Ok, those of you following this saga I need some help from you. Today I pulled vacuum on the port side about the middle of the keel. Several things were different today. First we clearly were in a wet section of the hull. From the get go it was like sucking on a straw. I think moisture would have slowly dripped out of this section of the hull without any help. As soon as the vacuum was on there was moisture moving toward the pump even before the heat was applied. But we were also getting a much higher vacuum level than any of the other patches I have worked, in the range of 20 inches of Hg. vs. 10-12 Hg or less. I also made some minor changes to the vacuum line to keep it more open. Then I added a bucket of water to put a section of the cooling line in water before it hit the trap. So several really important changes, but the thing that is incredible is that I just pulled about 32 oz. of water out of this section in about 8 hours.
That is more water in one section than I got from the three others combined. The visual saw kerfs into the balsa don't look much different than the others I have done, nor does the apparent color of the balsa through the skin. There is evidence of either a lot of fairing in this area, or previous work, no way to really tell the difference.
My inclination is to say that this area is way beyond being dried and is in the process of turning to mush. I am OK with replacing the balsa, I just don't want to do it where it is not necessary. The advantage of maintaining the external skin for fairing is huge.
I need some operating theories before I decide to waste this outer skin and replace the core. So some suggestions would be really appreciated here. I just don't want to waste that skin if it isn't really necessary. So let me know any suggestions and ideas you might have here. I would much rather read bad suggestions than prematurely kill this skin and core. I can also go quickly test any ideas that you might have. But I do have to move through this area in the next day or so.
