Wooden Drift Boat Treatment Advice

Greetings, I am restoring a wooden drift boat and looking for recommendations on how to treat the interior. It will be obvious that I have not done anything like this before, and there are so many products out there.

My plan was to epoxy the floor up to and over the chine areas (about 2 inches). My question is what to do with the interior, plywood sides that have been sanded down. I plan to paint them with something like Easypoxy or Brightside. My question is this, should I epoxy the sides or will a primer suffice? Is there another product that will work better under the paint? Thanks for your advice.

- Willy

 

For epoxy to be effective at keeping out moisture, it has to completely surround the wood, every edge, every fastener hole, every cutout, and especially the end grain. If you just coat one side, it's not much more then a costly paint job. Epoxy will then need to be protected from UV, by paint or a UV stabilized clear coating of some sort.

If you elect to skip the epoxy, then you can stabilize the wood with shellac, polyurethane, varnish or a traditional oil finish (in that order of moisture vapor resistance and preference). Amazingly enough, shellac will keep out more moisture vapor then anything except the activated polymer resins (polyester, vinylester and epoxy). Even the cheap polyesters aren't much better the plain old shellac. Use the "3 pound" mix available at the local hardware store of mix up your own (it's really easy). Next on the list are the single part polyurethane varnishes, closely followed by the oil based traditional varnishes, which are three times more effective at keeping out the wet stuff then traditional oil finishes (Ducth oil).

Of course then there's paint. A good paint job can be made better with a coating of shellac, or varnish under it. Gloss paint is the easiest to clean and the most water proof, with flat paint the worst. If you want a flat finish, then paint with a high gloss and top coat with a flat for the look, it'll protect the wood better.

There are lots of different paints to choose from, ranging from the stuff that requires the submission of your first born child in cost, down to Wal-Mart acrylic house paint. Many a workboat has survived years of rough service with "porch and deck" enamel, which generally is the better home improvement oil based paint.

What you have to ask yourself is, what are the goals you have for this boat. This answer will basically drive how you select materials and products for your drift boat. If she's a working girl and seeing plenty of service during the season, then treat her to a good enamel or acrylic, knowing you'll be touching up for a year or two, before a new paint job. If the old lass is to pass on to the kids, then maybe you'll want to take stronger (usually more costly) measures to insure her durability.

 

You arnt kidding - high performance two part paint with the thinners, cost more than the timber on (the outside) of my 16 ft canoe!
If the boat isnt going to be sold, and your taste doesnt run to absolute perfection - a good quality gloss paint job on the interior is a good solution IMHO.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. My friend here is also re-doing a boat that is just like mine. He is planning on applying epoxy to the inside sides to take care of the checking on the plywood. I’m not so sure that I’m that particular since I’m not really sure what checking is. (I'm guessing small cracks, but I thought a primer and paint would be enough to satisfactorily address that. After all, it's fishing boat first.)

The outside of my boat is in pretty good shape with a bottom that was recently fiberglassed up to about 10” on the sides. Sealing the floor with epoxy should take care of the inside bottom.

How about stain for all the wood trim? An oil-based stain from the hardware store covered with a good marine varnish?

Thanks again, Willy

 

Just a suggestion - just using plain epoxy to cure checking (yes cracks, and splinters) isnt effective unless you apply some kind of fabric as well (fibreglass cloth, dynel etc) - the epoxy will crack and splinter in time without it. And it will need painting for UV protection as par said