The difference between ooooh and aaaah!!

If poly or vinyl didnt stick to wood, 90%+ of the boats out there would be delaminating. Its just not true. Epoxy is just not necessary in this situation and in my honest opinion a waste of money. Poly would do the trick but vinylester is quite a lot stronger. With vinylester you can clean your tools with acetone. Epoxy is nice to work with because it does not stink. Your choice though. Epoxy does not work well with 1708 either. Buy a roll of 1708 and vinyl and you are done

The reason they are not delaminating is because they encapsulate the wood which reduces that risk. As a test take two pieces of ply and glass up just one side of the ply one with Poly and the other with Epoxy. The Epoxy will pull the laminates of the ply apart before it pulls off. The Poly on the other hand....... Try it and see for yourself.

The other benefit of using Epoxy, you can use a thin Epoxy product to penetrate and seal your stringers etc before glassing them. This both seals the timber and enhances the adhesion of the laminate. The reason so many glass boats have to be rebuilt is because of rotten stringers, bearers etc. The timber was not sealed properly, that and poor boat building practices.

So you are saying its impossible to seal wood with vinyl ester? I'm gonna go ahead and say BS. Glassdave please add your two cents. Sorry but he happens to be one of the most respected and knowledgable guys here, and is degree'd as well...

To clarify JRIDER stated "poly". Are you (smokin joe) claiming that vinyl ester has the same issue. Making sure this isn't getting lost in translation.

Am I saying it is impossible to seal timber with Vinylester? No I am not. It doesn't matter what product you are using, if you don't take due care and attention with the application of the product of choice then potentially you will have a failure. Example, boring drain holes through the stringers and then not sealing them properly. Also the post production addition of transducers and the like to transoms and then not sealing the holes properly is a big cause of transom failures. As I said in my post, poor boat building practices.

Ok thanks for the clarification. I couldn't agree more as I just went through a DIY transom replacement, and it's appalling to say the least how so many boat builders crafted sturdy boats but brushed off the small details like properly sealing openings and holes.

Boy this boat was no exception. The hole drilled thru the transom for the drain plug was not sealed at all. They used pvc pipe to allow the water to pass thru the engine stringers from higher elevations into the bilge. Good idea, except when they notched the corners of the stringers to put the pipe in, they didn't cut enough wood out. So instead of removing more material, they forced the stringer down and cracked the pipe. That was by far, the worst stringer in the whole boat. It was like scooping potting soil out of a flower pot. They also ran a pipe under the fuel tank to the cuddy to let the floor up front drain into the bilge. Again, good idea, until they glassed in the bulkhead behind the fuel tank and filled the end of the pipe 95% + with resin. All of the scallops in the whole unit made to help water drain to the bilge were unsealed. Only about 25% of the glass was actually adhered to the wood of the stringers. Where the stringers and bulheads intersected, the glass didn't overlap on the tops. So every intersection had a little 3/4" x 3/4" square that was exposed to the bottom side of the floor(hope I explained that right!). The other thing that I didn't expect was the whole unit it was assembled with yellow wood glue and 8d nails. Maybe that is common practice though. I found rusted out remnants of them all over the place.

Its been a while since I updated this thread but I found a little extra time before the deep cold winter to get the transom bagged. That's prob. going to be it before the holidays and snowmobile season.[ATTACH=CONFIG]531954[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]531955[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]531956[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]531957[/ATTACH]

Should be a nice and tight transom.