The Rot Doctor


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Subject: Balsa Core % wetness
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003

Your product seems very interesting for the problem I am facing with a 10 year old sailing boat with a balsa core which has areas with damp balsa.

Q1 Is your product available in England if so do you have distributors ?

We do not have any distributors in England. As of right now, the only way we have to get it into England is via FedEx, which gets rather expensive, I'm afraid. (see our shipping information page)

Q2 When do you consider the balsa sufficiently dry to apply the product as it seems that balsa is intended to be 6% moist when in construction. Our hull had a sample analyzed and that was found to have areas of 17% moist by independent & scientific methods is this too wet to apply ?

The more moist the wood is, the harder it is for the CPES to penetrate. Typically, at 20% or above, it penetrates so little as to be of no practical value. If it were my project, I would like to see the wood at 15% or lower. Some aggressive drying, either using acetone or forced air should get you where you want to be.

The major area of penetration seems to have been from internal exposed glass fiber which was allowed to have condensation settle on it as the hull has been osmosis treated recently the hull was well dried, other areas are as your examples with skin punctures.

Many thanks

Mark B.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Doc

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