And it's not unpleasant.
I've been waiting 25 years to use this trick - stabilizing bad wood with anti-freeze. Some plumbing leaks eventually resulted in some rotted wood in the closet of this guest house/outdoor kitchen on my parents' property. We cut out what was practical and are replacing as needed. But some of it was just really, really impractical to remove and structurally immaterially. For that, I soaked it with about 10ozs of Borax dissolved in a bit of water, then into a gallon of ethylene glycol anti-freeze. It will kill off any fungus, swell the wood and strengthen it. It's a great trick.
I learned about it for the first time in the mid-90s. I visited the Portsmouth (England) Naval dockyards; I really wanted to see the HMS Victory (pics below from that trip, c. June 1995, of that thoroughly awesome battlewagon). Next door they had a 1500s salvaged warship, the Mary Rose. It was in a heated, covered dock being sprayed with PEG to displace the water and stabilize and strengthen the wood. After a couple of decades of that treatment, she was then able to be opened up and exposed to the atmosphere (newer pic before; I saw it years ago under spray and behind glass). In restoring the ship, they used various molecular weights of polyethylene glycol because - "Other People's Money." Us Joe's just use a garden sprayer of Dex-Cool.
We removed any rotted flooring and joists, bits of studs, etc. and will replace that. But for some non-critical spots this trick saves a LOT of time and money with no downside. I also have heard of this technique from wooden boat owners and restorers over the years, and carpenters use it for swelling dowels and things like that sometimes (you can fix squeaky chair legs with an eye dropper and anti-freeze).
HMS Victory in her dry dock in Portsmough, c. 6/1995. It turns out, "victory" actually smells a lot like damp wood and tar, not napalm.
Her stern gallery:
Mary Rose
I've been waiting 25 years to use this trick - stabilizing bad wood with anti-freeze. Some plumbing leaks eventually resulted in some rotted wood in the closet of this guest house/outdoor kitchen on my parents' property. We cut out what was practical and are replacing as needed. But some of it was just really, really impractical to remove and structurally immaterially. For that, I soaked it with about 10ozs of Borax dissolved in a bit of water, then into a gallon of ethylene glycol anti-freeze. It will kill off any fungus, swell the wood and strengthen it. It's a great trick.
I learned about it for the first time in the mid-90s. I visited the Portsmouth (England) Naval dockyards; I really wanted to see the HMS Victory (pics below from that trip, c. June 1995, of that thoroughly awesome battlewagon). Next door they had a 1500s salvaged warship, the Mary Rose. It was in a heated, covered dock being sprayed with PEG to displace the water and stabilize and strengthen the wood. After a couple of decades of that treatment, she was then able to be opened up and exposed to the atmosphere (newer pic before; I saw it years ago under spray and behind glass). In restoring the ship, they used various molecular weights of polyethylene glycol because - "Other People's Money." Us Joe's just use a garden sprayer of Dex-Cool.
We removed any rotted flooring and joists, bits of studs, etc. and will replace that. But for some non-critical spots this trick saves a LOT of time and money with no downside. I also have heard of this technique from wooden boat owners and restorers over the years, and carpenters use it for swelling dowels and things like that sometimes (you can fix squeaky chair legs with an eye dropper and anti-freeze).
HMS Victory in her dry dock in Portsmough, c. 6/1995. It turns out, "victory" actually smells a lot like damp wood and tar, not napalm.
Her stern gallery:
Mary Rose
