What Do You Use When Sealing Plywood Edges In Boat?

[johnno]

Doing a bit of modifying of Boat

The Question i have is

What do you use when sealing plywood edges in the boat/marine use ?

it will be rapped in Carpet.

Edited July 5, 2007 by johnno

[kingpig]

Johno

I used a type of latex paint that was for resurfacing swimming pools on a ply wood floor for my old quintrex lazabout.

I had the boat for 7 years after I replaced the floor and it was in good condition when I sold the boat.

If you type latex paint into google you can find some info.

Cheers

King

[Dory]

Doing a bit of modifying of Boat

The Question i have is

What do you use when sealing plywood edges in the boat/marine use ?

it will be rapped in Carpet.

Johnno, I use plain old waterproofing agent (like you would use when renovating the bathroom or use under wet area tiling), its cheap and had some left over. I paint all surfaces to be sure. Have used this in several boats now and it lasts for years (and probably indefinately as the timber is completely sealed with a good coat.

cheers, Darren.

[Boban]

West System Epoxy is probably the pick of the product to seal timber in boats.

Look up their web site for detailed information www.westsystem.com

Look up Schionning Designs in google and look through the work that has been done with timber and west system. It's well beyond what you are looking at doing but you get the drift.

Many of the floors in boats are left untreated and simply have the carpet glued straight to the plywood. Some like Quintrex used a product that is meant to protect the ply but doesn't seal it. You can see some of the chemicals it come out of the carpet (light brown in colour) when you hose down a floor on a new Quintrex boat. Sealing it can create other problems if the seal is broken, as the ply has difficulty drying out.

If you do go down the path of completely sealing it, then make sure you do a good job. Otherwise just do the edges to stop the endgrain sucking up the water.

Cheers

Mitch

PS- West System is available from Fibreglass Material Supplies (FMS). I know they are in Seven Hills and on the Central Coast.

[johnno]

Thanks for all the info

i will see how i go