Redoing my bottom

[Uncle Braddah]

I have a 30 foot mahogany stripped single hull. It was built by a William Seals in Canada. The mahogany strips are about 1 inch square. It had a layer of glass put over it before it ever touched the water. I had a leak on what I call the Rudder keel, which is a smaller keel like plank that holds the rudder, seperate from the fin keel. As i started stripping away to find the leak the job began to unfold quite larger than I had hoped. Ive exposed some bare wood. My plan now is to,(which I have done) sand down to the glass, removing all paint. Coat her with an epoxy resin, rolled on and mixed with a 10 % acetone to soak up into the wood. then I will fill any cracks with a epoxy and aerocel peanut butter. Then I will apply a full lenghth of Nytex wetted with epoxy resin. then after fairing her down a frosting of Epoxy rsin/aerocel. then a coat of Corlar epoxy paint and then bottom paint. Any thoughts? Anybody know how to get fiberglass off and out of your skin after sanding.

[Gold Rock]

Hey Unc',
The part of the boat you're refering to is called a skeg, just for reference. Yup, just like a surfboard. Thus you have a 'skeg hung rudder'. Also, if I'm guessing correctly, your hull is constructed with a technique called 'strip planking', so you could accurately describe your vessel as having a "strip planked hull". Not bustin' your coconuts or nuthin', the info just flows smoother when everyone's speaking the same lingo, eh? When you say the glass sheathing "leaked", I have to wonder to what extent. If the glass has separated from the wood due to a poor bond dating from the original construction, it can be an omen of some magnitude. Are there other areas where delamination has occurred? If the delam stems from accidental damage to the skeg, that's another story. You'll have to sort out what the actuall skinny is. Your plan of attack for the repair, in general, sounds mostly ok to me. I'm only unclear on your statememt, "..sand down to glass, removing all paint. .." You want to remove all glass and resin down to clean wood. Take it off in all directions until you come to the point where the resin/wood bond is sound. The only other exception I'd make is the use of aerocel. I use colloidal silica as a thickener for anything below the waterline as it's non-absorbant. Microballoons and the like, even wood flour, will absorb water.

Chuck