Sabine

Very useful, thank you.

That's all really useful advice, just what I was after. Thank you everyone!

It's a Norfolk Broads cruiser with a steel hull and a wooden everything else, so the substrate is wood. I'm replacing the outer layer of ply. The screws that were there before were completely corroded, so I'm wondering what material would be most suitable for an area like that which is exposed to the weather and to whatever chemicals are in the plywood, but not salt water.

Hello all, I'm looking for advice about what screws to use to fix external plywood on the deck; which type and grade of metal is required for inland craft? The screws will be surrounded by and countersunk in epoxy resin. Any other screw wisdom gratefully accepted! Cheers

That's very useful, thanks! Yes, I was thinking about the fungicide/mold killer that seeps into the wood; thanks for this info. Once the surface has dried out, what sort of surface prep is required before painting on the epoxy? That's handy to know, thank you. I can see this being very useful for the shabbier areas. Cheers!

Hello all, I'm looking for some advice about repairing a wooden roof. I've stripped back to the plywood and intend to put a layer of epoxy, another layer of ply and then finish with more epoxy. The edges of the existing ply are quite ragged, and there's previously been leakage through the hardware fixings, so although the roof seems dry and sound now, I'm considering using a mold treatment before adding the new layers on top. Is this a good idea? Will it affect the adhesion of the epoxy? Any suggestions welcome. Cheers!

Great. I wanted to do exactly the same as you, so that's reassuring. Thanks!

Thanks Koukouvagia, that's food for thought. Happily, after we exposed more of the roof ply yesterday, the surface looks good enough to re-skin. What method/adhesive did you use to lay the new ply? Did you use screws or staples to attach it during the cure time? Thanks for this advice Mike. Do you happen to know whether the cascover glue is compatible with other adhesives? It's penetrated well into the substrate, and I don't think practically I'll be able to sand it back to new wood.

That's helpful, thank you. Didn't know about 'roving' - I think you're right.

Hello, I'm reviving this thread as I'm having a similar problem to the OP. My boat's a Norfolk Broads cruiser from the 70s. It has a canvas-lined, painted wooden roof that's got water seeping in through the hardware fixings. My intention was to follow the West System advice here, however today when I removed a strip of the canvas I found that the wood isn't how I expected, and now I'm not sure what sort of approach would work. The roof wood seems to be several layers of ply, which are coming apart from each other. The wood seems sound otherwise - I'd expected it to be soft and rotten in the wet spots, but actually it's been saturated in some kind of resin/glue/varnish, meaning the actual wood fibres are apparently impermeable, but the water can get in through the spaces between the fibres. (I don't mean the ply layers - it's the actual fibres.) It's weird. The wood is acting like a water filter rather than a sponge, so the water flows through without damaging the texture of the wood. It dries out quickly, even after a huge rainstorm. As far as I can tell, the entire depth of the roof is like that; the wood is impregnated with this varnish stuff. I'm wondering if the West method will still work in this case, because it seems impossible to sand the roof to an exposed surface as the varnish goes all the way through. Does anyone have advice about how to fix the leaks? Thanks.