stringer rot

88scarab · 02-14-2010, 05:59 PM

i have a stringer in my boat were the top of it is soft but the bottom is soft. a fiberglass guy i know said there was sometype of epoxy u can pour in between the fiberglass pieces to makes it sold or can i epoxy it throw in a chunk of wood and fiberglass on top of it any recommendations would help thanks

glassdave · 02-14-2010, 06:33 PM

As rule of thumb you probably can only see about a forth of the actual damage. Those mix and pour repairs are temporary at best it will just mask a much bigger problem that will eventually need proper attention.

If i read your post correctly both the top and bottom are soft? If you have just an isolated spot on just the top from something like a screw hole and you can get at it and open it up its possible to do an area repair but if its a whole stringer section you'll need to get into it a bit more. Products like Seacast do have their place and none are as simple as drilling a hole and filling a void. They do require a clean dry surface and for any bad wood to be completly removed. Sometimes this alone requires as much labor as if you just did major cuttling replaced whole sections.

How big of an area do you suspect is bad?

88scarab · 02-14-2010, 06:45 PM

about a foot long and maybe 2.5 inches down and sea cast was wat i was wondering about

glassdave · 02-14-2010, 07:43 PM

thats a pretty good chunk of wood and like i said thats only going to be a quarter of what will need to be removed. How much access do you have to the damage? Is it buried under the engine?

Seacast is OK for doing smaller repairs but you need to be sure 100% of all wet wood is removed and i mean a true 100%. you need to be deep into dry wood for it to be an affective repair. Still i'm not a big fan of the stuff.

88scarab · 02-14-2010, 07:55 PM

its perfectly accessible and the fiberglass on either side of it are still strong was wondering if i could put epoxy in then slide a chunk of wood then fiberglass on top would that be any better

GERRYM454 · 02-14-2010, 09:45 PM

The wood/ epoxy is a way of doing a stringer repair but there are several others that are easier,stronger,neater and better. Review older posts and threads and see what will work best for your application. The prepartation is a "not fun" job and once the repair is accomplished is is even more difficult to undo and redo.

phragle · 02-15-2010, 01:21 AM

it's a wellcraft.... unfortunatlyif it hasn' already been redone, there is a lot more than you probably realize thats wet. I would look at the transom and the rest of the strigers really close. My friend did a nova last year, the stringer was bad under the motormount. we kept cutting untill we were well into good wood, cleaned the cut up nicely than epoxied new wood in and reglassed.

88scarab · 02-15-2010, 07:32 AM

its not in the scarab its in the velocity

glassdave · 02-15-2010, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 88scarab

its perfectly accessible and the fiberglass on either side of it are still strong was wondering if i could put epoxy in then slide a chunk of wood then fiberglass on top would that be any better

If you can find a uniform way to cut it out and get to dry wood then yes you can section it in. You might even think about sistering a piece on the outside of it as well. Do you have any idea what cause the spot to go bad? Screw hole or cut through, anything like that in the area?

88scarab · 02-15-2010, 05:04 PM

the floor rotted on top and there was no glass on the top side of the stringer. so it always stayed wet