Using A Moisture Meter On Solid Fiberglass Laminate

We tend to believe that solid fiberglass is stronger and less likely to suffer damage from water saturation and the latter is true. While a moisture meter newbie might gain some useful information more on that in a minute using one to accurately assess the state of a hull requires deep experience. 176 are meters affected by humidity.

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However it is not perfect and there are drawbacks.

Using a moisture meter on solid fiberglass laminate.

176 does old gel coat absorb high amounts of water. As you ll notice a 30 moisture saturation in wood or a cored section is only equal to 3 total absorbed moisture on a solid fiberglass with no core. This is a very important part of any moisture meter and if you don t have that scale it does not matter whether the meter tells you it is 100 or 10 because you don t know what those numbers translate to in fiberglass. The meter won t tell us what part is wet the skin the core or both.

After using a moisture meter on over 1 000 surveys i have yet to see a recently hauled boat that indicated anything less than high 7 on a scale of 1 10 on surfaces below the waterline. Once again the meter can determine if moisture is present in a solid laminate even if all looks well to the naked eye. The mass production of fiberglass. 176 do meters read fluids other than water.

This is the this is the fundamental problem with trying to meter hulls for wet cores. Core rot degradation and the physical failure of the core can begin at about a 20 reading on the ct 33 sometimes sooner which is in the high moist range. Using moisture meters 173 what does a meter really detect. These readings have been taken with a.

Part of the problem in answering this question comes from the fact that we cannot determine whether we are reading moisture behind the laminate versus within the laminate. However it should be. Where osmosis repair is concerned the moisture meter will enable a fiberglass specialist to determine how. The moisture meter is an essential device to perform a good survey on a fiberglass boat.

A surveyor can identify high moisture in the core or laminate using a moisture meter. Fiberglass is a good material to use in boats as it has many good attributes. So better to hire an experienced professional surveyor or perhaps a boat yard technician see last article to do the work for us. 176 hydrolysis 177 water.

Lower levels of moisture are common and tapping of the area can identify if there is a problem that needs to be repaired. Virtually every high performance racing sail or powerboat is cored.