Krycek
Member
Ok, this is going to be a lengthy post so I apologize if i bore anyone. I just did an extensive repair and I feel I should post it as maybe it'll help someone else get through this ordeal sooner than I did.
So, several months ago I had the dolly support punch through the hull on the starboard side of my laser. Needless to say, lots of water came in. Anyone who has done any sort of glass work knows this is a miserable place to work on.
To make matters worse, it punched through right at the point where the glass seperates from the rail. I was being conservative, as I didn't want to cut a hole in my hull and didn't want to back it from the inside.
After one trail of glassing the area that was unsuccessful I consulted some boat repair guru's and ended up backing the area with epoxy. I was hesitant to do this because I know the polyester glass I was using wasn't going to chemically bond to the West System I used. However, I figured if I left the finished epoxy surface relatively rough there would be plenty of places for the glass to grab an adhesive bond. I used the epoxy with high density filler to decrease the mobility of the west system once applied. I filled approximately 1/4 inch and injected some behind the point where the hull was broken. I then sanded down with 80 grit sandpaper to leave the area nice and rough.
This worked incredibly. The next morning I came back and the entire area had regained some of it's structural integrity... only to be built upon once I applied the fiberglass. Next, I did a matt, cloth, cloth, cloth, matt sandwich on top of the epoxy repair to complete the structural rebuild. Again, the strength of the repair was incredible.
I was worried about the glass seperating from epoxy once I began wet sanding, but it proved to be solid. I sanded down to the origional level of the boat without any issues and the spot maintained it's integrity.
The next issue was gelcoating the repair. I was so proud with the way it came out that I wanted to match the exact color of the hull strip, which on my 2001 boat is a very dark gray. I mixed black pigment into white gelcoat. However, I had issues with the gelcoat curing completely. I re-did this spot 3 times. First time I blamed it on me not letting the boat dry completely. Second time I blamed the humidity. Third time I thought it might be the massive amounts of pigment I had been putting in. Thus, I increased the hardner. Again, the end resuly was a gelcoat that would not go past the "tacky" stage. So now I believe it is the pigment and I'm going to be mixing black gelcoat with white gelcoat to attain the proper color.
This has been a lengthy repair. Hopefully this will help someone fix it quicker than i did and get back racing. Because if this issue I missed 2 regattas I really wanted to go to. Sorry if I bored you to death. I just thought this process was worth sharing...
So, several months ago I had the dolly support punch through the hull on the starboard side of my laser. Needless to say, lots of water came in. Anyone who has done any sort of glass work knows this is a miserable place to work on.
To make matters worse, it punched through right at the point where the glass seperates from the rail. I was being conservative, as I didn't want to cut a hole in my hull and didn't want to back it from the inside.
After one trail of glassing the area that was unsuccessful I consulted some boat repair guru's and ended up backing the area with epoxy. I was hesitant to do this because I know the polyester glass I was using wasn't going to chemically bond to the West System I used. However, I figured if I left the finished epoxy surface relatively rough there would be plenty of places for the glass to grab an adhesive bond. I used the epoxy with high density filler to decrease the mobility of the west system once applied. I filled approximately 1/4 inch and injected some behind the point where the hull was broken. I then sanded down with 80 grit sandpaper to leave the area nice and rough.
This worked incredibly. The next morning I came back and the entire area had regained some of it's structural integrity... only to be built upon once I applied the fiberglass. Next, I did a matt, cloth, cloth, cloth, matt sandwich on top of the epoxy repair to complete the structural rebuild. Again, the strength of the repair was incredible.
I was worried about the glass seperating from epoxy once I began wet sanding, but it proved to be solid. I sanded down to the origional level of the boat without any issues and the spot maintained it's integrity.
The next issue was gelcoating the repair. I was so proud with the way it came out that I wanted to match the exact color of the hull strip, which on my 2001 boat is a very dark gray. I mixed black pigment into white gelcoat. However, I had issues with the gelcoat curing completely. I re-did this spot 3 times. First time I blamed it on me not letting the boat dry completely. Second time I blamed the humidity. Third time I thought it might be the massive amounts of pigment I had been putting in. Thus, I increased the hardner. Again, the end resuly was a gelcoat that would not go past the "tacky" stage. So now I believe it is the pigment and I'm going to be mixing black gelcoat with white gelcoat to attain the proper color.
This has been a lengthy repair. Hopefully this will help someone fix it quicker than i did and get back racing. Because if this issue I missed 2 regattas I really wanted to go to. Sorry if I bored you to death. I just thought this process was worth sharing...
