Been Busy working on Fiberglass

shorefun

Well-Known Member
These are picts of the 2006 I bought that had some holes in it. For $200 with a like new sail, well I could not go wrong.

I am learning as I go with this glass work. My main goals are to put in structure and keep the repair areas low enough I can get a good gel coat on top. I bought some tints and I have a neighbor that was an art teacher that I hope to have help match the colors.

The hull on the big hole was repaired from the inside. It was tough, I ended up having to cut down the glass in strips. I laid them at 90 degrees. The rest of the repairs are just outside. There was some of the original inner woven still basically there. If the repair does not work I will open the hole and do a back patch.

You can see I made a mold of the J from the other side to make the missing area. It was nice an straight when I left it to cure and was slightly wavy when I came back. Not really a problem. I filled in some of the low spots.

The deck needed a backer. I made up a flat piece of glass 3 layers, 2 woven and one mat. I pre drilled holes through both layers with the smaller diameter drill for the sheet metal screws. Then opened up the deck holes to let the threads through. I used a pick to line up the holes while a third hand held the glass in place with a paint stirrer. I put a layer of mat on the glass and used my finger to wet the underside of the deck. Then screwed it up. The piece curved up some. I found if I pressed on the deck in the right spot it came out level. So I took some metal scrap I have laying around and put some weight on it.

I should mention I have been using a new hack saw blade to check that the areas are low enough for the gel coat build up. I used the blade to check the patch I put in the deck.

So that is the quicky of what I have been doing. Hopefully this all works out fine for the long term.

I will add that there are many ways to do this repair. This is what made sense for me based on time limits and materials on hand. I will add I really do not like inspection ports on the deck if I can avoid it.
 

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Looks like its coming along good. I rebuild the whole bow and stern of a gheenoo a few years back that got crushed from behind while on a trailer at a red light. Much the same look and method of building the bow back. Im still using it today. Yours should be great when done.
 
I need to think of a good spacer for the gap needed for the epoxy. I am going to build the lip up in position then remove the spacer. Might be as simple as cardboard with plastic on top. Likely to use dowels and C clamps to hold the edge together. Put the dowel in the channel and clamp it.
 
Right Capt L. Its a wonder how someone can abuse something they paid good money for that bad. All my stuff is old...but in decent repair because I don't like to buy something twice. LOL
 
A minor update.

To clear out some more of the bad epoxy in the joint I used some of the cloth backed 60 grit paper I have. I am using a long strip to insert in the hole, press down some and pull. I worked both sides by flipping the paper. This got the 2 sides to fit together better.


Picture 2599 shows how the plate I glued in sits up high. I have be using a straight edge to make sure the deck is level and the repair area is low some so I can put the gel coat on top. The reason it is high is because I did not have the deck set up properly. The area was raised some pulling the length of the edge some. I locked this in place causing a bump as I put the deck down where it needs to be. I cut a slot in the glass and experimented with the best way to lay it down better.

The fix was to sand the epoxy high spots out between the deck and the hull. Then put a couple of clamps along the edge using dowels in the channel then laid on the long heavy chunk of iron I have. I also used a piece of steel to push the plate I made down more to account for the thickness of the original deck material. I want to build up the layers.

I mixed up 3 teaspoons of resin and wetted out the mat I cut to shape. I thickened the leftover and used that to fill the screw holes and the cut I put in the plate.

It is curing as we speak so I will have to wait to see if I did it right.

The Thixo is to arrive saturday. I hope to have the hull glassing done by the weekend and maybe far along on gel coat. Starting to warm up here.
 

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