by GreenLake » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:23 pm
Like Mike said, you can glue things back together with epoxy. (For glueing, use the epoxy in the caulking cartridge with the mixer tip, by far the easiest to apply - SystemThree and West System each have that). When you glue with epoxy you do not clamp for pressure, just enough to keep the pieces connected.
Now, here come the details. With epoxy, you may not need dowels, in fact, I've glued together broken doors, new furniture, uprights on stair-railings without any dowels whatsoever, and had good success.
However, epoxy is sensitive to wood swelling from getting wet. What is normally a super-strong bond can just fail. What to do? Seal the wood. Especially for your wooden floors, take those apart completely and seal each piece on all 6 sides with epoxy (after sanding). SystemThree ClearCoat is formulated for that. 2-3 coats.
You can then glue together the pieces (as well as restore broken pieces, either by gluing fragments together or by filling missing gaps with some product such as SystemThree's SculpWood, which is like a modeling clay when mixed and can be sanded like wood when cured.
The original floor boards had nails. I would cut off the tips and glue them, shortened, into the existing holes, for looks only.
For any epoxy sealed wood you need to apply some paint or varnish as UV blocker, because epoxy is not UV stable. I like to use SystemThree's water-reducible Linear PU varnish. With the cross-linker added, it turns super hard, but doesn't seem to crack. I did the thwarts on my DS with that over epoxy and for the first time, I've been enjoying season after season of maintenance free wood.
You can also do the coamings the same way, however, even with epoxy and LPU, it's not that hard from something to rub through to the wood. In my case, it was the tiller, that, after a repair, dragged unnoticeably and rubbed through to the wood.
In that situation, an oil-based solution is a reasonable alternative, because it can be touched up so easily. Cetol or something like that. However, you'll need to be after it all the time. But if you're the kind of guy who whips out a brush or rag at a moment's notice, that might suit your style. Coamings, and or thwarts, but not for floor boards - they will be immersed and abused, and a more durable treatment would seem advisable (especially if you have used epoxy as glue).
My only regret when it comes to woodwork is that I didn't have experience with the epoxy method when I last gave the floor boards a full overhaul. It was a lot of work, and it didn't last. Next time (which is overdue) I'll know better.
What does not work at all is to apply PU varnish (any maker) onto wood that's not been epoxy sealed. Moisture will get under the varnish and it will peel, or crack, or both.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
