NE Sailboat wrote:

Planning for spring. I will rebed my stanchion bases. Under the deck, the
backing is a thin piece of fiberglass. I would like to give the bases a bit
more support. I came across the material Starboard.

It says that I can cut it just like wood, but that it does not rot. What
about compression?

Could I use some small pieces of this as backing plate material for my
stanchion bases?


Well you cant paint it and glueing it is 'not reccomended' so how do you
propose to bond it in place? It also seems to be rather soft.

If you dont want to go for metal backing plated, you might consider
Tufnol 10G/40. Its an epoxy/glass cloth material available in sheets up
to 3.5" thick. Wont rot, no problems bonding it but its *NOT* going to
be cheap. 1/2" with the edges tapered over a minimum distance of 5 times
the thickness to avoid hard points and stress cracks round the backing
plate, glassed into place, would be some pretty serious overkill.

OTOH, you could just use marine ply and seal it properly. West Systems
have a guide to hardware bonding and if you follow it so the backing
plate INCLUDING the holes is epoxy encapsulated, it should last longer
than the rest of the boat.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
[at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & 32K emails -- NUL:
'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.