Well,
It's certainly not a given that your deck will have signifigant rot.
If the deck was built out of quality marine ply, then hopefully
things should be ok once dried out. I would avoid the varnish
solution, as it definitely can not be considered a permanantly
reliable one. Epoxy is just made for this type of situation. It
penetrates the wood, and makes it, for all intents and purposes,
waterproof. Now the situation you have to bear in mind is that you
have end-grain that most surely has not been epoxy sealed all along
the sheer of your deck. Epoxying the top and bottom surfaces will do
nothing for you if that end-grain is not completely sealed with
epoxy...this can quite a lot of epoxy as the end grain sucks it up
like a sponge. The only way to seal this is to remove the deck. This
will make coating the bottom side easier anyways. For the top, I
would cover the deck in Dynel (available from Defender Marine supply
in NY) set in epoxy. This provides a traditional looking finish that
has excellent non-skid characteristics.
Hope this helps
-Eli

Paul Oman wrote in message ...
Ken Fraser wrote:

My Ballerina II boat has a marine plywood deck, currently covered with
canvas and Butinox, a proprietory paint coating with a rough surface.

It isn't watertight and water is penetrating beneath the paint/canvas
layer. I'm considering stripping down to the wood and sealing with
Smith Coat Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (CPES)or something similar.

Can anyone provide any guidance?

Ken Fraser
Tobermory, Mull (Scotland)

You might try coating with varnish (with or without solvent thinning). It
should soak into the places where the water leaks in and harden/glue. You
can easily wipe it off the non leaking part of the non skid.

The bad news is you probably have rot under there now due to the water....

So maybe first soaking the area with bleach, (or solvent, etc.) is the
first step.

Use heat lamp to dry the subsurface also use it to heat the surface prior
to coating as the cooling subsurface will draw in the varnish etc. as it
cools.

paul


--


================================================== =====
PAUL OMAN ----- Progressive Epoxy Polymers, Inc.
Frog Pond Hollow - 48 Wildwood Dr - Pittsfield NH 03263
10-4 Monday-Thur EST 603-435-7199 VISA/MC/Discover
http://www.epoxyproducts.com
Boating site: http://www.epoxyproducts.com/marine.html
================================================== ======