Pitch in Bilges

[N Wilkens]

My bilges have some kind of foam which is probably far from being close celled and has a layer of Bilgekote or something like it over the foam. It was suggested that I remove the foam and apply pitch into the void. My questions are: What is this stuff, is this a standard product, and can I paint over this stuff?

The painting part is important because I plan on repainting the bilges, but am not sure whether I
A) remove foam, clean & paint the wood, apply the pitch...or
B)do I remove foam, apply the pitch, clean & paint the wood and pitch.

Thanks for any advice/input,

-Nic

[Rosebud]

To answer your question about painting pitch, the answer is it would be hard to paint it. When the weather warms up and the boat is out of the water then the pitch will heat up and ooze a bit. The intention of pitch is to allow water drain to the lowest part of the bilge. Maybe someone else has had experience with different ways of filling the areas you have foam in. If you still want pitch, then you can buy it from Hamilton Marine or perhaps of Marine stores as well.

[Mike Vogdes]

I believe pitch is the same stuff used in hot roofing, if so it would be available at any roofing supply, probably much cheaper.

[paul oman]

My suggestion is to remove everything. Paint the wood with epoxy. Refoam. Coat the foam with epoxy.

You might like the idea of pitch in the bilge, but the 'next owner' (or potential buyer) might not.....

paul oman
www.epoxyproducts.com/marine.html (http://www.epoxyproducts.com/marine.html)

[JeffH]

Funny you should ask... Just put pitch in the bilges yesterday. My laundry basket, in fact, still smells like a road construction site.

Soft pitch as used in void filling is, in fact, very much unpaintable. Commonly available mixtures are actually combinations of pitch and tar, the exact ratio depending on use (more pitch, less tar for deck seams, less pitch, more tar for roofing. Or maybe the other way around.. I forget). Norwegians are fond of using it as a hull finish, sometimes cut with diesel. I hear it is quite effective as such. For what it's worth, the planking and keel were sealed before we applied the pitch.

What type of boat? Aesthetically speaking, I would think pitch would fit better in a plank on frame hull. I would have serious misgivings about epoxy covered foam cracking with normal hull movement, in this case.

Jeff

[ 05-24-2003, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: JeffH ]

[Nicholas Carey]

Originally posted by Rosebud:
To answer your question about painting pitch, the answer is it would be hard to paint it. When the weather warms up and the boat is out of the water then the pitch will heat up and ooze a bit.That's not what makes it hard to paint. Real *pitch* is crystalline at ordinary temperatures.

What makes pitch hard to paint—I can affirm this through personal experience—is that the pitch interferes with the curing of the paint.

The paint crazes and stays soft for a long time.

[N Wilkens]

Thanks for your input folks...

The schooner is a cedar/West System cold-molded overhaul of a 43' LOD 1930-built JGA schooner (Design 309-N) - minus the centerboard.

This is now a stiffer boat which does not have frame/planking movement of a true wooden boat, and from what I can gather from your responses, it sounds like pitch may not be a necessary filler.

It sounds like a possible proceedure should be to remove foam, remove/sand existing paint, cpes or epoxy coat, and then refoam and repaint. So what is this foam? I'm assuming it's a spary applied self-expanding closed-cel foam.

Thanks again

[Stan Derelian]

I think what you are referring to as pitch is really pine tar. It can be a great perservative for bilges. Diluted with turpentine it soaks into the wood, and perserves it. My boat had concrete in the bilges over pine tar for sixty years, and when I took it out there wasn't the slightest sign of rot.