Boat Forum / Building / June 2008

Frankly I would never purchase a wooden boat where 5200 was used any
where on board.  Wooden boats frequently need to have various parts/
pieces removed for repair and restoration, unfortunately 5200 is too
strong as an adhesive and it is damn near impossible to separate any
thing glued together with it, short of total destruction of the
component parts.  There are plenty of good below the waterline
adhesives out there that are durable enough to last almost forever,
but still that allow you with pull and cut components apart, and the
can scraped or sanded off without destroying the underlying material.

The only thing I would ever use 5200 for is storing nuclear waste, and
gluing the front door closed after the kids turn 18.

The 3M 5200o "bottom" is a process used to restore the bottom of
wooden boats in a semi permanent way.  The bottom is still in need of
restoration, but can go many years, maybe forever with a 5200 bottom.

What is done is that the bottom of the boat is sanded to bare wood.
Then 5200 is troweled on over the wood.  Then while the 5200 is still
"wet" a layer of fiberglass cloth is squeegeed into the 5200.

This is a, not uncommon, repair of a leaking wooden boat bottom.  It
works well and makes a solid bottom.  But the wood above the repair is
still rotted and may rot even more now that it cannot breathe on the
bottom side.