Wooden Hull with west epoxy covering...any good?

[gary3029]

I am looking at buying a boat and the hull is of the following: Cold Moulded Horizontal 5/8 Inch Bevelled Red Cedar Veneer, backed by Triple diaganol Mahogany Veneers coated in West Epoxy What I want to know is what is West Epoxy and how effective is it? What are the long term problems. Should I avoid this boat?
regards gary

 

[Peterduck]

Without being able to see it, I'd say that it sounds worth further inspection. WEST is just one brand of epoxy resin. It's an acronym for Wood Epoxy Saturation Technology. It's intended to keep moisture out of the wood. Western Red Cedar doesn't soak up either water or epoxy very well, so this is a bit of a furphy. Look for veneers coming away from the hull, or splits between veneers. It sounds as thought he outer veneers are horizontal, and the inner ones are diagonal. This is an accepted way of building a boat hull called 'cold-moulding'. If you are new to this game, take a trusted boatbuilder with you when you go to view the boat.
Peter.

 

[kds]

Yes - it can be good. A cheap job would have covered with poyester resin - but epoxy does a proper job IF the wood is DRY before application. The conditions for applying Epoxy are very critical so you want to know who did it and where. Are the veneers also glued with epoxy ? Was it done this way from new ? If so - you should have a great hull. I am suprised by the comment about cedar not apsorbing epoxy - that is not my experience, or that of the hundreds of cedar-strip boats which have been built.
WEST is not just a trade name - it is a type of treatment evolved by the Gougeon brothers - read the book.
Best of luck.
Ken

 

[Joe_Cole]

That's my experience of cedar too.
It's not the strongest of timbers, but it is light, stable and extremely good at resisting rot. It's used for roof shingles in vaste quantities in many parts of the world.

 

[howardclark]

just built a strip dinghy in red cedar using West Epoxy system as a tender for my iroko strip boat. As the others have said the system can be extremely good with distinct advantages over traditional wooden systems. Get a survey done of course to ensure the original build quality and no subsequent damage but don't worry about the type of build.