antifreeze for dry rot??

[Garvy]

Hi,
I read some eirlier post about using anti freeze as a wood preservative, sounds good to me has any bodyused this /and to what results,thanks eric

[formerlyknownasprince]

Yep - I've done it on a 64 year old 50' boat. It seems to be working. Any areas with rotten wood have been replaced and all surfaces sprayed. A couple of furry wood areas have been sprayed and then epoxied No problems in these areas since - about 2 years.

Ian

[thechemist]

The subject has come up before, and there is more than one side to it. I don't know why the pictures don't come up along with the text; that may take a few days to fix. meanwhile , the discussion is illuminating.

http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=002241

[Garvy]

mr. chemist,thanks for the reply,iguess i should not use it??? what should iu treat the wood on my boat with???? I want to treat all the good old wood before it gets effected from the sporees of exiting dry rot in the boat,i also want to treat the new wood,as it gets installed,,, the boat is plywood and planked hull on the sides ...epoxy glass and double 3/4plywood on bottom,all the problems have been with theplanks on the side underneathe the vertical battens, dry rott that then mittigated to the plywood, thanks for your replys,,, peace Eric

[Wild Wassa]

After reading the other epoxy and glycol thread, it seems to me that being a boat restorer might not be such a good idea. It's the previous (invisible) work practices on the boat that scare me. I'll treat every physical aspect of restoration as though it's lead, now. I was hoping to have a few years in this industry.

Test kits are available, for such things as, finding lead, what do we do to find glycol?

Why did glycol n' epoxy take off and has it's usage been widespread?

Warren

[ 06-22-2002, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[formerlyknownasprince]

Having read the threads and links, I'll still use antifreeze the way I have to date. If I've got a suspect area - one that has rot spores on it, I'll hit it with a splash of antifreeze, let it dry and then seal it. Clearly, it is important not to use a misting spray - guaranteed to get an unhealthy dose if you do this. I'm not looking for adhesion in doing this, I'm looking to kill any rot spores then seal the area from the conditions that let rot spread.

The thought of putting EG into epoxy just doesn't make sense - like the stupid "wash and wax" type products that try to do two dissimilar tasks at the same time.

As far as the leaching over time goes - what about all the lovely antifungicidal additives to paints? Just another reason to keep the ventilation levels up, eh? If the EG is put on sensibly, there is little more exposure than occurs when checking the water level in the car radiator. If the area is allowed to dry and then sealed with an (effectively) impermeable epoxy, where does the risk come in?

Ian

[On Vacation]

I have a couple of comments on dry rot and fuzzy stuff in wooden boats. I have found that what some call dry rot is exactly what Ian and garvy may have here. The lack of fresh air to a lot of areas create the fuzzy feeling and appearance more than any other item we have found. Even with treating the wood and closing it up will not stop it. Frames and ribs closed up or in a place of no cross ventilation will create this problem more than dripping water or water leaks.

We call it the greenhouse effect. You may stop it in one area, but it will continue until you ventilate any and all areas. Those sunny days open up as much as you can to allow the restricted areas to at least dry or just to mimimize the greenhousing of closed areas.

This will happen in many new reworks because of the added stuff we all like to do to add creature comforts and needed storage for long term and nice new equipment. Thinning out epoxy still works better in our area than any other item that we have found.

[Garvy]

well ,when you read the hazard precautions on the other chem.s including epoxy or fuel, bottom paint its all bad,,i tend to think (from the precaution labels) that maybe the anti freeze may be less poisones???i just whant somthing that will work.and my rott was not fuzzy just crumbly,what other preservitaves has any body used /to what effect and cost thanks ERic

[thechemist]

Of course it's all bad and awful. If the Merchants of Fear and the Merchants of Chaos had nothing to point to, screaming how bad and how awful it was, what would they do for a living?

Anything can be made to seem bad and awful. Some is worse.

The pictures on the above thread seem to be working again......please take a look. That study addressed by actual test and measurement the mechanical degradation of epoxy interacting with ethylene glycol.

Borate salts such as sodium borate dissolve in the natural hydrated moisture of wood , and once the excess water [used to apply the borate solution] have evaporated, there is no incompatibility with any epoxy, urethane or polysulfide compound I know of.

Keeping the wood dryer than about fifteen percent moisture, or saturated with salt water have been also found beneficial. The common stud finders are crude moisture-meters, although for actual measurement the capacitive types with real moving-coil and moving-pointer meters are preferred.

Coating systems that contribute to keping excess water out of the wood, or allowing excess water to easily leave, have also been found beneficial. I vaguely recall that hundreds of years ago the masts and spars of some old sailing ships were painted black, so that they would more readily absorb heat from the sun, thus drying out more rapidly and thereby being more rot-resistant.

[Garvy]

thanks again chemist,,i had thought about the dark colors absorbing more heat and may paint nmy hull something other than white popssibly light green or blue ,,do yu have any data on color/temperature rise, Thanks again Eric

[thechemist]

Temperature rise is governed by the absorbance of solar radiation by the coating, and what it is on top of. For wood or other electrically nonconducting substrates, you can assume it varies sort of with how dark the surface is. White or pastel colors will absorb little and reflect much. Any really dark color can be assumed to absorb much. It will vary with the kind of paint and the formulation, film thickness and the {primer] color below. I wish I could make it more exact than that, but there is sometimes a tradeoff between what one can know and how easily one can acquire that knowledge.

[NormMessinger]

"... how easily one can acquire that knowledge."

Well, therein lies my problem. Somewhere in a 14 year old stack of papers I collected when I was building my Long-EZ (Fibreglass and foam airplane) I have a table of temperatures and colors as they apply to heating surfaces. (I'm not up to digging it out.) This was important because one wants to avoid letting an EZ's skin get over 140 degrees F. White is the only approved color. A friend's light tan colored EZ was noticably warmer to the touch. Dick Rutan's light blue EZ, was even warmer. Dark green and dull black would heat up the most. If you are trying to decide between whith and dark green there is not contest. If, say, between medium red and medium blue, you may want to run your own test if a few degrees one way or the other is important.

--Norm

[Scott Rosen]

Norm, you raise an interesting point. I've noticed that a bright white is the coolest of all colors and is especially good on cabin tops for keeping the interior of the boat cool in the sunny weather.

Oddly, the traditional color for cabin tops is buff, cream, beige, or whatever you want to call it. I have observed that a light cream color, even just a little bit off white, will be significantly warmer in the sun than white. People say that the cream/buff is easier on the eyes, but it will certainly result in a warmer cabin. For those of us who do most of our cruising in the warm weather, it's a trade off either way.

[Tom Lathrop]

We get away with a lot of bad or dumb terminology here but as people who work in wood, we should draw the line somewhere to preserve a bit of self erespect. If it's rot, then it hasen't been dry. If it's always dry, then it ain't rotted.

What we normally call rot always requires moisture for growth. Just because we see no standing moisture doesn't mean that it has not been there. There may be some microbe or spore that does not require water for growth but they are sure not common in wood, if they exist at all.

[Scott Rosen]

Yeah. How did it ever get to be called "dry" rot?

[Donn]

http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/images/thebook/dryrotpumping.gif

http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/pages/dryrot.htm

[Garvy]

thanks chemist ,you said exactly what i was thinking,just in differ woords,my boat has the traditanal biege topp sides,white sides and a dark green rub rail and hand rails i think i will be looking into a color simaler to the green in the ubb code box,, for hull,and cabin roof,white deck and cabin walls,,but i'm 6 monthyes away from that projrect have a nice day
peace eric

[Garvy]

don thanks for the great link eric