Lost my mind

[cape man]

Kitty litter will soak up some of it...

[Fuzz]

Kitty litter will soak up some of it...

I will get a bag to help clean up the shop floor from all the crap that has run out the bilge drain.

[piperdown]

For now I will skip the methods involving fire but I am sure I will think of it many times during this project
Thanks to piperdown I found some Zep and gave it a try. It did a pretty good job for a first pass. One more shot and I think I will be able to work in the area without looking like a total grease monkey.

Glad you found the Zep. Hands down one of the best degreaser's I've used (well, except for some old stuff that's not on the market anymore).

[Fuzz]

Well the white crap has arrived and stuck so the outside chores are pretty much done till spring.
I have been able to spend part of the past two days cleaning and trying to pull this thing apart. Where it is glass it is thick and tough as expected. And where it is wood most of the time it is rotten and easy to deal with. The stringers under the engine and back in the stern looked to be bare wood and I thought they would be soft and rotten.

This is a chunk I cut out of a stringer to look at because things are not making sense. The material is about 1.75 inch wide with a skin of 1/8 wood glassed to it. It has been in the bilge, exposed to the elements for 40 years and is hard as a rock. There were a dozen carriage bolts run through it under the engine and no rot in any of them

[Jaysen]

It has to be some type of synthetic like coosa. Hard to tell from the photo. Could it be molded glass that has extra poly in it? Hard to see the unknown material in the pic.

[fallguy1000]

Looks like wood to me. I see super tight grains.

[jonnymac]

could be one of the tropical hardwoods, some of those are closer to aluminum than wood for hardness

could be composite decking too

[Fuzz]

Thanks guys.
The boat was built in 1982 in Washington state. Being that old we can rule out all the new composites I think.
Maybe back then top quality wood was still available in that area? My first though was some form of oak but I would have thought it would be rotten by now. I am no wood expert and just trying to figure out what I am dealing with. Dan you may be right, most likely are, about it being wood but it is damn hard and dense.

[jonnymac]

oaks are all ring porous woods, so you would be able to see the pores in the end grain. it looks way dark for oak. Tropical hardwoods have been being imported to washington state since way before that date. Also, sometimes ships made in South American get cut up in boat building areas for other stuff. Could also have been fire treated someway, modifying the natural properties.

[TomW1]

Remember guys there are boats built of white oak that were launched 100- 200 years ago still afloat in museums here on the east coast. I don't know what they made boats from on the west coast but cyprus is a long lived wood that they might have used.

Tom