SEarching on google

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wet+wood+conservation&btnG=Google+Search

will identify many useful cites, including this one from Texas A&M:

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/anth605/File6.htm

Which addresses extensively the issue of preservationof waterlogged wood, including use of POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL (PEG) METHOD

The Mary Rose in Portsmouth is being conserved using polyethylene glycol. Search for 'Mary Rose Trust' on line or search on www.maryrose.org or on High-tech conservation solutions for old warship or on BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Super-scope' shines on Mary Rose for help and technical expertise. You may find that an email to the Mary Rose Trust may help you.

Do you have personal experience with the techniques reviewed in the article describing the various methods used in the conservation of old wood?

The object that I seek to remove the water from is quite large (it will fit inside of a 50 feet long x 17 feet wide by 10 feet high container)

The technical review of the various methods has given me some ideas to explore.

It would appear that the xxglycol idea is a bust for this project.

I'm not sure about "propylene glycol", but it if it is edible I wouldn't count on it doing much. PEG-polyethylene glycol is the nasty stuff that will kill if it is ingested. I looked into using it for some projects, but it turned out to be too expensive--I wanted to plasticize the cell walls of some green wood for furniture and stop the checking on pieces with traverse plane cuts(sliced like firewood). If I understand PEG, it will plasticize the cell walls before both the free and bound water leave the green wood, giving some control to shrinkage and moisture cycles.--I am curious what it would do to wood that has been cured and now is water logged.

I think you are confusing PEG with other glycols (Ethylene glycol?) according to my information PEG is not toxic and is used in many cosmetics. It can be obtained in various molecular weights ranging in consistency from a liquid to a wax I think the higher e.g. PEG 4000 is what is needed here.

PEG is not poisonous -- it's used in pharmaceuticals, chewing gum, etc. Propylene glycol, on the other hand, is poisonous.

,Dear Sir,

Entire Amsterdam Railway Station is floating in sea on wood only. Technique is fully submerged in water and do not allow to expose in air.Wood will remain intact.

If you go back to the history of wells in India, all wells were constructed on a wooden wheel at ground floor step by step and slow excavation all around below the wooden wheel was done to embade the construction work in ground till we reach water depth. The wooden wheel was left below construction only for life time so that construction work remain levelled ( Verticality within tolerance ). Wooden wheel remains submerged in water life time.

Best regards

M.I.KHAN

Surely you should be using Polyetrhylene Glycol (PEG) This fills up the spaces originally filled with water and stops cracking - this is a technique used by wood carvers and turners to give dimensionally stability - stops cracking.

PEG is available in various molecular weights - I used to have quite a bit of info on this but am not sure if I stll have it. You will probably need one of the higher molecular weight polymers. The technique was to soak the wood in warm glycol

(reduces viscosity) but I imagine this could be tricky for a large object but repeated coating with the warm liquid might suffice.

As far as I know, the "Mary Rose" that was dragged up from the bottom of the English Channel was housed in a room, suitably propped up, and then it was subjected to a continuous fine spray water, suitably contained behind glass walls no doubt, as someone else said, an email to the "Mary Rose Trust" would provide your answer.

If this is a small fishing boat to be used in the water again, you may lose considerable bouyancy with 45% impregnation since both PPG and PEG are fairly dense (>1.1)

A friend of mine recently joined the board of trustees for a local historic preservation society, and one of their immediate needs is for more polyethylene glycol in which a 400 year old duggout canoe is submerged and has been for 4 years. The process of wood preservation by this method takes 7 years or more, according to sources. The pharmaceutical grade of PEG is fairly expensive, but industrial grade PEG is available which is not so expensive.

Try these links:

Dow Chemical: http://www.dow.com/polyglycols/carbowax/products/peg.htm
AllChem Inc: http://www.allchem-inc.com/
Chemical.net: http://www.chemical.net/cn_store/dept.asp?dept%5Fid=1111111&page=4

Gee - this is a great resource. My questions are answered and then some. Several of you mentioned that it should be PEG and not PPG and this was the case. The conservators (of Vasa) found that PEG 4000 was too dense to penetrate the old oak. They used PEG 1650 with great success. I presumed that it was

propylene glycol because that is the one that I install in solar collectors where a foodsafe heat transfer fluid is required. It is illegal for me to use Ethylene Glycol in that application because - as a derivative of wood alcohol - PEG is toxic.

