Rotten wood around portlights?

[Lazy Jack 32]

Not black. More rust colored. Why?

[Madehn]

just finished this on my boat

1) remove portlight- buy new stripping for around the glass in it- might as well do it while it is out- be prepared for sticker shock- clean mating surface of portlight completely- i used a brass wire wheel on a drill to get spotless.
2) take off veneer to use as a template for new pieces
3) is veneer reusable? if so then go buy marine ply and glue veneer on and commence cutting to fit
4) if veneer is not reusable- mine was not-- decide what to use for the new facing panel- i used sheets of fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) from Home depot which i glued to new ply panels which i had previously coated with epoxy twice. i held the fractured pieces of rotting veneer together with duck tape until i could draw my basic pattern.
5) not a fast job-- most used tool was a FEIN oscillating saw which was invaluable-- THIS TOOL IS THE **** for doing this type of work- if you only have a small job then the one from harbor freight would do but if you have a lot of work you will not regret the money spent on this
6) i recaulked around the portholes and windows which i also replaced with butyl tape-- it takes more than you think and isn't cheap but is worth the price.
below are a couple of pics as i was close to finishing the panels and new headliner.

[capt.rob]

for what it's worth you can displace the moisture and dry it out buy putting acetone, xylene or denatured alcahol in the wet rotted wood. You MUST! have good ventelation to do this as all are quite flamable. make sure there is no electric on, use fans and dont sit down for a smoke break, drill some holes to inject and make sure it is open to ventelate, all 3 will deplace the moisture, dry the roted wood out quickly and not effect an epoxy saturation. If you do use a get rot type of epoxy be sure it is very thin and slow cure. I have used this method many times with Xlt results. Getting the moisture out and a full saturation is the key, A good epoxy saturation is very strong as long as it penetrates the fibers. Many swear by west system epoxy, not to sound rude or put them down. I had amarine repair business for years doing epoxy and fiberglkass the actual rezins are all basically the same it is the amount of solvents, fillers and cure times of the haredner used that makes the difference. I have used resins from fiberglass coatings in St Petersburg Fla. for decades ( 1970's) They have extremely good products and are not 3rd party. They have everything you need all the way from surfacing putty to kevlar in any quantity you want from a pint to 55 gal drums.You actually don't need to buy special rezin just learn the solvents and fillers to make the diferent varients like glue, lamnating,get rot, filler etc. base rezin is all the same just different amounts of solvent or filler to get the desired product and diferent hardners to get a slow or fast cure.