Cabin sole damage

Today I lifted a small rug on the fwd cabin floor and found at some point it had gotten and stayed wet causing a spot about 10"x10" to mildew and lift the finish, the wood undeneath is very dark black in some spots. This water dripped from the Bowmar hatch which I plan to rebed tomorrow. But I am not sure of the best way to handle the floor finish which is the usual teak and holly verneer.
All suggestions, experiences, appreciated.
Steve W

As it can be very hard to stain/finish a section of teak to match the surrounding teak I suggest that perhaps a refinish of the entire panel is in order.

The existing finish can be sanded off or removed with a heat gun and scraper. This is what I would do if the sole panel was solid teak strips or parquet (as on our boat). I'm not sure what you can get away with if the sole is veneer. I would be reluctant to sand it unless you know how thick the veneer is. So I would be inclined to use the heat gun method which if done properly should not remove any actual wood. The finish sanding you give the sole panel should not remove enough veneer to risk sanding through it unless it's truly paper thin.

Once you have the existing finish removed you can use something like oxalic acid to try to lighten the wood that darkened from the water leak. This works well up to a point for removing the black seams in teak that can develop from severe weathering. What I'm afraid of is that if you sand the stained section down far enough to get past the dark spot you'll sand right on through the veneer.

But assuming you are able to lighten the stained area enough to be satisfactory then the last step is to finish sand and apply the finish of your choice.

I'm sure there are other approaches. The subject of dealing with water-stained wood has come up from time to time on the GB owners forum and the shipwrights there have described various ways of dealing with it. The most common seems to be to try to lighten the darkened area with oxalic acid or a similar product.

Greetings,
Mr. Steve. I concur with Mr. Marin as to refinishing the whole section and attempting to bleach the darkened area BUT you might just carefully remove the damaged finish on the deteriorated area by careful scraping and then try to bleach JUST that area and see how it turns out.
My reasoning behind this is any bleaching agent that gets slopped on the surrounding still "varnished" area will not bleach the undarkened wood. You could subsequently build up a few coats of new finish in the nude area and then overcoat the whole section without having to strip the whole piece. Well, at least it makes sense to me......

And if the bleaching is not 100% satisfactory,a small mat or carpet might cover the area and not look out of place. BruceK

And if the bleaching is not 100% satisfactory,a small mat or carpet might cover the area and not look out of place.

Why not just recarpet in the first place?

Steve said:

Today I lifted a small rug on the fwd cabin floor and found at some point it had gotten and stayed wet causing a spot about 10"x10" to mildew and lift the finish, the wood undeneath is very dark black in some spots. This water dripped from the Bowmar hatch which I plan to rebed tomorrow. But I am not sure of the best way to handle the floor finish which is the usual teak and holly verneer.
All suggestions, experiences, appreciated.
Steve W

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I suggest a web search on "water stains on wood flooring" or different variations of that. It's not an uncommon problem in homes and you'll get information from experts in the field, not just boaters.

Black stain from water damage or metal contact with moisture is sometimes curable - but not always.
A common antique restoration repair would be to mix oxylic acid with water to a paste.
Then apply it thick while still wet/damp. Place a wet rag over it and apply heat with a clothes iron. Check it from time to time. Sometimes you just get lucky - ya neva know

Yesterday I stated work on removing the Vee berth hatch for rebedding. I wasn't happy to find it had been bedded in 3M 5200, so with a very sharp thin bladed knife I started pushing it in every quarter inch or so then wiggling back and forth I had a can of Anti Bond spray (which seems to help a bit) I squirted it in the crack made by the knife. The 5200 was very tough and tended to grab the knife so it was a slow job but I was making progress. About half way around the knife slipped and slashed diagonally across top of the "bird finger" of my left hand. I am a long time Coumadin (blood thinner) user so blood was gushing. I wrapped my hand in a oil absorbing towel and drove to the hospital which luckily is only a mile or two away. One hour and 5 stiches later I went back to the boat to clean it up a bit and headed home. Fortunately no rain is predicted for the next couple of days so I hope to work on it tomorrowand Wednesday and probably finish the job, depending on how hard it is to get the rest of the 5200 off, the finger is in a splint so that'll slow things down a bit.
Ain't this boating life grand!
Steve W

Can't remember how much blood boats have extracted from me over the years (not to mention cars and houses). Part of the dues we pay.