And only as a result of your answers, I now know what the '4000' and the '1650' refer to: namely the molecular weight.

The boat is not saturated - and is not oak. I had hoped that the end product would be a strong resinous product - but am now expecting a waxlike plastic. This should be fine.

The boat will be my new 'liveaboard' but when it was used as a fishing boat it carried up to 10 Tons of fish - so hopefully I have enough buoyancy in reserve. Most of the weight added will be in the in the part of the hull that is below the waterline - so I may actually be improving the stability of an already 'stable' vessel.

My only question that now derives IS:

Will the wax from PEG have possible health implications to me and the other inhabitants who are living in this boat?

I have decided against the obvious poisons such as 'Pentox' (an arsenic/naptha solution) for the "health" reason.

One of you posted Dows address - so I will be requesting their data-sheets , but I would be interested to hear what anyone knows about toxicity issues with the waxy residue of PEG.

Derek

Because something is made from methanol (wood alcohol) it does not mean it is toxic - methanol is a base chemical used as feed stock for many organic chemicals. According to all my sources PEG is not toxic and is used in cosmetic applications. The correct viscosity of peg to get penetration is the key and that could be suck it and see. I dont think the molecular weight is a density factor is significant - you will probably still need the same amount (weight) to fill the voids,

Sounds to me that your best course will be to use glass fibre reinforced plastic (polyester or if the expense is not a problem then epoxy) as a cover. This could be done with a fine glass veiling on the outside if the aesthetics are important or it could be left clear if the inner reinforcement is good enough to give it the strength. This would seal the outside. Always use a low viscosity resin first to get good penetration. A heavier weight glass could be used on on the inside where it is not seen - this will give the engineering support but stiffeners glass, carbon, wood or metal could also be used at strategic points. Balsa wood is used in this way to make decks and bulkheads.

This would encapsulate the present wood and it will then last forever. Further preservation should not be needed if the wood is dry enough. The use of PEG is more to give dimensional stability and stop cracking. If your wood is dimensionally happy then encapsulate it. You could probably combine the PEG treatment (inside the wood) with the encapsulation - try it and see if this is needed.

Hazman wrote: Sounds to me that your best course will be to use glass fibre reinforced plastic (polyester or if the expense is not a problem then epoxy) as a cover.

REPLY: As someone with over 20 years experience in marine work I would NOT advice the use fo fibre reinforced plastic as a coating for the word. In the great lakes we saw a lot of softwood boats from down east get coated that way. More often than not the result was a faster rotting hull.

The WEST System of totally saturating completely dry wood is something else. Here the cellulose fibres act as the structural grid that the resin then fil ls in around. But if you g=have GEG or water insside the wood fibres then it won't wotk. A logn timre ago I resurected a 75 year old softwood clinker planked hull by pouring boiling hot linseed oil into tthe dry hul lplanks until they woudl not take up any more oil. At that poitn the hull was left to dry for a month and then pained with an oil based paint.

The hull remained tight and dry for a couple of years after that without any additional oil treatment. If the hull is carvel planked, I would first treat with oil then after it will not absorb any more, recaulk the seams. DO NOT CAULT THE SEAMS FIRST. Ddoing so would result in damage as the planks absorb oil or moisture and then swell.

If you have any small patches rot in the hull, you can probably treat them with GIT Rot which is an epoxy saturation product that also has a fungicide included. However to be effective the wood must be dry. It will not work effectively if the hull is in the water.

As someone with 50 years experience you can encpsulate woo providing there is no reactive substances in the wood. Xmas trees have been encapsulated. Better to be sure that there is a minimum of moisture. Problems of encapsulatring such things as ibnsects & such was, because of anaerobic reactions in the guts, they blew up!!

As a boat builder surely you have used encapsulated balsa !

There is another possibility - experiment needed - petrify it by soaking it in sodium silicate and then expose it to carbon dioxide - (in a poly tunnel). The silicate hardens with the CO2 - used in the foundry industry. It will be like a reinforced concrete shell!

I have heard that one of the ways of seasoning wood is to soak it in fresh water for some time first. I was once told that this was used for bamboo. Can anyone enlighten me?? Just watched "Dirty Jobs" on TV and they were salvaging and re-using 100 year old timber up in Canada.

