Fiberglass repair job

[tracerbob]

Whats the best way to fix this? The previous owner must have kissed the sea wall on his way back in. Pretty rough scrape on the outer sponson but the worst part is the crack on the inside of the sponson. Fixing the scrape is the easy part but I need some advice on how to fix the crack and get some strength back into the sponson. There seems to be a couple of cracks on the deck too. Here's the links to the photos in my gallery until I can figure out why I can't upload the pics.

It's a Phil Thomas 82U55 hull

https://www.intlwaters.com/gallery/displayimage...album=74&pos=20

 

[missbudpilot55]

Hi Bob,

Sorry I didn't get to meet you at the SGA Hydro Invitational, job sent me to Atlanta to a conference & school that weekend.

To fix the inner crack in the hull take a dremel cut off wheel and make a slot along the crack. Either slide a piece of thin ply or fibrerglass in the slot you cut after you put some epoxy on it and pull it back over the opening, after the expoxy sets you can make a mixture of microballon & expoxy paste and smooth it over the opening, let dry, sand and repaint. A little trick I devised, super glue a round toothpick to the ply or fiberglass so that you have a handle on it to pull it back to the opening. Also to help smooth out the epoxy I dip a popsicle stick in laquer thinner and make a few passes over the expoxy paste to smooth it out as much as possible.

Bill Diedrich

Ventress, LA

 

[Mike Hughes]

One thing to add to that is use a few small screws to hold the ply in place. If you pre drill the holes then when you put the ply in you can suck it up tight to the hull and get a really good bond. When your done you still need to fill the crack in with filler and this will take care of the small holes too. Before you put in the ply make sure that you coat all the sides of the ply so that it will be sealed up just in case some water gets inside the hull. Here is a shot of what I am talking about. Gives you the general idea.

Mike

https://www.intlwaters.com/gallery/displayimage...pby&cat=0&pos=0

 

[Paul Pachmayer]

Hi Bob,

This is on a plastic boat but the concept is the same.

Paul.

 

[[email protected]]

Paul,

great illustration, looks like a good sound repair job!

Mike,

there's no pix on your image?

 

[tracerbob]

One thing to add to that is use a few small screws to hold the ply in place. If you pre drill the holes then when you put the ply in you can suck it up tight to the hull and get a really good bond. When your done you still need to fill the crack in with filler and this will take care of the small holes too. Before you put in the ply make sure that you coat all the sides of the ply so that it will be sealed up just in case some water gets inside the hull. Here is a shot of what I am talking about. Gives you the general idea.Mike

https://www.intlwaters.com/gallery/displayimage...pby&cat=0&pos=0

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Mike, how do you hide the screws, or do you pull them out once everything has cured? Also, your link leads me to your prop duplicator pic.

Good advice folks! I was thinking along the same lines about a backing plate of some sort but getting it in place was the question.