by GreenLake » Mon Feb 28, 2011 9:19 pm
Dry rot is a concern. The way the wooden carlins are glassed in does a good job of trapping moisture and a poor job of sealing.
On my boat, there seem to be some spots that are a bit soft, right around the screw holes. As a temporary measure I treated them with epoxy. That stiffened things back up to where the coaming and jib track screws will hold firmly again.
When I got the boat, on the maiden voyage, so to speak, the screws for the jib track pulled out on the water - the P.O. had refinished the coamings and that had loosened the screw holes in the wood. That's when I installed my new jib tracks.
The best epoxy for this purpose is something that flows easily and gets wicked as far as possible into the wood. SystemThree makes a product called RotFix, which is a very low viscosity epoxy that flows like water. There are competing products that use strong solvents to achieve the same effect (these are usually called 'penetrating epoxies').
If have some good laminating epoxy, you might be able to use that as well. It wouldn't wick in as far, but should work much better than any epoxy that's formulated as a glue.
Epoxies have an extensive shelf life, by the way, so any leftovers can be kept around for future projects.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~