Sticky residue

[lesweeks]

Following advice gained from you knowledgeable forum members, I've decided to cover the deck of my 1912 yawl with ply and a layer of glass. Sensible move most would say. However I now have another problem. The deck was covered with, now defunct, Trackmark plastic and was glued down. Although the covering itself comes away easily enough it leaves behind a sticky glue residue. Does anyone have a smart way to remove this as I am assuming that the wood needs to be clean for the new adhesive to work properly.
I've tried a small area with cellulose thinners and this softens the glue and makes it easy to scrape off (very messy though), but this would require a lot of thinners and I'll be a high as a kite!

 

[Tranona]

'fraid you are into hard graft with a hot air blower and scraper. Took me a week to do my 27 footer many years ago, but you have to get it off if you are going to use epoxy.

 

[ccscott49]

Just as an aside to that, you ARE going to use epoxy arent you!

 

[lesweeks]

The plan (at the moment) is to use a Polyurethane adhesive, such as Balcotan, to hold the ply down onto the pine decking and then an epoxy coating.

 

[oldfrank]

I think I might be tempted to remove all the old decking and replace with ply/epoxy mat. You will of course find more jobs than you expected under the old deck. OF

 

[ccscott49]

I would use epoxy for the whole job, why change glues? Epoxy would be IMHO a better way to go. But as Oldfrank says, you may well find some rotten underdecking, which will need replacing and end up laying a new subdeck, which I would definitely be doing with epoxy!

 

[oldsaltoz]

I can only hope that you are planning to seal the ply with epoxy BEFORE you lay it.

I have had great results by thinning the epoxy to improve penetration.

Mix epoxy and hardener then add up to 40% by weight of Methylated spirits and apply.

Make sure the ply is dry and oil free before you start.

Avagoodweekend......

 

[misty56]

I think OF's right. I instinctively don't like "cover the old deck with ply." It always sounds like "hide a multitude of sins."

I think you'll have difficulty ensuring a good stick to the old timber, which may not be obvious, and you may have to actually repair/replace some--possibly quite a lot--of the old decking timber as OF suggests.

Any voids between the new ply and the old deck are an invitation to rot. Remember that moisture can come from inside as vapour, through your permeable subdeck and then hit the ply, which you will have rendered impermeable with epoxy, where it will inevitably condense. It can do little else.

Since you have to fit the covering ply accurately, how much more of a job is it just to lift the old deck completely and replace the lot with ply? You save all the horrible work stripping off and sorting the old deck (and you'd probably have to sand down to wood to get all trace of the old covering off) and your new deck is off to the best start it can get-- okay so you need more thickness of ply but that's a relatively small element in a big job like this.

Just my .02-- generally I'm a firm believer in "just do the minimum to get sailing" but in this case I think that's a false economy of time and materials.

Perhaps controversial, but this is one of the reasons I am not a fan of epoxy for wooden boats (or anything else wooden for that matter)-- it introduces impermeable membranes into an otherwise thoroughly permeable structure which is normally kept in humid conditions. Rot heaven.