We are refitting our 43'
Gulfstar MKIi and I wanted to see what the rest of you would suggest for the following scenario.
When we did the owners stateroom, we removed the
wood panels along the
cabin trunk (along the ports) as well as the curved decorative walls on the side of the bunk. These are not structural and appeared to be a 1/4 inch or so laminated surface before. Over years of leaking
ports and just flat out failure of the laminate, they were all needing to be replaced.
We removed them and cut the
replacements out of standard birch 1/4 inch
plywood, stained them dark to match the mahogany bulkheads, installed them and then finished with 6 coats of spar
varnish.
They look really good however I started to worry that if I have a leak in the future this standard
plywood may delaminate.
So now for the remainder of the
boat, I am considering the following. I found Honduran mahogany veneered plywood and I am considering cutting the
panels, dry fitting them, then taking them back to my garage and coating both sides and edges with a
single layer of MAS
epoxy (west systems was considered as a second choice). After cured, I was going to install them and then put coats of
varnish as I had before. My thinking is that this will give this plywood a
water proof characteristic and as a bonus the
epoxy will act as a nice starting point for varnish build up.
Has anyone tried this, and if so, what was your results or what should I watch out for as a "gotcha"?