Is the keel sealed up???? Well that's the $10,000.00 question, and my chore to have handled before any lead goes in.
Just got back from good ol' West Marine with a gallon of blue bilge cleaner. I'm going to go pour it into the sump in the keel and see what happens. Best scenerio, I'll go out there tomorrow and it will all still be there and the sump will clean up spotless, OR if it leaks down through into the keel I'll know that I have an issue to deal with there. I'm expecting it to be OK but just want to be sure. I suspect that the water got into the keel right at the union of the keel trunk wall and the bottom of the keel itself. There appears to to be a split there in the fiberglass that has expanded, probably from the steel ballast rusting out. Either way I am going to fill the split with high density filler and then glass it up. There were some drips coming from the front of the keel slot in that area after the boat was put on the stands and was sitting a little nose low. The other possibilities, although I think they are small, is that the water got in through one of the pins' holes. The pins that were in there were not glassed over. You could actually touch the end of the bronze pin flush with the outside of the keel. Not sure if that's original. All the other Montys I've seen have always had the ends of the pins recessed a little and filled over with either glass or something like 5200. That's what I'll do with the new pins to alleviate that problem. Of course that doesn't solve the problem if the pin in leaking on the inside where it leaves the keel cavity to cross the gap of the keel trunk. Not sure what I'll do there if that seems to be a problem. Or, did the blistering let water all the way into the compartment. I don't think so. Even the biggest blisters did not go all the way through the laminate. They were pockets of water (acid) between two layers of the laminate that they had pushed apart, but still had solid laminate behind them. As far as mixing the lead and resin first before installing it. Yes, I have considered that but I think that would make it much more difficult to get the ballast to flow in where I want it and also I think that the ballast would not be packed nearly as tight becuase there'd be more resin in the mix. As long as enough resin penetrates to make the mass stable I'll be happy. If a few areas remain un-soaked but are locked between "soaked" areas I think it will be OK. BUT .....it remains an option to try it that way and if the first way isn't going well, maybe we'll give that a try. It's hard to describe if your not looking at it, but getting the lead into all the areas I want it to go will be challenging. Sounds like the thermal imaging thermometer would be a cool tool. I don't have one, but I think we'll be able to fudge along without it. We'll just make sure to go slow enough to let stuff kick before we move on. Thanks fo the input gang _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
