Rebuilding a front deck...

[CHM]

I need to rebuild the front deck on my old Lund brown tri-hull. I need to put ply over the mushy old deck and I'd like to extend it a foot or so for more room. A former Tuffy dealer told a friend to use regular plywood and coat it with polyester resin before carpeting. Sound good? Also- I'd like to foam the entire cavity with expanding foam. Anyone know what and where to get it?

Thanks!

Chuck

[Dave1]

Menards carries ACX plywood that worked well for me. I was able to put in a lot of support under it, so 1/2" was plenty strong, and did not increase the weight of the boat.

If you need to span more than a 2'x2' area you may want to go thicker. If you are installing it over the old stuff 1/2" should do it.

I used West System Epoxy, but that might be overkill if your just doing waterproofing.

West Marine has a good web site, and a store in Minnetonka.

They sell polyester resin (fiberglass resin) also. I think its cheaper than the epoxy so its probably the way to go.

They probably carry foam also.

[Captain B.R.K]

I used BC grade plywood as I just replaced the casting deck on my 85 Lund. I went with some waterproof glue that has held up and then got some carpet from Cabelas.

I've had it out in the rain 4 times now and has yet to show any bubblin' up!!

I know Corey Bechtold just did the same project but used green treated plywood.

SO lots of options.......but as long as you keep your stuff in good condition and stored correctly your casting deck should last.

[minneman]

green treated plywood would be a very bad choise as the ACQ treatment will eat alluminum !

[Pat K]

Aluminum is extremely reactive with ACQ preasure treated wood. 2 years ago they switched from CCA treated to ACQ (called AC2 or ACQ depending on where you buy it) the only metals that can come in contact with ACQ are stainless steel and double dipped hot galvanized steel. Even the older hot dipped galvanized is coroded very fast by ACQ. I have seen the aluminum beds of trucks that deliver ACQ. There are pits as deep as the thickness of a a quarter after one 300 mile run. If it is an aluminum boat you friend should tear it out and start over. The stringers and any other aluminum support pieces are dissolving under him.

Call you local building inspector and ask about the hardware that has to be used on PT decks if you doubt what I'm saying.

Pat K

[Steve Bakken]

These guys are all correct about the green treat. Bad stuff on a boat. We get requests for it all the time when we install boat floors and have to address this issue alot. One thing I would suggest is to get all of that old mushy wood out of there before you put any new wood in. It's just like rust on a car, if you leave cancer in, it will cause problems with anything else that you add. Also, put a few releif holes in the top of the new floor before you put in the foam. I've seen floors pushed right up through the screws by that stuff.