Need help with rot repair and iron keel

[djn]

Hi All, I scraped down my boat bottom this past weekend and found a 1.5" wide X 1.5" deep X 7" long rot spot in my stem post. It is a large peice of wood and the rot spot will not effect the strangth of the peice. So what should I fill it in with?? Also my iron keel is very rusty in spots where the paint came off. Do I just wire brush it clean and paint it? If so, what should I paint it will. I assume there is something special I should use on the keel before I paint on the VC17. Thanks in advance. Cheers.

[Bob Cleek]

Yea, chip and wire brush the keel and coat it with some sort of epoxy barrier gunk. It will keep the rust at bay for a little bit. Don't sweat the rust, though. It'll take a lot longer than you'll be around to make a dent in that ballast.

As for the rot, be careful, very careful. You want to determine what caused it and prevent the cause before anything else. DO NOT fill it with Bondo or similar crap. This will only hold moisture and promote the rot spreading. Think "cancer." You have to get it all out or else just cutting things up may spread it.

If there is some fresh water leak running down and providing the moisture necessary to for rot fungus to thrive, eliminate that first. Then, cut out the affected area, working back to where you have perfectly healthy wood. Apply a good soaking of CPES, which will allow the wood to breathe, and then epoxy in place a graving piece made of the same wood as your stem. (Sometimes called a "Dutchman.") Plane the "Dutchman" fair with the stem. It should be about as strong as the original wood and perfectly sound for a good long time after.

[outofthenorm]

Cleek said it about perfect. There's some good how-to in our host's book "Frame, Stem and Keel repair.

Good luck!

- Norm

[Captain Connor]

Cleek said it about perfect. There's some good how-to in our host's book "Frame, Stem and Keel repair.

Good luck!

- Norm

Who is the author of this book?

[Flitch]

Our host, Wooden Boat publishes "Frame, Stem and Keel repair".

[outofthenorm]

Who is the author of this book?

It's a collection of articles from the magazine, so ... many authors.

[djn]

Thanks Bob. The rot spots are all on the outside of the boat and below the water line. There are dings where the paint cracked off that started the rot. Thanks for your advice. Cheers.

[Jay Greer]

There is a product that we have used with great success for over forty years called "Devcon Z" This is a liquid form of galvanize. A quart of this stuff weighs nearly thirty pounds due to the high zinc content. We normally would sand blast an iron keel, apply the Devcon Z, followed by a coating of epoxy and filler compound such as micro balloons and a final coat of epoxy prior to the application of bottom paint. Here is a source for Devcon Z:
http://www.jmindsupply.com/Devcon%20Items/devcon-z%20cold%20galvanizing.htm
The rot problem has already been commented on so I will not add to that.
Jay

[djn]

THanks Jay, this is the last peice of the puzzle, Thanks.

[Captain Connor]

thanks...looks like that book has great illustrations...i ordered it on amazon last night