what to do with the deck.

I spent a few more hours today removing the coating. Its some sort of tar based stuff. I have to hit with my gas burner to remove it from the ply cabin top. I scraped the gunk off along part of the toe rail and now I can see the toe rail is sitting on top of the deck as suggested. The old black compound in the deck seams reflects light. Is that polysulfide. And I forgot to take pics of the deck beams so that will next week.

 

More pics

 

The "tar-based stuff" might be Malthoid ?

 

Ok. It sticks like s##t to a blanket on the plywood. It probably done a good job when it was new.

 

Hi WP,
the seam compound is very unlikely to be Polysulfide in Aus, if it's reflecting light I'd imagine it's a "brittle pitch", we used to use it on deck seams way back, although I never ladled it... that was for the veteran, in the cool of the morning it would scrape & shatter away , the look was "flint like" & reflective, quite common on the trawler fleets & sometimes then not scraped flush, I think it had a name like B2 or something similar, the deck coating could well be malthoid flashing/sheet set into a bitumous compound like durabond/bitumastic or similar, some of the old style "black stuff" had the dreaded asbestos fiber also in the mix. The pic of the deck looks like there's some granular aspect... maybe cork?
Jeff

 

Spot on jeff. Definitely has a flint look about it. The deck coat is bituminous on top and looks like cork on the bottom. I had an old boat once before that had a similar coating on it.

 

If you like the wood deck look, then consider Coelan clear coating polyurethane on top. It is not varnish, not epoxy. It is like a clear thick strong rubber sheet. People get 10 years or more in the sun. When it goes a little hazy, you add another coat after 10 years have passed and the high gloss is restored. It does soak into the wood fibers. Stuff is highly elastic, it will not crack.

http://www.coelan-boat.com/

The stuff self levels and is thick not runny. You need to buy the diluent and either a yellow or red tint stain that goes under the top coat.

For non skid they sell clear glass beads that go into the coating and then you paint it on.

Got a guy here who is using it on the boat and loves it.

 

That's it, that's the stuff I mentioned in post #21 but I could not remember the name, its been doing the job for quite a few years now on the Luders yawl and even though its very pricey it may still end up a cheap fix, and you get to keep your laid deck look. We did use the nonskid in places but not all over.

Steve.

 

I agree that the seam compound sounds like pitch, im not quite old enough to have used it myself but have removed a lot of it from areas where people had used it to direct water over floors in the fwd frames in old wood boats, absolutely useless for that purpose as it just set up as a loose brittle block that water could lay under. I don't imagine it being much good for deck seams either. We did use a lot of 2 part polysulfide in NZ in the 1970s and presumably earlier to so I would have thought in Aus too.

Steve.

 

Had a bit of a set back this morning. I got a call to say the boat was on fire. The locals and the fire brigade put it out before it went to far. An ember must have been smoldering under the chain plate. From when I was burning the coating off the deck . I thought I had checked everywhere when i finished yesterday but obviously missed it. Luckily a local went down to the jetty this morning and saw a little bit of smoke. He threw a bucket of water over it and thought the smoldering had ceased. He called the cfa just to be safe and when they opened the hatchs it took off. So now I have some topside planks to repair and ribs and frames. No big deal . I am just happy to still have a boat. There was a container with over a dozen flares and a 20 lt drum of diesel about18 inchs from the flames but they never went up. Next time I get the torch out I will be staying on the boat that night just to make sure.

 

Bad luck, but good luck too ! I'd be buying that local a beer or three.

 

Man, that sucks, I came close to loosing a boat to fire last summer.

Steve.

 

yes its a pain to add more repairs to the job but as mr e says lucky for the local man to turn up when he did or I would not have much boat left. I have used burners for years steve for removing paint and at work also but I just was not careful enough yesterday. if you learn by your mistakes I must be a professor by now.

 

in the gougeon bro's book they advise that if fastenings are still tight you can rake deck seams and fill them with thickened epoxy as long as you coat the whole deck in epoxy afterwards. have any of you tried this method.

 

You know you needed to place a port in that area anyway, right . . .