There's a saying that if you don't shed some blood doing a job you didn't do a good one.

Steve said:

Yesterday I stated work on removing the Vee berth hatch for rebedding. I wasn't happy to find it had been bedded in 3M 5200, so with a very sharp thin bladed knife I started pushing it in every quarter inch or so then wiggling back and forth I had a can of Anti Bond spray (which seems to help a bit) I squirted it in the crack made by the knife. ............

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I have seen the suggestion to use a guitar string with a sawing motion to cut the sealant between two surfaces. I suppose a wound string would work best if you get one that's thin enough.

I've never actually tried this, but it seems like it would work.

I was able to remove the hatch yesterday and clean off the caulking. I had read about wire or fishing line to saw through but couldn'tsee how it would work out on that shape and size hatch. The Anti Bond does help, I applied it as I poked through the caulkwit a sharp, pointed knife (the one with blood on it) and finally was able to carefully pry it loose. today I'll recaulk with rubber buty tape wich I have had good results from in the past.
Steve W

Marin said:

There's a saying that if you don't shed some blood doing a job you didn't do a good one.

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More than 20 years of my career was spent "doing jobs" (repairing things). You don't have enough blood in your body to shed some on each job so I learned to do things as safely as possible. For example, the knife or chisel is pointing away from your body parts. Clamp small items when drilling holes in them. Get junk and trash out of the way so you don't trip on it.

The only time I missed from injury was a couple hours when someone tried to help me (without me asking him to) and pushed a cabinet over on top of me.

rwidman said:

I have seen the suggestion to use a guitar string with a sawing motion to cut the sealant between two surfaces. I suppose a wound string would work best if you get one that's thin enough.

I've never actually tried this, but it seems like it would work.

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We tried it several times (lots of old guitar strings around the house) and while it may work in some applications it didn't in ours, which was trying to remove window frames bedded to the cabin side. Wound strings are too thick and wire strings thin enough to get between the frame and the cabin side are too difficult to get a good grip on and even when you do manage to get a decent grip they don't cut through the sealant anyway. They might if the sealant was a non-adhesive bedding like Dolfinite, but if it was that (which is what we use) you don't need anything radical to get the frame off. You can just pull it off.

Once we were clued in to the rotary deglazing tool all our frame removal problems went away.

I had a water leak from my fridge that I forgot to close completely and the freezer defrosted onto my teak and holly floor about 12 " square and I thought it was toast.
My wife reminded me of when we had a water leak on our old house wooden floor and the experts at the time said just "leave it it will dry out".
Back to the boat my teak and holly floor dried out completely and one would never know there was anything ever spilt so my suggestion let it dry and just leave it there is nothing to lose and after several months it will be gone.

A good tool to use for this the Fine multi tool or one the many copies with an offset knife/chisel blade. You can lubricate blade with light oil or debonder to make it worke easier. If you are concerned about scratching surface around hatch put down some tape before starting.

Peregrinator said:

A good tool to use for this the Fine multi tool or one the many copies with an offset knife/chisel blade. You can lubricate blade with light oil or debonder to make it worke easier. If you are concerned about scratching surface around hatch put down some tape before starting.

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That seems like it might work well. It's at least worth a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve said:

Yesterday I stated work on removing the Vee berth hatch for rebedding. I wasn't happy to find it had been bedded in 3M 5200....

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According to every shipwright and experienced boat maintenance person I've ever talked to on this subject the key to removing something bedded in 5200 is heat. Obviously you have to use it intelligently to avoid damaging the surrounding surfaces but heat seems to be the secret to quickly separating a joint bedded with 5200.