Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Plywood checking on side panel of my tatman

Hello friends,

I've noticed some checking on the inside ply of the side panel under the seat toward the transom. I'm looking for ways to reinforce and repair this. It's about 10 inches long and feels a bit thin to the touch.

About 10 years ago I stripped all the varnish off of the inside of the boat and have been oiling it as needed which seems to be about every year. The outside of the boat has been varnished twice since then I think? I did not strip the varnish off of the area where the wood is checking because it looked too difficult with the seat and scraping would have removed more material.

My first thoughts would be to cut it out and replace it but that would look bad as it would never match the grain or color. I also think the seam would be hard to get right and might require a lot of disassembly?

My second thought was to add wood, epoxy, etc to the inside that may be less noticeable.

Are any of these ideas good ideas? What would you recommend?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Guy Fredrickson on July 12, 2022 at 8:13pm

Hi. A heat gun and scraper would easily remove the varnish. Or light sanding. With the wood stripped you could apply a penetrating epoxy sealer. Then varnish, or fiberglass and varnish. Is the damage caused by water? If so, it can be more extensive than you think. Guy

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Permalink Reply by Steve Jay on July 14, 2022 at 8:15am

I'm not exactly sure. This part of the boat doesn't really see much water as it rides above the river mostly.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on July 15, 2022 at 9:36am

While that part of your boat doesn't spend much time wet, it does spend time in the sun. Fir is a beautiful species that has many redeeming qualities and some not so redeeming qualities. As the wood ages the growth rings display uneven shrinking, that is the summer growth rings age at a different rate than do the winter growth rings. Since the plywood is constructed with wood peeled from the logs the growth rings are quite visible, hence the cracking as they age.

As remarked here by many previous posters there are two choices to combat this effect and reduce further cracking. The first is a coat or two of paint. This will cover the issue somewhat for a while. The second is to laminate a thin layer of light fiberglass cloth with a quality epoxy. This stops the cracking. However one must coat the epoxy with an ultraviolet resistant coating to stop the degradation of the epoxy.

Check out this series of posts by my friend Steve Putnam. I think you will find it illustrates the points I have made above. This repair was done seven years ago and as far as I know it is still in fine condition.