Top deck rot

[cmariner32]

I've got some rot in the floor of my bridge decking where the fiberglass bridge assembly screws to the floor. Rainwater collects at the screws and is getting into the cabin area below. I originally tried caulking the joint where the assmembly screws to the floor, but it hasn't stopped the water intrusion. I cannot (do not want to) remove the headliner to attack the problem from below-it would entail removing cabinets and open up a whole 'nother can of worms. I cannot remove the fiberglass assembly to get at the flooring. My only recourse, as I see it, is to go in thru the screw holes and inject or pack fiberglass strips into the holes until the void is filled. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish this? The wood coring ( I assume its wood) has to be wet as we have had an extremely wet late summer here and I know epoxy doesn't cure in a wet environement. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Golfman25]

Try rotdoctor.com. They have some stuff that might work for you. Good luck.

 

[HOGAN]

You need to get ALL the rotten coring out before you can begin to fill the void.

 

[Ghost]

Sorry, but there is only one right way to do it.

Add one to the count of instances where smearing caulk on anything on a boat did nothing but create a bigger mess. Don't worry, I already long ago made my contributions to the count.

RotDoctor or Smiths CPES (same thing repackaged) is the right stuff, but only if you have dry core AND you don't have soft spots that actually indicate that you now have structural problems. Filling with anything won't help structurally.

If you don't want to take the headliner down then remove the glass on the outside, replace the core and then lay the glass back down and then either 1.) Get a really good glass guy to make it match or 2.) Live with the slightly visible zipper effect. There are in fact good glass guys who will make it virtually undetectable, but they won't come for free. +1 for fearing having to take down all the cabinets and headliner, but then again, if you want to do it yourself, its still probably the best idea.

No free lunches here.

 

[cmariner32]

Thanks for the input. If I could remove the rotted coring and dry out the surrounding coring-I'm thinking its only where the screws go into the coring and the surrounding core is still good, would rotdoctor/CPES fill the void and provide a waterproof seal of the the mechanical attachment (screws)?

 

[Ghost]

The best use of the CPES is to soak core material so that it will never rot again, even if it gets wet. Sure you can thicken it if you need to "fill" or gap fill, but the stuff is expensive so its usually best to do the void filling with regular epoxy once the CPES is used to treat the remaining good wood.