Total encapsulation yes, but your post suggested skinning one side. This is where we usually found a problem. Because one side of the planks are still exposed to water th ewood fiber soaks it in and then we discover the fibreglas delaminates from the wood fibres. This is when rot gets a foothold.

The WEST system is total encpsulation. But it doesn't work on wood which has a high moistuer content. If the hull has recently been floating it is too wet. you can encapsulate/saturate kiln dried wood and expect the resin to ahhere to the wood. But more often than not a fibreglass sheath will delaminate.

Glassing over a planked hull means he seams can stil lwork and cause cracking. Yet another source of moistuer ingress. the resin usually does nto penetrate the wood on the sides of the seams.

The WEST system encapsulates all sides and edges. Glassing over one side does not.

And finally why screw up a good wooden boat with that awful petroleum derivative. There are better ways of preserving and or restoring wooden boats without contaminating them.

On re-read I agree with everything you say. You conclusion is the reason that I asked the question in the first place.

Most epoxy and glass-overs cover moisture / rot that continues to deteriorate.

I was hoping to pressure-wash my hull from the inside with a water compatible preservative that would either assimilate or displace the water that would otherwise be trapped.

After the initial pressure application over a period of ...say: a month..., I imagined adding a few gallons of anti-freeze to the bilgewater periodically and keeping her wet - to allow the process of preservation to move forward as I went about my business afloat. From what I have subsequently gathered, thanks to the answers on this discussion thread it appears to be an unrealistic idea - primarily because the temperature of the hull will be too low, rarely rising above 55 degrees F. And the fix, if one occurred, would leach in water forever after. That is no solution to the problem.

I can certainly enlighten you on the use of water as a 'preservative'. Timber was cut during the winter and transported to fresh water coves and fjords where it was held behind 'booms', (chained timber restrainers) for 12 months. subsequent to that - rafts or mobile booms were then towed downriver to the estuary where they were stored for about 6 months in 'brackish' water, and subsequently below the falls to Atlantic salt water where they were again stored floating in booms for a further minimum of 6 months. This was the practice on the Saint John River, here in New Brunswick, for about a century.

The method was more effective than simply felling the tree and hauling it to salt water immediately - as the sap in the wood would be displaced by fresh water more readily that by salt-water when the spring temperatures started the sap in the cut timber flowing. One year was deemed sufficient for the local softwoods (Spruce, Pine, Fir, Tamarac, Hemlock) that were commonly preserved in this way. The transition to salt water was made in two stages in order to introduce the preservative (sea salt) into the wood gradually. These salt-cured timbers were used in the production of commercial sailing vessels, the last of which was produced here in Saint John c.1890.

To this day the various inlets and bays continue to yield up large numbers of saturated logs, and some of these inlets still carry related names such as 'Spar Cove'.

Much of the salvage of the old timber has been "stepped-on" by the government - for reasons that are clear to no one and with questionable logic since the 'crop' has already been harvested long-since.

My intention after introducing the rot preventative agents and stabilizers is to coat the inner and outer surfaces with epoxy - such as the West System products that someone else here has espoused. The reason why I want to kill all 'rot-agents' first is because of the poor results that I have seen where the epoxy was placed over deterioration - even though unrecognized at the time of coating.

And as for balsa-core, same problem. Many boats have been devalued or condemned for water permeating their balsa core. This is not a rare phenomena - rather a common one in fact. Due to the fact that the wood is already encapsulated - and structurally so - it is uneconomic to remove or dry the balsa. Just call your insurance carrier and start shopping for a new boat.

First thing the use of glycols in a boat hull would be a problem they remain water soluble. Total encapsulation is a must. In the case of balsa failing then 2 things - shoddy or bad choice of the balsa - end grain with good glue lines has to be used and the polyester has to be applied properly - (one of the problems which has brought GRP into disrepute are the backyard copiers). The first coat must penetrate and probably the use of a thinned down polyamide type would be preferable - if polyester is too be used after that then it must be applied while the epoxy is still tacky - it has lousy adhesion any way. The superior job would use epoxy all the way - an ordinary marine paint could be used for aesthetic purposes as epoxy tends to chalk - functions great but looks bad. Do not overload with glass use veiling (light weight) on the exterior - could be OK on the interior if we do not need structural strength,

Ther polyamide epoxies are the ones used under water and for oil-rigs.

