[VAC] Re: A/S Floor Repair

["Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer" <geraldj@xxxxxxxx>]

House restoration has the same exact problem. There are products made
especially for the task, regularly advertised in Fine Homebuilding. Go
to your library and dig back. In the past year or two there has been an
article on restoring things like columns using resins. The resins that
soak into the floor are necessarily low viscosity so they do soak in
well. They need a mold sometimes.

I've read that dropping a portion of the floor pan isn't a big deal and
doing that would allow closing the bottom of a piece of rotten floor
with a lot of duct tape to hold the resin in.

As for drilling out the floor to allow more resin penetration, it just
might be easier to drill smaller holes than 1/2" diameter. Definitely
easier to control penetration. When one needs to control that
penetration, a set screw anchored shaft collar or a piece of tubing of
pipe cut to but against the chuck is a far more positive stop than a
wrap of masking tape. That wrap of masking tape serves to remind you of
where you want to stop, but if you hit it consistently it wears fairly
rapidly and won't stop the drill it if hits a hard splinter that pulls
the drill into the work. A stop collar or pipe is a positive stop and
doesn't need to be watched. The down side of drilling with a small bit
is that many more holes are needed, but with the positive stop, no
thought is required so they can go rapidly.

If air bubbles are a problem in small holes, a bit of vibration, e.g.
with a mallet or gently with a hammer can probably dislodge them from
the holes. At the worst a piece of newspaper tie wire or baling wire can
be shoved down each hole to pop each bubble. Failing to find those
classic tools, any small (20 gauge) copper or iron wire will do.
Probably even a thin broom straw or the plastic equivalent will work.

When cutting out a piece of floor for replacement be sure to use a
circular saw set to just cut the thickness of the wood. A jig saw might
easily poke holes in the lower skin and saw off braces, pipes and wires.
Edges will be a problem, probably requiring a bit of chisel work to
finish.

Gerald J.