Repairing soft decks

My 1981 Formosa 42' trawler needs to have major soft spot repair on the foredeck. I cannot afford to have it done here in Florida. Planning to retire to the Rio Dulce and have it done there... Friends have said I need to being materials with me. Was looking at sheets of coosa or okume or sapelle... Not sure what the thickness of the original plywood is nor the best way to find out...
I'm 72, living off SS and my boat is all I have. Thanks for your thoughts..

https://injectadeck.com/
Might be good enough.

Simplest way is to drill a little hole while paying attention to when the drill gets through the top laminate, measure, then when it gets through the core and bums into the bottom laminate and measure again. Or drill a big enough hole where you can get a pick in and feel for the differences and guesstimate. Putty the hole when done.

mike66 said:

https://injectadeck.com/
Might be good enough.

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Anyone tried this?

Max Simmons said:

Anyone tried this?

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You can find a thread or two of people who did, and seemed happy enough. I considered it for a temporary soft spot repair. It’s just high density P.U. foam, in handy caulking gun tubes, with a marine price tag. In the end I kinda decided it had too much of a $nake oil vibe to the marketing.

I drilled out a bunch of plugs and squeezed gorilla glue into the soft spot, which accomplished exactly what I wanted at the time. G glue being also polyurethane. It made that little bit of deck firm and I’ll deal with it properly sometime in future.

mike66 said:

https://injectadeck.com/
Might be good enough.

Click to expand...

It’s hard to believe a reasonably well set up website would use those horribly filmed and edited video’s as promotion for their product.
Why not do your own proper video?

I updated my earlier thread about injectadeck. The upshot is that it is as good today as it was the day I did it, but it was a minor repair, and one might want to calibrate expectations for a more extensive repair.

As for the Web site, it isn't a big commercial enterprise. As nearly as I can tell it is one person who, in addition to doing other things, repackages foundation repair epoxy for the marine market. I wouldn't take the web production to be indicative of the quality of the product or its suitability for marine use.

When I talked to him, he was very helpful and knowledable in how to do the repairs and what to expect. I'd suggest anyone with questions call him and buy from him rather than going directly to a foundation repair supplier who can't offer any marine specific guidance.

Thanks STB. I must have caught him at a bad time, and couldn’t get much out of him at all so got a little discouraged with it. And my repair was a small one, so in the end it made sense to just go with a product I could find locally.

I was impressed with the ability of the Gorilla Glue to foam up, expand and travel to fill moist gaps. It not only filled the void in the deck, in some spots it travelled sideways six inches, and then vertically another four, following and filling hairline gaps in wood joins. I assume that Injectadeck would behave the same way, if not more so.

It was a bit labour intensive and messy in my case, but all worked out well. The caulking gun applicator that I.D. comes in would have made things much easier.

With 2020 hindsight, uh…. I would prepare better next time.

I'm glad the gorilla glue worked for you. Those are the best endings!

I almost tried it. And, if I had a smaller area to do, I probably would have, just as you did. But, in my case it was ~1/3 or so of my lower foredeck surface area. I didn't want to end up doing it a 4th time (PO, yard, me, me redo). I was concerned that, doing so many holes, I wouldn't get good injections into all of them and wouldn't have the guarantee of enough expansion and pressure to help

What you saw seems like more foaming than I am accustomed to seeing with gorilla glue with dry wood. I suspect you had a good bit of moisture in there. In that type of polyurethane, water is a big part of what causes the foaming, building the pressure that drives it like that. If it had been drier, I think you'd have seen more modest expansion and movement (there is always some). But the good thing is, unlike epoxy, it can chemically incorporate the moisture into the adhesive.

I tried to dry mine out in advance, but there is no telling how well I did. Spot checking doesn't check everywhere.

The injectadeck will, by design, foam to spec without needing added moisture. But, it can also foam more with moisture, although density can go down as a result (as is necessarily the case when the same mass of adhesive is distributed into a greater volume of space).

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the injectadeck guy. The first time I called I had the same thing. The next time I called.a few weeks later, he was like a different person. I figured I caught him the 1st time during his day job or family time pr on a bad day and the 2nd time at a better time. He probably spent 30 minutes on the phone with me and also referred me to some folks locally who didn't he injection. They were great with that part -- but lousy painters. At any rate, sorry he wasn't in his better mood for you!

2 kinds of soft decks...one where the top laminate has separated from the core, but the core is still in relatively good shape, and the other wherethe decks core is badly damaged.

Different techniques different outcomes if used incorrectly.

First, find out the problem and the extent of the issue....harden one spot and often surrounding areas just grow if you don't catch most of the damage up front.

Cut out the deck w router. Clean out old core (plywood, balsa, ...). Recite w high density foam, using epoxy to fully adhere bottom and top of new core. Epoxy deck layer back in place. Make pretty. A bit dirty and time consuming but definitely within skills of most boaters. Yard will charge mega$$. I did one where I was able to work from below. Really dirty and challenging but can out great. Used West System Six-Ten, a lot of it. Would do it again.

I did it this spring on the upper deck of my 40’ Island Gypsy. I filled all the holes with epoxy when I was done. Rough sanded the entire area, primed it and the painted all the edges. On top of the desk I had SeaDeck make me a complete rubber decking package which I put down for the finishing touch. It looks and feels great. Solid as can be. I am now about to order the Sea Deck package for the aft deck and will repeat the process. It was worth the effort and $$$. Upper deck came in around $1,500 for foam and decking.

Interesting thread. Curious if after injecting the material would inserting the appropriate size wood screws into the hole confine the material and get better propagation of the material in the areas of deterioration?

Aboard Seaweed the galley cabin overhead was squishy. I saw no water intrusion however the deck was not firm.

Went to a fiberglass place here in St. Petersburg, FL. Purchased two 1 quart containers of Epoxy, parts A and B. Also bought a container (about a gallon sized) of Cabosil. And, one LARGE syringe.

Next drilled holes every 4 to 6 inches started at top dead center, working out, with a 1/4" drill bit. Next, mix A and B fifty fifty. Then I added cabosil until the consistency was like pancake syrup.

Next, starting at top dead center, I squirted in the concoction using the syringe. The stuff would roll downhill (outward) and start to ooze out other holes. Continued, mixing as I went.

Adding: the leftover concoction would harden in the syringe. By squishing the syringe the stuff would pop loose. I did add a bit of Vaseline petroleum jelly to the syringe subsequently to keep it moistened.

It was hot, horrible, and took a while (overnight) before I checked for hardness. It was great. Problem solved.

I did not use microballoons, having done that ONCE and it was a huge mistake. Cabosil hardens but does not expand. I recommend it.

I bought from Fiberglass Coatings in St. Petersburg, FL. 727-327-8117. The guys there know their stuff. Good luck.

West Systems Six10 is another product that could probably work well for all this.

-Chris

Harry47 said:

Interesting thread. Curious if after injecting the material would inserting the appropriate size wood screws into the hole confine the material and get better propagation of the material in the areas of deterioration?

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I think you want those holes to vent out extra so it has enough pressure to fill voids from injection force and expansion force, but not so much that it lifts the glass on top too much or buckles it underneath or otherwise distorts things. The expanding foam can potentially generate a lot of force if confined.

ranger58sb said:

West Systems Six10 is another product that could probably work well for all this.

-Chris

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It’s a brilliant product, you don’t need much skill to do a pro job anywhere around the boat.