Ply top sides checking. Glass over???

[On tilt 0]

Hi all,

I recently purchased the good ship 'Gaucho' SR26

She has ply top sides, not glassed over. The top sides were done a couple of seasons ago, but now has checking or cracking to do with the grain. None of the cracks are structural, I'm just worried about water ingress. Is this a common problem with ply?

Do top side finishes only last a couple of seasons? In the ply situation.

To glass over? Is this an overkill? People talk about weight gains and I dear say to glass the top sides would be quite a major undertaking...

Any comments/advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Andy

[rigger 47]

Based on my own experiences it could be:

- not enough paint applied.

- previous job there may have been moisture in the ply

 

When I had that issue to fix it we took it back to bare then did a full repaint, multiple coats of primer, 2 coats undercoat and 3 of topcoat - it was all single pot.

On the boat we were always varnishing / painting, normally a surface would get repainted every 3-4 years - most of the time that was just a scuff back and a couple of topcoats and of course the usual patching.

 

You could go the vinyl method - not sure if it is suitable for ply though?

[On tilt 0]

Thanks for that, I've heard that single pot is the go for the touch up reasons.

It may have been moisture, looks like a professional job was done. The cockpit is the worst affected in a couple of areas the paint comes away and leaves just bare ply. The paint seems quite think, I'm thinking its two pot at present.

So would it be best to strip it back and let it dry out for a week or two weeks??

[wheels 543]

It can depend on the type of ply that was used. I have just gone through the job of stripping back the old Glass a reglassing and painting the forward Deck. fng recommended I use a 390gm cloth to stabilize the ply, as he has found it will crack the glass with just a 300gm cloth. Which is the reason why I had to reglass. It had cracks and the ply had got wet and I found areas of rot.

[Guest]

ha something like that

basically anything under 290/300gm is just a resin holder

many years back we were building cedar dinghy foils, the first few were 300gm and worked fine. then we were asked to try some with 200gm, these foils warped and some even cracked.

timber is technically a living material, so with temperature and moisture changes it will expand and contract.

It has shown over the many years that I have been doing this that 200g cloth over timber doesn't cut it, and will split under the timbers movement.

300gm will as well in extreme cases, but there is usually an underlining problem.

[On tilt 0]

Thanks guys, I think ill do touch ups for now and then do a number on her after the summer