I'd make use of that access from below, cut GOOD plywood (marine or ext fir)
to fit and glue it in with West System epoxy making sure theply is well
bonded with the old (solid) ply.
My opinion fwiw.
Merlin.
"Old Nick" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:27:26 -0500, "Marc Beroz"
vaguely proposed a theory
......and in reply I say!:

I don't think my foam
idea is a smart thing to do but I thought I would ask your opinion before
I
abandoned the idea entirely.

nuff sed.

It's a boat. Your life may depend on it. It's a stress area. You have
access. Do it properly. I would also be looking at what is wrong with
the design/surrounds that the ply turned to mush. Why did the water
get in? Design or build? Accident? rebuild the area and some around
it.

Boats are not cheap.

I have a Rhodes 22 sailboat with some plywood core in the bow that turned
to
mush. Water entered through a poorly sealed hole for a cowl. Last October
I
scraped out the rotted core using wire. I was able to do this from the
existing cowl hole. The core I now need to replace extends about 1 foot
back
& 180 degrees from the edge of the cowl opening. Ideally I would push in
epoxy with filler to fill the void but can't see an effective way of
doing
that & repair such a large area. Then I thought about how handy it would
be
to use an expanding foam to fill this area & then seal the edge with
epoxy
at the cowl. The deck is very strong & does not flex. I don't think my
foam
idea is a smart thing to do but I thought I would ask your opinion before
I
abandoned the idea entirely. Any thoughts on fixing this without cutting
some fiberglass skin would be appreciated though I do have excellant
access
to the damaged area from inside the boat.
Thanks
Marc


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