Quote:
Originally Posted by abl1111
. . .After this season, I will dry her out as best I can and give it a shot… Can the Git Rot be used in conjunction with injecting West System epoxy - or will it fill up the voids and harden on its own ? . . .
|
I'd drill the small holes and try to dry out the core first, then inject the thickened epoxy to support the hinges, and then use the Git Rot, which is like any epoxy - it will fill voids and harden on it's own. FYI, I compared viscosity on various epoxies some time ago, and MAS epoxy was a fair amount thinner than West Systems, but I think Git Rot is even thinner - it's about like water! I think the thinner stuff is better if you want to waterproof some wood. I used MAS epoxy to seal the 1/4" layers of plywood I used to reinforce my front deck when I installed the anchor bracket and it seemed to soak in pretty well.
The only downside to using the Git Rot I can see is that if you ever decided to redo the whole deck later, it might be much harder with Git Rot in some of it, whereas now you might just be able to cut through the top skin and lift it off IF the whole core is wet. Unless the whole deck is soft however, I think using the Git Rot makes a lot of sense. Here's my experience with it:
Shortly after I got my boat in 1975, I learned that the 4" diameter plastic cup at the waterline that was the under-seat livewell inlet/outlet fitting was a potential transom killer, so I inspected it. It was leaking and there was a small area of rot around it. I dried it out with alcohol and a heat lamp, dug out the rot, soaked the wood with Git Rot, filled in the rotted area with Marine Tex, and replaced the fitting with PVC end cap, all sealed with epoxy. When Don Herman filled in the transom and installed his bracket about 30 years later, he said it was the driest transom he had ever seen in a 1972 vintage boat, so that fix obviously worked!