"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"jamesgangnc" wrote in message
...


The holes are round so I think that's just the camera angle combined with
the shadows in the holes. Turned out it was not the plywood
delaminating, the delamination was at the fiberglass/plywood
intersection. The glass was thicker than I expected, about 3/8" or so.
I've removed some of it and still need to feather the edges. The plywood
is in so so condition. A bit punky on the top layer with one softer spot
on the left side. To be expected after 18 years I imagine. I'll post
another picture after I finish grinding. I'm once again remembering why
grinding in the garage is not such a smart idea, dust EVERY FRICKING
WHERE. Have to drag it out on to the driveway before I feather the
edges. I'm going to go ahead and remove the area under the lower third
of the outdrive as well. Now that I think about it more, creating a
joint right at the bottom edge of the outdrive is not such a smart idea.


You are probably aware of this, but I thought I'd pass it on anyway.
If the plywood isn't so bad that it needs to be cut out and replaced,
saturating it for a while with automotive type anti-freeze before doing
the
fiberglass repair is supposed to kill the organisms that would continue
the rot and prevent it from rotting further.

That's what I've read anyway.

Eisboch
I did do that when I replaced the floor. The interior stringers were in
fair shape as well as some of the other under-the-floor structures so I
soaked everything I was not replacing in anti-freeze. The antifreeze step
added a lot of time to the repair as I then had to wait a month or so for
the anitfreeze to dry enough to start in the rest. You do learn patience
when doing boat fiberglass repairs. After the antifreeze dryed I spent a
week or so soaking things down with epoxy thinned with alcohol. I wonder if
that's not pretty toxic as well. I'm leaning towards going straght to the
saturating with epoxy/alcohol as the first step on this one. The boat lives
on a trailer in a garage so the exposure is more limited than many. We're
into water sports so it only goes out in the summer. Teenage "only
daughter" is headed to college next year so I'm thinking our boating will
fall off a bit as the next 4 or 5 years go by. In hind sight I probably
should have replaced the boat instead of fixing the floor but at this point
I might as well keep it going. One lesson observed is that these runabouts
are really mostly built to last 10-15 years or so.