Question:
This is the first season for a homemade boat, 11ft 50lb lauan
underlay cartop skiff on which I've already had to make a few
repairs which I thought I'd document here in hopes of helping
other first timers avoid the problems.
1. water is getting into the seams around the transom. I assume
this is because I spread the urea formaldahyde glue too thinly and
placed the screws too far back from the edge, about 1". when
gluing most of the seams I painted the glue on with a brush and
then added a bead of glue all along the edge with a putty knife
before driving home the screws to pull the edges together. but the
transom took some wide swaths of glue and may not have got
squeezed out of the seam. to keep the water out of the seams I
have sanded off the paint, scraped out the crack, and pressed in
5min epoxy glue with a toothpick, the kind you buy at the dicosunt
store for small gluing requriements around the house. in one place
I added more screws closer to the edge. there was no leaking at
these seams, just a crack opening up where the water was getting
into the edge of the seam. the repair was to keep the water out of
teh wood and prevent rot, nto to stop a leak.
2. one gunwhale was coming away at the transom. this gunwale was tough to
get on as it was not bent enough before being screwed on, and it has been
pulling away. the repair consisted of forcing some 5min epoxy glue into
the crack and driving another screw into the gunwhale. In an attempt to
get the gunwale to bend a bit more I poured hot water on a towel and laid
it along the gunwale, then covered it with a couple more towels to hold
the heat in. After 1/2 hr I repeated the procedure. This is tricky because
too much heat (150 deg F) and humidty will cause the urea glue to weaken.
3. a knot on one of the skids on the outside of the bottom was not
sealed properly. water was getting in and swelling up the wood. I
figured pretty soon the knot would loosen. the repair consisted of
sanding off the paint, diggin out the soft wood at the edge of the
knot, sanding and cleaning, coating with 5min epoxy glue, and
repainting when dry. that should keep it in place.
4. after a rainy afternoon of trying out the sailing rig the sail
was wrapped around the bamboo mast and sprit and put away. next
time out the mast and sprit broke. They seem to have soaked up
water from the sail and lost strenght. The bamboo was old and had
duct tape wrapped around it in places but it had performed well
last year on another boat and once this year in an earlier test on
this boat. I suppose the spars should be painted or varnished to
keep the water out of them and not wraped in a wet sail.
Answer:
I think you might find out though, that the 5 min. epoxy will probably not
hold up very well. It doesn't penetrate into the wood and as a result does
not really get a good grip on things. Also, it does not have the inherent
strength of regular epoxy. It really is worth the trouble to use full
strength stuff as generally the only difference in work amounts to going
home and coming back the next day and just letting the stuff dry while you
do something else like checking to see if that 2 week old bottle of tequila
is still good.
