wet core under hull port-light 40.5

[bustedrudder]

I'm goin in...
When we bought Leilani our surveyor found wet core from the aft end of the galley port-light down 15 inches. Saved us $$ but it's time to make good.
I've removed the cabinetry, will remove the plexiglass and eventually rebed with Dow 795 but need to address the core. I know the hull above the waterline is cored with 3/4" balsa but do not know how close to the portlight recess it is. It must be close otherwise the water could not have gotten into it. I will know more once the plexiglass is out, and am prepared to cut away the inner liner then hole saw through the inner hull in the area of wetness to dry out the area.

If anyone has done this ( I looked and looked in these forums) or know useful intel pls share:

I hope to do limited surgery for the purpose of gouging out destroyed core, dry over a period of time then repair. The method of repair is what i haven't settled on yet.

I see posts using numerous 1/4" drill holes to inject epoxy which seems easiest but it seems to me that would fill the void but the bonding between inner and outer hulls would be poor if not cleaned out better..

??

 

[Rick D]

I wish you well! No hints here. Take some photos to document your work. Sounds like a sound approach.

 

[Don Lucas]

How did the suryeror find the wet core???? Don't assume that it really is wet if he did this with a mositure meter as it could pick up other items as a wet core.

When you took the port off was the frame cracked etc? If not I would question if you really have a wet core form this. (according to the meter my boat had lots of wet core areas, turned out that was where bulkheads and liner were attached)

if you really want to find out you need to cut out a section from the inside. If it is wet you have to keep taking the inner fibergalss off till you get to soild coring, clean it all out, recore or replace with solids and finish the whole thing back up. Lots of articles can be found on doing this.

 

[Rick D]

OK, so Don is a lot smarter than I. I was going to go out ahead of you and say the same thing. I didn't because I thought you were married to this and I didn't want to get in your way. Don had the guts to say what I think. I question your surveyor's conclusions. It's SO easy to misread a moisture meter (search prior posts). The cabin top run off does not follow this path (on mine). The ports have a pretty good seal. in short, I would do a lot more checking before I started cutting. Since you have the cabinetry removed, how about a hole saw cut or two to find out for sure?

 

[bustedrudder]

Thanks

Happy to document.

Hunter responded with some info. The hull core is 1/2 balso. Our 1994 40.5 is on the cusp of when they increased the spacing between the core and the window recess. I am assuming that I have the earlier where the core was close to the porthole recess
Will have to have a surveyor test the others for moisture. Once I do 1 I will rebed all.

 

[bustedrudder]

Yes the surveyor had a meter. there appears to have been an impact to that area earlier and it is apparent after removing the interior frame that some one had done some "work". I am not married to this believe me. I have done nothing destructive at this point but once i get the plexiglass out I will know more and yes I will use a small hole saw to inspect the core square in the middle of the suspect area. looking at the others, it seems that on half of them the bedding is not fully engaged as if it is separating from the plexiglass.
Just wondering if any other Hunter owner has had issues, gathering info.

 

[bustedrudder]

I removed the two forward port lights. A thin flexible paring knife is nice to cut the bead of the frame on the inside. It is about an inch wide. From the outside a carpet blade is good. First window took an hour the second 10 minutes. Go figure. I used a dremel and reamed out the space between the inner hull and outer hull. As mentioned earlier, Hunter AFTER 1994 had solid glass around the port light frame. In my boat there is 1/8 to 1/4 inch. I still suspect that a bump on the side would crack that 1/4 inch and allow water to intrude. The area saturated is marked in red below.

I cut through the liner with a hole saw, then cut through the inner hull with a smaller hole saw about 13 inches below the port light. The core was damp and black.

I then opened up a passage from the port light frame to the hole below. With the exterior covered with a plastic panel duct taped to the hull and a dehumidifier running 24x 7 and a blower pushing air through the passage the core dried out nicely.

My intent has been to glass the lower hole shut and fill the core with CPES, finish the frame with epoxy then gel coat. I have read some posts about CPES that says it never really sets up hard like an epoxy and to consider using thinned epoxy instead. The CPES instructions say the solvents have to "evaporate" to cure. That sound more like paint than an epoxy and there is 12 inches of confined core to "dry" . I will continue to investigate, any suggestions appreciated.

 

[bustedrudder]

I called Jamestown Distributors. Very helpful people. They confirmed that CPES is not a good choice for this repair since there is not satisfactory exposure for evaporation of solvent. I tested a bit of it and fully 3/5th of the test batch evaporated off...
They recommend a thin epoxy like system 3 clear coat, finish with vinylester resin which bonds well to epoxy, and bonds well to gel coat...