Soft spot

[jlillie]

I re-laminted my entire cabin roof from the bottom (and i don't ever want to do it again something about working with resin and glass over head is just not fun.
Anyway, I posted a bunch of pics and info while i was working on it. You can find them in this thread: http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=161832
Hopefully you wont have to do anything this extreme. If this is just a small area thats soft there are easier ways such as drilling holes, cleaning out as much of the rot as you can, letting it dry out and filling with a fiber impregnated epoxy like some of the west marine options.

 

[jlillie]

JGuyer; I had asperations of reusing the bottom sections of glass too. Didn't work out that way. You'll have a hard enough time getting the divinecell bonded up to the upper layer. You wont want to try getting the bottom layer bonded up there as well. Much easier to lay new glass. Also, if you use divinecell as your core material, after you get it bonded up to the top layer there is a trick to doing the layup for the bottom. Wet out the core material with resin, the entire area you are working on. let that soak in. When it starts to get tacky, wet it out again and start laying the glass. If you try and wet out the divinecell and immediatly start laying up, the glass will hold for few seconds then come down and you'll be waring wet sheets of glass. See, the divincell will soak up the first wet out and it won't hold the glass up. Fun fun

 

[jguyer]

Thanks for the advice!!! How is your repair holding up? I was thinking about using maring grade end graing balsa. Why did you go with Divinecell? What are its advantages?? WOW that was a lot of queshtions! I hope to start on this progect this weekend. I still plan to attempt to save the bottom layer. If that does not work, I am prepaired to lay up a layer of glass for the bottom. I have layed glass 2 times before on other projects. I admit that I Don't REALLY know what I am getting myself into, but isnt that half the 'fun'?? I really appriciate any and all advice you can give.!!!

 

[jlillie]

Very happy with my repair. Very solid and so far holding up great and i expect it to do so for the remainder of the boats life. Mainly, i used Divinicell because if it gets wet it does not rot. From what i see most boat builders have gone away from using balsa for that reason and they boast of not using any wood in the building of their hulls as part of the boats features.