THE ART OF FIBERGLASS REPAIR PART 3 / HOLES

 

 

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HOLES IN MY BOAT /  Fiberglass Part 3 How to fix holes in the fiberglass

This happens on every boat over time we either install new canvas, electronics or snaps pull out of the deck, and there you have it a hole. I will be it a small hole but these are the most common holes in a boat. There are a few steps that need to be taken in the case of any small holes in the fiberglass of your boat.

Do not leave these holes unattended as this is a place were moisture will enter and start to break down the lamination, and worse yet if core is exposed create a place for wrote to set in!

• The first question you need to ask is are you going to drill a new hole in the same place.
• Are there stress cracks around the hole.
• What color are you going to have to match. (If you don't know contact the manufacturer with Hull ID Number)
• How large is this hole.
• How many holes are there and are they all in one area
• Can you get to the back of the hole(s)
• Is the hole into some type of structure ( is there wood core at the bottom of the hole)

Each one of these answers places a role in the repair you will have to complete,  For small holes the procedure is straight forward. You will need a few tools and supplies:

• Drill with a large rasp bit with a rounded end
• 120 sand paper,  400, 600, 1200 wet and dry sand paper
• A small trowel ( I like an oil paint trowel the long one with a rounded tip)
• Acetone
• Clean rags
• Pencil
• 3/4 inch masking tape (blue)
• Polyester resin c/w catalyst
• 2 Small mix cup
• Clean mix board (a clip board works good)
• Pre Val Sprayer
• Masking paper
• Buffer and compound ( I make my own compound) a supplier will advise what they have
• Color Match gel coat
• Cabosil
• Small sanding block
• Patch Aid (speed will be fast)
• Milled fiber or Chop Strand fiberglass
• Water spray bottle
• If you choose you can purchase a premix color match gel coat patch kit ( your local fiberglass supply company can advise you if this is available)

Some advice from over 39 years and being a top rated fiberglass tech, forget all the BS about needing to use any  thing other than Polyester resin. If the area were the hole is requires more than what this repair procedure out lines such as water or dry wrote you will need to consult a pro or get further information on procedure to repair. You need to know that epoxy and vynlester resin do not bond to polyester resin unless you provide a mechanical bond. You will pay more for fancy resins and they are NOT, I repeat NOT healthy for you to use! Do not let anyone bull shit you.

Procedure to Repair:

