Mike B's 19-1 Refinish

[Tampa Bay Mike]

75?! Man, that's wintertime weather down here in FL lol. It's been 91-94 here everyday recently. I've heard about coating the wood first but I haven't tried it. I would make sure it's fully cured before you try peeling it off. Hopefully it will surprise you and stick well enough. Good luck 👍

[umecheme]

And the Bluefin tuna are in thick...  I also hope it stuck, but either way I'm taking a week off to tuna fish.  Let's hope I have a pic to share....

[umecheme]

I'll give it a couple of days, but it doesn't look good. I'm fairly convinced it can pull the whole thing off in a sheet other than a couple of spots that still look fully wet out. I put very little pressure upward on one of the edges, and it popped up about an inch in from the edge. Maybe I can pull the whole thing off and then epoxy it down, or just start from scratch.  If i didn't know that it was fully wet out when I left, Id say i hadn't rolled all the air out.  Thats how bad it looks. The low viscosity that made it so easy to wet out, kicked my A$$ in the end.

[wingnut]

Yikes, that sounds worse than I was envisioning. Very curious to hear how it cures.

Good luck going after tuna!

[umecheme]

Anyone else think theres no hope other than to rip this off and start again? I think it will peel right off the plywood.  I wish i had a pic of when it was fully wet out to compare to.  What a waste of time and materials. I figure its worthwhile to post this failure, to help others in the future. Whoever it was that recommended I start with a coating of thinned resin first, I should have listened.  I'm assuming I was also supposed to let the thinned resin harden to keep the marine ply from wicking all my resin out of the glass mat. 

[wingnut]

Is the glass actually delaminated, or just not saturated? If you press on the white areas, does it press down at all?

From a structural standpoint, if the glass is not delaminated and just has voids open from the top, I’d say it can be resaturated. Being that it’s the deck underside, it’s kind of redundant.

However, if the glass isn’t fully adhered to the ply, I’d say scrap it unfortunately.

If you have a little time, maybe make a small batch and try to soak one of the undersaturated areas and see what it does? May be worth a try and should only set you back a day for a potential fix.

[umecheme]

Its hardened up at this point, so I can't push hard enough in one spot to move it.  But I guess my thought is, if i can rip it off with one hand... I'm probably better off to just do so?  I have no polyester resin left, which only leaves me epoxy, and if i only partially get where I want to go with epoxy... its going to get to be a lot harder to clean up......

[RickK]

I would stick with your plan - poly is fairly inexpensive compared to epoxy. Remember that 1708 has a 1.5 oz layer of CSM and that is really what the poly can dissolve and saturate. Poly doesn't melt anything on the 1708 itself, so the 1708 just hangs in the poly as it kicks.
If you have to redo this, you can possibly reuse the wood and sand/grind it down to about 80 grit.  Then just hot coat it with poly, especially the edges. After that kicks, sand it with 80 grit and then prep it for the cloth again. You have to have the wood sealed because initially it soaks up the resin (as you found out).
I replaced my deck on my 170 back in the early 90s with 1/2" plywood and sealed the wood first.  I had a small area somehow getting water on it by the casting deck, which became soft and I decided to do a total rebuild and bring it up to a new century of materials. The poly coated wood on the underside still looked like the day I coated it (not even sure if I put glass on it), but I did coat the bottom.

[wingnut]

Definitely not trying to sway your opinion one way or the other - you’re the one who’s had hands on it! If you don’t feel safe with it, rip it off for sure. I’m an optimist though, and it’s possible all may not be lost.

[umecheme]

Good news and Bad news... So I tried putting some epoxy over it, and no dice, just rested on the top, no absorption into the mat.  The good news:  I muckled onto the edge of the glass and pulled, and about a 3 foot section pulled up clean.  Looks like in another 5 mins, I could have been right back down to the plywood.  I'll sand it down a little and do It right.  Only be down $50 in poly and 18 feet of 1708.  Lesson learned. Epoxy, epoxy, epoxy.  I'll look at the underside when I get it off.  Maybe I can make new liners out of the 8'×9' sheet of fairly flexible fiberglass I just made...  should be pretty smooth.

[mshugg]

Whether you use epoxy, poly or vinylester, it’s important to hot coat wood before you do your laminating.  Otherwise, the wood continues to absorb resin throughout the cure and your layup is resin starved. 

[umecheme]

So Bluefin Tuna season is over, so its back to work on the boat.  6 tuna, which beats our previous record of 1.  One of the few positives from this whole Covid thing, pretty much spent all my free time tuna fishing.  We learned a lot that I think it really took 2 weeks straight of fishing to work out the final details I think we needed to be consistently successful.  Caught fish on 4 of the last 6 trips.  Several big thresher sharks and a bunch of small porbeagle sharks as well.  Back to the boat tho.  All the glass on the underside of the main section of deck peeled off in 2 sheets (fairly easily).  I'm not sure why, but i'm saving these sheets.  They're fairly flexible and surprisingly strong.  Maybe they will come in handy? I got 1/2 of the underside of the deck done with 1708 and EPOXY.  Now I'm out of epoxy and am waiting for more from Jamestown.  I also ordered another 25 yards of 1708.  I'm hoping this is my last 25 yard roll.  Should have the main section of deck finished by next weekend.  Winter is comin... ugh.

[dbiscayne]

search around locally for epoxy resin, I've had good luck with a local place in west palm beach, FL called Glue Products. Their 1 gallon kit of epoxy resin goes for about $55/gal. Not sure if they ship though.

[umecheme]

US Composites has some considerably cheaper.  I used their 2 part foam and it worked well.  I may try using their product for my fillets when I put the deck in.  After my polyester resin debacle I'm highly skeptical.  Anybody  have any experience with their products?

[RickK]

Polyester resin starts hardening the instant it is produced. Most often your supplier receives 55gal drums of poly and then pumps it into smaller containers, like 5 gal and smaller. If air doesn't get to the poly. it can last longer, but once you start pouring from a 5gal can, it's a race to get the project done before it gels up.