Fiberglass over Planked restoration

[gnhbus]

Allan Vaitses seems to have worked out an idea for saving old hulls ??? I recently read about the use of Auto Anti freeze for preserving the old wood prior to encapsulating, this greatly minimizes any threat of water absorption leading to swelling and shrinking, anyone heard of this? or other preservatives ??

[Tom Robb]

Yes, the idea engendered considerable arguing here some years ago.
Antifreeze - ethelene glycol - is water soluable and will leach out, and is sweet, and is dangerously poisonous to critters with a sweet tooth.
"Saving" is perhaps an overstatement. I think it was to get a few more years of use out of an otherwise nearly unrepairable hull that needed to make a living for someone. You end up with a FG hull that you constructed on top of a rotting hulk that continues to rot from within.
Why did you ask?
Are you trying to keep fishing with a boat beyond reasonable repair? Your cash may be better spent finding a boat with some life left in it.
Trying to save a beloved family heirloom? That won't "save" it. Restoring it might.
There have been (may still be) people here who endorse the FG/antifreeze notion here. Everyone has an opinion....

[rbgarr]

Several decades ago I was part of a crew that built a 22' Muscongus Bay Sloop. The white oak keel piece was about six by eight inches and not as dry as we would have liked. In an attempt to prevent it from checking as we worked it we used the antifreeze treatment. It may have worked but the shop was so cold and damp that it may also have been that. One thing I noticed was that the fluid didn't seem to 'soak into' the oak much. Surface planing and cutting the garboard bevels showed that. So ultimately I don't know if I learned anything from it. It didn't seem to do harm anyway, as long as we didn't drink the stuff or bathe our hands and arms in it!