1. With your drill and the rasp tip, put the drill in reverse. The reason for this is that in forward with a sharp rasp you can simply bore a bigger hole in the area you are trying to fix. On slow speed you will place the rasp dead center of you hole and remove some of the gel coat and some of the pink fiberglass behind it. You are looking to create a clean dimple were the gel coat has a nice tapper all the way around. It should look like an over size golf ball dimple with the pink fiberglass and drilled hole in the center, at the bottom of this dimple.
2. Around the hole with 120 sandpaper on a sanding block remove the shine for 2 inches all around the dimple. Do not make a hollow around the dimple simply remove all shiny gel coat surface.
3. Clean the area with acetone and rag, remove all dust and be sure to let some down the hole. Acetone not only cleans the surface but it drives moisture out.
4. If you are certain that you have removed any chipped or cracked gel coat than you can now get your masking tape. Mask around the hole half way onto your sanded area. You should have 1 inch of sanded area showing around the dimple and 1 inch under the tape. Make the tape line two layers thick. this will allow for the fill gel coat to shrink during curing.
5.  If you can get to the back of the holes mask over the area so resin doesn't drip out onto what ever is below the area. Mix up some milled fiber with resin following the manufacturers instructions, add you catalyst and mix again. Take this mixture and stuff the actual drilled hole only, do not fill the entire dimple. Allow to cure completely and again with the drill running backwards clean up the dimple and wipe with acetone. You should now have a dimple without a drilled hole at the bottom.
6. Mix up your gel coat and cabosil combination until you have the consistency of peanut butter, add your speed patch and if the fill gets to runny add more cabosil until you have a peanut butter consistency again. This fill must be just like smooth peanut butter, take a large enough amount of fill, (to over fill the dimple) place it on the mix board and add catalyst, you must be sure the catalyst is mixed all the way thru the fill. Take your trowel and fill the dimple to the height of the masking tape , create a nice even top to the fill area and immediately remove the tape. clean your trowel with acetone and a rag.
7. Allow to fill cure completely. If you have added patch aid, the fill will be dull and not sticky to the touch when cured. Run a dry buffer over the fill before you sand this will pre shrink the fill. take your pencil and write all over the repair area, you will use this as a guide to see when your flat and fair. With your block sand down the repair area with 120 sand paper until surface is even or very close to it.
8. You now have two chooses you can spray the repair area or sand it out and polish, if you choose to sand it out grab a pencil and write all over the area that you have sanded with 120 and now sand with 400 wet and dry with water ( use your spray bottle and add a few drops of dish soap), use a sanding block and sand until the pencil marks are gone repeat with 600 and 1200. When you are done simply buff the area up and check the results.
9. If you do not like what you see sand the area down with 120 and follow the next procedures. In some cases just the fill and finish works great, this is usually based on the gel match quality.
10. If you intend to spray you will leave the area at the end of the 120 sanding, clean with acetone and mask an area of at least 6 inches by 6 inches, this area must be sanded slightly larger with 120 sand paper. Mask the area spray off allowing the masking line to be just inside the sanded area place masking paper around the spray area use the masking line as your guide.
11. Grab your Pre Val sprayer read the instructions and take the glass jar and lid out. you will mix the color match gel coat and patch aid per mixing instructions this will seem like a thin mixture do not compare to paint. You can add a small amount of acetone but only if necessary to thin down not to much it can yellow the color. Place the lid on and shake the mixture now you can add your catalyst. You will have about 5 min max to spray and clean the Preval Sprayer. Grab a clean rag with acetone and wipe the spray area again just before you spray ( to get ride of dust). Hold the Preval back about 8 inches and start in the middle and spray your way out tapering the spray towards the tape line this is important. Usually three or four passes will work. Remove the tape and masking paper right away. Allow to cure completely. To clean the Preval simply dump out the gel coat in a jar and fill and spray acetone through the Preval
12. Once the spray area has cured. You will use the same pencil trick write all over the repair area only this time you will only sand with the 400, 600 and 1200 wet sand papers with the water bottle. Once you are completely sanded buff and clean up. This method not only fills the hole but will last as along as the boat and you can re drill this very spot again in the future.

Any of these steps can be repeated if necessary to create a good fill or good spray, Step by step video will be available in our spring Magazine. Look for it and buy it on line!!!!!

 If you have several holes together simply treat each hole individually and make your spray area over the entire area as one. The truth is 90% of a great repair is in the color match, if you are not that fussy about the match the repair will last and the fade from the sun will eventually make the area harder to see over time. Just buy quality materials!

 

If you read our blog on colored hulls it goes into more detail on how to buff to a factory finish...

                                                                                                                    Author BW

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Copyright 2015 © Boat Nut Media, Toronto, Ontario. All rights reserved. No part of this information/publications may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, magnetic, or other record, without prior agreement and written permission of the publisher, Boat Nuts Media ©™ No liability is assumed with respect to the information provided.  

ART OF FIBERGLASS REPAIRS / STRESS CRACKS PART 2

                                               

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GEL COAT REPAIRS PART 2: Stress Crack Repairs

Stress cracks are those nasty spider web looking cracks that occur a point of impact or where there is movement in the fiberglass deck or hull. Movement means an area were a stiff or built up area of lamination meets an area of less lamination. When the material tries to flex stress cracks appear along this line. These types of cracks often occur in a tight radius, under cleats, or at the back edge of your swim platform. What are they? This is were the base fiberglass material under the gel coat has fractured, when a really bad stress crack occurs the gel coat will start to flake away exposing the pink material under the gel coat layer. When you stress or impact the surface of the boat stress cracks will show up, either in the weakest locations or the locations that are overbuilt.  Boat fiberglass lamination construction is a fine art between to thin and too thick. If the material is too thick it will shatter like window glass, it has no give or flexibility. If the material is to thin it will crack from lack of lamination or voids in the lamination process create a reduction of material strength and bond.

