Hi All. I built a 10’2" hollow redwood log (7th board for me). I didn’t want to put in a vent but I eventually grew paranoid that the board would delam or explode without one so I placed vent in the deck. The board is made from 5/16ths thick redwood strips with a bit of Koa in the tail and fin. I sealed the board with a cheater coat of resin research epoxy, put on a single layer of 6 oz glass, did a fill coat and a gloss coat. I got a bit of a delam around the vent hole and would love some opinions about the best way to repair it. I know that there will be wax over the spot and its fairly minor but I’ve put lots of work into this one (milled the wood myself etc) so I want it to look good. I tried to inject some resin underneath the glass with a needle (this helped a bit) but I couldn’t get to the entire affected area.
Did you support it underneath that spot? It kind of looks like a ding(pushed in). If you want it to look new your going to end up sanding the effected area off. I would just put some glass over it to strengthen the area. It won’t change the look but it would make sure it’s sealed up. No board stays perfect forever.
Hi - Grab some sand paper and start sanding where you see the ‘bruised’ cloth. Be careful and pay attention to when you get exposed weave wherever the bruising is evident. If you don’t already have some, try and get some Xylene or Additive F. It won’t take much so don’t buy a shitload. Make sure the vent hole is plugged somehow. Dab some of the Xylene or Additive F on the exposed weave and watch to see if the bruising disappears. If so, go ahead and either coat with a small batch of mixed epoxy or laminate a patch of cloth over the damaged area with cloth and mixed epoxy. If the bruising does not disappear with the application of Xylene or Additive F, keep sanding until it does. I’ve made stuff like that invisible or nearly so with polyester or epoxy. With polyester resin you would use Styrene. The trick is using the solvent to help the resin soak in to the bruised fibers.
FYI, not dry weave, but rather that when you drilled your vent, the edges of the drill bit grabbed and lifted the fiberglass from the redwood (or conversely, the thread of the screw lifted the resin off the brass and then redwood). Tight grained redwood doesn’t have much tooth to hold the epoxy, so it is pretty easy to peel the glass from the wood with the right “prying” force, like a drill bit or thread tap. I’ve typically had this happen when I’ve been in a rush and ran a tap into the vent to clean up the threads after install without deburring the edge of the epoxy first.
My best success with vent installs is to drill a small pilot hole first and use a sharp countersink to carve back the edges of the glass before install. After epoxying it in, be sure to deburr the edges of the resin to ensure nothing can grab and lift it off the brass and surrounding wood.
Either way, as long as there is a smooth, contiguous epoxy surface for the vent o-ring to seat/seal, your delam is cosmetic and unlikely to grow or result in any problems.
