To replace or not?

Hello. I just aquired a 1963 CC Ski boat from the original owner. It was compleatly restored with an original bottom in 1991 and then used for less than 100 hours and put way in dry storage for the past 16 years. The boat has less than 700 hours on with about 50 on a rebuilt engine. I've pulled the engine to paint/replace/tune up parts. There are cracks on the bottom and sides due to the lack of moisture in the wood. I've flipped the boat and plan to work on the bottom first. How should I proceed? The copper paint needs to be replaced, and I haven't found any rotten wood, inside or out. I have built 20+ wooden kayaks and canoes so I'm familar with epoxy. Should I remove the caulking between the boards, fill in with new caulk, then repaint? Or fill in the cracks with thickened epoxy, and epoxy coat the entire hull and then repaint?

 

Nice project. My bias is from the perspective of a stitch and glue builder.

Was the boat always in Bend? Or maybe closer to the OR coast at one time? The answer to your question is probably dependent on if the boat is going to be used a lot and kept in the water long. And... if you wish to preserve the original "all wood" condition for show. Having lived south of K Falls myself I know it can get dry in your neck of the woods. If the boat is going to live inside most of the time, I would call the dryer condition of the wood the new normal, pull the caulk and replace it, paint it and use it. If the boat is going to be kept in the lake you could go use wood flower paste in the seams and epoxy coat the hull and repaint. As you may already know from your building experience, be sure to force a layer of epoxy in the seams to soak into the wood to make sure you have good penetration, before filling with your filling material.

The purists would have a fit, but you would have a very usable and nice lower maintenance boat. what about the inside? Would you be sealing that also, encapsulating the wood?

-Chaps

 

Traditionally we would pop the boat in the water for a day or two and it will take up again...I suggest that you do the same, as it does work, and it is time proven to be so.

 

If the boat is caulked solid while it's that dry, isn't there a danger of it damaging itself by swelling and pulling fastenings or breaking frames?

 

Indeed - especially since it would be impossible to totally encapsulate it ?

 

I don't see tight caulking in the pics, where do you get that from.

 

You have a beautiful old boat so time to learn some old technology to take care of it the way it should be !! no epoxys no fillers out of a squeezy tube
Do it properly and do it right Like has already been said it need to get back in the water again and let the wood swell and acclimetise back to where it should be .

 

I wouldn't put it back in. This technique works on well "seasoned" traditional builds, but this isn't one of these. The wisest thing to do is to SLOWLY bring the moisture content up. The easy way to do this is place a few garden sprinklers under the boat and let them sweep the bottom for a few days, maybe a week. This will bring up the moisture content slowly and then you'll then see what you actually have to do. Some seams will be trying to spit out it's caulking, while others will appear to need some pounded in. While the outside of the hull is getting the sprinkler treatment, it's a good idea to remove each and every hatch, sole, floor board, etc. and lightly spray the bilge with water every so often (a few times a day), during the period. Not a lot, just wet the surfaces and let it evaporate. This will keep checking and cupping down.

What you don't want to do is immerse the hull, nor fill it with water, nor sink it in the shallows, etc. These techniques work if the hull still has a relatively high moisture content, not the dry as a bone situation you have.

After about a week of this wetting out process, the seams will tighten up and you see which need to be scraped flat and which likely need more caulk. This is when you'll have another decision to make. To be frank, I can't see any good way out of the prospect of a new caulk and paint job. For this to be effective the wood needs to have a reasonable moisture content, or your plank seams will just spit out any new caulk that gets beat into them, shortly after launching. You might get lucky and she'll "take up", but it's much more probable the caulk and seam compound are dried out and useless, needing renewing.

 

From the OP..

I would also be mindful of cranking up the wood stove that close to the boat and super drying up that corner of the hull.

 

Thanks for the replies. I've built cradles on wheels that the boat was lowered onto so I can move it away from the stove and around the shop. I wasn't sure what kind of paint was on the bottom, so I sanded it to bare wood. The caulking is Sikaflex (I have the timesheets and repair notes from the '91 total bottom redo.) I plan to built a humidity tent and slowly raise the mositure content from the <1 % to 15-18% and see how the gaps look. Then repaint after adding a primer coat or 2. The boards were in near perfect shape, with only 1 having some very minor cracks. The insides looks good, just needs a little dirt scrubbing. It looks to have been painted with red colored bilge paint in the '91 redo. I can't believe that there isn't any rot to be found. I guess having it in dry storage for a decade and a half prevented that. I've also pulled all the mechanicals and stripped the interior.

 

Success!

Two days into the humidity tent and I have success! Almost all the gaps have swollen shut. I think I'll let this go for a few more days, and then begin the bottom paint process.

 

Keep throwing moisture at it, as you want to know the condition of the caulk and seam compound.

 

Good one mate.