1. So how do you determine what your issue is? Well the first thing you should do is take a good look at the damage area, if it is a series of long cracks that have a gap between them of 1 or 2 mm or more start by taping the area with a plastic mallet and compare to an area with no cracks. If it sounds stiff and solid it is likely an overbuilt area or an area were bulkheads or stringers are installed in the molded part. This is the best kind of stress crack to deal with. You will need your Dremel, you will rotor along, following the cracks just past the ends. Only remove the gel coat layer without going too deep into the pink layer. Once you have taken this step along all the cracks, take a rag damp with acetone and wipe down the cracks, you have just taken the gel coat layer off. When the crack is still wet with acetone inspect the crack. Acetone will enhance the visibility of the pink material and you will see if the crack continues through the pink material. If the cracks are still clearly visible then go ahead and rotor a little bit more of the pink material and inspect again. Once you are satisfied that you have removed the crack you will treat the area as if it were a gouge or chip repair. Use the method that we out lined for a fill fair and spray repair in Fiberglass Repair part 1 posting. If you do not have time to do a full repair you can stop these cracks from continuing to grow, simply rotor a dot through to the pink material at the vary end of each crack. Then you can take a small amount of gel coat and fill the small rotor dots, and repair the cracks later.

                                  
                                                    

 2.  If you have an area were the stress cracks are really close and all over each other like a wild spider web, you can do the mallet test again and tap this are and see if it sounds different (hollow or thin). If you notice a distortion in the shape of the area with the stress cracks, it is a sign that this will be an involved repair to fix. In some cases you maybe able to gain access to the inside of the boat and view the lamination, check to see if you can see sunlight through the area. this will allow you to assess how thin the area is. In this case you will need to remove the layer of gel coat that is damaged, for this you will need a grinder with a non aggressive grinding disk. Carefully remove all the gel coat that is cracked without loosing the over all shape of the boat in the area you are working on .If it is for example in a radius, do not grind the radius away just the gel coat needs to be removed. Once the gel is cleared away with a rag damped with acetone and wipe down the area. The pink material will become translucent for a moment and you will see how bad the lamination is damaged. If the pink lamination is badly cracked you will need to remove some of this pink material 1 or 2 mm deep with the grinder. The reason for this is if you fill over the cracks they will reappear almost right away. The procedure for this repair requires you to replace the pink material with a new piece or fiberglass mat to prevent print through (this means the cracks immediately reappearing in your repair). The actual steps to this type of repair are difficult to follow in a written format, however I will do my best to explain the steps to you.

  

1- Apply a layer of fiberglass mat to the area you ground using lamination resin.
2- Allow this area to cure and take your grinder and fair or reshape the area to allow for gel coat fill.
3- follow the repair procedure from post Fiberglass repair part1 to complete the repair with gel coat.

2. Quiet often by the time you purchase all the products and calculate the time involved it is worth hiring a fiberglass repair person to complete the repair described above. If you do not have access to a repair person order the fiberglass repair DVD from Boat Nut Media and see the steps involved in completing stress crack repair. If you go else were for information do not let anyone sell you on the idea that you must use epoxy resin for repair this is non sense. A production boat is made out of polyester resin and using any other resin to repair will create all kinds of problems. Use the materials your boat was made out of to complete all repairs. When you start to introduce materials that were not original to your boats construction your repairs will be difficult and won't likely turn out, they certainly will not last. We think of it as the keep It simple stupid method, the kiss theory will pay off.

                   

Quality and original materials will make gel coat repairs manageable.

 

READ ART OF FIBERGLASS REPAIR PART 3 HOLES

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To guarantee access to all of  Boat Nut Magazine articles, pictures and featured services visit the official Boat Nut Magazine ©™ website. Be sure to reply to the Boat Nut Association registration on our site for the latest Boat Nut weekly and monthly news letters and opportunities.

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Copyright 2015 © Boat Nut Media, Toronto, Ontario. All rights reserved. No part of this information/publications may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, magnetic, or other record, without prior agreement and written permission of the publisher, Boat Nuts Media ©™ No liability is assumed with respect to the information provided.