On the Balsa-core issue, I have seen failures and saturation on high quality boats such as Cheoy Lee and Whitby - in no way backyard copiers. When moisture gets in from any source, there is no place for it to go.

In one of my other lives I was an industrial roofing contractor. The failure rate of some insulated (vapour trap) systems is 100% in 7 years(to quote an old report by the USAF) - and the quality of the core material has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it will be forced to absorb water and then be unable to give it back out due to it's near perfect containment.

Thanks interesting. Some old jossers around here tell me that for a good walking stick you must cut the branch and then chuck in a pond for a month or so, I suppose this washes out the saps and sugars but this wood, when dried again, also seems to be more dimensionaly stable - or is that not so.

Any gen on bamboo? I must try soaking some of the local stuff as it falls apart after a while if not treated.

You can get a Material Data Safety Sheet (MSDS) for PEG here. There might be one at DOW. Right now their server is down.

I tried to save the wood several old boats better to get you a few different sizes of steel pipe and let time and heat bend wood natually then use it to replace the hull. That what I ended up doing with a 103 ft ketch made of Monkyee Wood.

I am trying to head-off that problem. the pine planking on this boat is fine, except for some normal garboard deterioration(which is a relatively small job). She has not been in the water for 4 years although rainwater (and winter-ice) have lain in her bilges through that time.

The track record on these hulls is that their first decade is their best and their 4th decade is their last. this boat is 18 years old. All of these boats are designed to be somewhat flexible. the use of rigid polymers can become complicated and expensive as a result of this 'built-in' flexibility.

I intend that this boat should age like commercial 'tupper-ware', like my o'day sailboat.

Did you use monkeywood as the replacement planking? Is it oily like teak? preservatives?

What to do--All I can think after seeing all this information pour in, is: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I fished commercially for 15 years and having a seaworthy vessel underneath you is paramount to any, if not a good nights, sleep. I fished mostly on steel hulled vessels and feel that the plight is the same and the malady is only slightly different--RUST NEVER SLEEPS, and you can put as much toxic catalyzed epoxy over rust as you want and it will still hand you your lunch. Sounds the same for wet or compromised wood--Once rust gets a foothold it has to be stripped to bare steel removing every ounce of it, or you will be visiting the same blemishes every year. If enough steel is compromised by the rust, it is time to get out a cutting torch--I'm not sure about wood, but I wonder if it is too late for some of the material if traditional maintenance isn't good enough. I would hate to discover this to be true underway.

Another interesting thing someone touched on in this thread is the saltwater log comments.--Brother, who introduced me to this forum and I have been pondering a problem we have with electrolysis in his dry-kilns, especially with our saltwater lumber--we work together at an alder mill, now. There will be questions posted on this in another thread--soon--

I haven't read all the replies yet. 25 years ago a private individual in eastern B.C. found and attempted to preserve an ancient canoe found in a stream bed submerged. He could not convince any govt to take the heritage item. Univ of British Columbia advised him on how to and sent him several hundred litres of some sort of Glycol. I can't remember what type. It did work. Contact "Museum of Anthropology" http://www.moa.ubc.ca/ and they may be able to advise or direct you to other sources. I will try to find some type of information to help out. good luck.

The replies have helped me to focus on what can be done with this common problem.

I came across an article that describe some of the limitations in using glycol to preserve wood followed by coatings of epoxy to seal and strengthen the wood. this had been my intention.

http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-reynolds-mat2.htm

I was very concerned that I would be encapsulating wood cells that contained water - thus guaranteeing further deterioration.

The use of alcohol or acetone to remove the water before treatment of the wood with penetrating epoxy seems to hold some promise and I am going to try this in one part of the boat. I think that I can do this because the wood is 'sound' - ie. not rotten. The following site pertains to an alcohol-base penetrating epoxy primer that makes big promises -

http://www.rotdoc.com/epoxy/epoxymain.html

I am not sure if this is the way to go - or if I should simply saturate the wood with a water removing agent to 'dry' it and then use a west system penetrating epoxy with slow cure.