with polyester, but if I encapsulate it in epoxy first can I do the final bulking layers in polyester or vinlylester?

What would be the best bang for the buck fabric to use for building up the mounting locations as I do not want any core material in those locations?

Should I lay down a full layer of cloth & epoxy over the inside skin first, or just fill gaps with thickened goop?

Any thoughts would be appreciated & I will post how it turned out!

Thanks
Kevin

 

Epoxy will stick to polyester, but polyester has difficulty sticking to epoxy.

As to a new inert core, you have several choices, all much more costly then wood, which is why wood is often used. You can use one of several brands of foam, honeycomb, plastic impregnated stuff, wonder boards, etc. All will be several times the cost of a hunk of 1 by stock.

If you use epoxy, it will actually waterproof the wood, unlike polyester, so it'll last a lot longer (with reasonable care).

 

You want to make sure the core is completely sealed. The bolt holes and such need special attention, you can buy round rods of fiberglass and cut to length and embed then in the core with resin. You can also cut the core out around where the bolts are and make a solid plug of reinforced resin. Make sure the plug how ever you do it has a large enough diameter and is strong enough to take the stress of the bolt and load.

There are others here better at giving you guidance on how to thicken up your resin. I am almost through a project to put resin plugs in ALL of my deck fittings before I have more problems along the line of what happened to you.