My prior post stated I had a leak, found a cracked hull here is how I fixed it.
1) I ground the gel-coat off to see the extent of damage, leaving a clear margin of about 3-4" around crack
2) I drilled 3/16 holes around the perimeter of the damage so I could inject fiberglass resin(with hardener mixed well) into the back side of the damage
3)After resin hardened, I mixed up MARINE-TEX epoxy and smear coated the damage up to the surface, sanded and reapplied about 3 coats sanding between and sanding down to 220 from 60-100-150-220
4)Taped off area and spray painted with Rustoleum Red, blended it with removing tape and fogging into orig color
This repair worked GREAT! all day on water and held up great no water in hull or epoxy separating.
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS!:
My hull was cracked in a place that couldn't be reached from inside without cutting into the rectangular box (to each side of the center floor storage area) that contain the foam floatation blocks....I didn't want to cut thru that wall to get to the hull crack..it was only a crack not an extreme penetration or I would have gone that route.
Drilling thru the hull was enlightening...some of the holes were solid fiberglass until the drill broke thru but only 2 inches away it was clearly 2 layers separated by a 1/4" gap?? I went thru both and when injecting resin pulled the syringe out slowly so it could flow on top of both layers
The correct best method to fix this would be to lay up multiple patches resin coating each as I built it up but I didn't have time to do that then GELCOAT on top of that and blend it all in...this method got me on the water and IT IS SUPER STRONG!!!
Marine-Tex is easy to apply but once you get it on it takes about 2 hrs to start hardening, problem is once it starts its a thin line form being too soft to work on to being so hard its tough to sand...sanding seams to be the best workability..I tried a body file rasp and its too tough to even get a bite into it
The Home Depot rustoleum isn't a perfect match but its a 10 yr old boat and looks just fine for getting out to have fun!
I posted this with a good search title for future reference look ups, I went thru so many BS articles trying to find the best method to do this, it was a huge time suck!
Ill try to upload images in link next
1) I ground the gel-coat off to see the extent of damage, leaving a clear margin of about 3-4" around crack
2) I drilled 3/16 holes around the perimeter of the damage so I could inject fiberglass resin(with hardener mixed well) into the back side of the damage
3)After resin hardened, I mixed up MARINE-TEX epoxy and smear coated the damage up to the surface, sanded and reapplied about 3 coats sanding between and sanding down to 220 from 60-100-150-220
4)Taped off area and spray painted with Rustoleum Red, blended it with removing tape and fogging into orig color
This repair worked GREAT! all day on water and held up great no water in hull or epoxy separating.
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS!:
My hull was cracked in a place that couldn't be reached from inside without cutting into the rectangular box (to each side of the center floor storage area) that contain the foam floatation blocks....I didn't want to cut thru that wall to get to the hull crack..it was only a crack not an extreme penetration or I would have gone that route.
Drilling thru the hull was enlightening...some of the holes were solid fiberglass until the drill broke thru but only 2 inches away it was clearly 2 layers separated by a 1/4" gap?? I went thru both and when injecting resin pulled the syringe out slowly so it could flow on top of both layers
The correct best method to fix this would be to lay up multiple patches resin coating each as I built it up but I didn't have time to do that then GELCOAT on top of that and blend it all in...this method got me on the water and IT IS SUPER STRONG!!!
Marine-Tex is easy to apply but once you get it on it takes about 2 hrs to start hardening, problem is once it starts its a thin line form being too soft to work on to being so hard its tough to sand...sanding seams to be the best workability..I tried a body file rasp and its too tough to even get a bite into it
The Home Depot rustoleum isn't a perfect match but its a 10 yr old boat and looks just fine for getting out to have fun!
I posted this with a good search title for future reference look ups, I went thru so many BS articles trying to find the best method to do this, it was a huge time suck!
Ill try to upload images in link next
Also, if the resin is too thin and just drips or runs off before it lights off and begins to harden you can mix fine saw dust with it to make a paste of peanut-butter consistency.
