Stanchion Base Leak Rebuild

I used the Multi Tool to open up the area, dug out all the rot, then used cabosil thickened epoxy to glue the rails in place to support the new decking.

Next I needed to make a pattern for something to fill the hole. I cut small pieces of light cardboard, lined the edges of the hole with them, then filled in the middle and taped the pieces together to make the pattern.

I was going to use 3/4 ply for the deck, but found that a 2X4 was just about the right width. Filling the hole isn't hard, once you have a piece of wood that looks like this. But making it look like this took a little bit of work.

Close enough with the rail positioned where it will eventually end up..

I epoxied the wood into the opening,

then made a fence around the area with Gorilla Tape (a very stiff sticky duct tape). I dusted the exposed sticky edges of the tape with microbaloons so when I laid in a couple layers of glass they didn't stick to the tape. After wetting out the glass, I added epoxy to almost the top of the 'fence'. The epoxy pretty much leveled itself before kicking.

The final step was to finish finish off with a layer of epoxy w/ micro ballons so it would be easy to sand the area smooth. Then, because I didn't have any primer, I just mounted the rail - we'll work on conmetics later.

Evidently, this area has really taken a beating over the years. Earlier I mentioned leaking leaking rainwater from the old rotted area, and laying some glass in the corner inside.Here's a pic of what I meant. If you follow the arc down from upper left to lower right in the pic below, starting about 1/2 way down, dark spider cracks become evident. Water that had leaked past the stantion was stained by the rotting wood. It ran down the inside and seeped out those spider cracks. Thus the necessity to reglass that corner from the inside.

 While I was at it, I had to do something about the rope or wire that holds the steps in the proper place while in the down position. These aren't needed while the boat is on the trailer because the steps rest against a bunk while down. The two holes you see in the pic above are where an eye was screwed into the glass so a line could be attached. The line would run down and across thru the steps and back up to a similar eye on the other side. I wasn't a fan of the protruding eyes, so I decided to punch a hole thru the glass just a fuzz bigger than the size of the line and knot it on the other side. I gave the holes a downward taper to remove the hard edge.

And not knowing exactly how long the line should be for the correct down position, I only put a figure 8 stopper in the outboard line; the inside line will be long enough to go through the new hole, then run forward to a convenient place on the inside of the transom where I'll tie it to a cleat. That way I'll be able to easily undo the line and lay the steps against the bunk when the boat is on the trailer.

A swim is next for Big Duck - just need another body.