Transom Repair 23' Outboard

[edloh]

point well taken, obviously there are many oppurtunity to reinforced the transom coming from the inside. have any seacraft member used composite material with polyester resin to repair a transom? i would prefer to do it without wood. thanks

[FELLOW-SHIP]

There are a lot of guys now a days that have turned to composite material. If I had to do it all over again today I probably would use the stuff, but when I did mine in 2001 the newer materials had only been on the market for a few years. I did not want to be their Bata testing group. As for polyester I would never use that for anything but New Construction. Epoxy has Far More Bonding Qualities for repair work than does polyester.
FellowShip [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[BigMike8o9]

I think, if I was to replace my whole transom, I would take the whole thing out and replace it front and back. I would do it just for delamination reasons. I still believe the best way to be sure is to epoxy front and rear. And build up a much stronger transom. If you get any delamination you would be back to square one in a few years.
I've never replaced a transom, but I've made a few. I think I'm kind of alone on that line of thought. I've repaired transoms on wooden boats and I've always been acused of overkill but I never repaired on twice.

[edloh]

i could not use epoxy and i plan to gelcoat the entire boat. thus i would have to stay with polyester resin.

whats up EDloc don't know to much about fiberglass work but have a close friend i that buisnes that would be happy to answer any questions you may have if your interested ican e-mail you his number. He has a older boston whaler 26' guardian we removed the looper 140's it came with he closed the transom I built him a bracket and we installed a pair of 01 225hp johnsons, its like a new boat.

[FELLOW-SHIP]

Ha Edloh;

If you are going to do the transom from the inside why would you think you can’t use epoxy???? Also if you use West Systems epoxy their info says you CAN gelcoat over their epoxy.
FellowShip [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Trayder]

Edloh-

As Fellowship states and as I have done you can gel-coat over epoxy. There are certain prepararions you have to do but it can be done without a hitch.

Gel-coat to epoxy = mechanical bond

Gel-coat to Poly = chemical bond and I think mechanical if the poly is dry?

Get the west sytems book on repairing fiverglass boats it is avail anywhere that sells west systems and has good pointers no matter what type of method and our material you use

[oldbluesplayer]

as the others have mentioned, with West Systems epoxy, you can definitely put polyester based gel coat on over it.

Keep in mind that when bonding to the existing boat structure, you are only acheiving a secondary bond, and that epoxy is considerably stronger at this, than polyester.

The primary bond (chemical) only occurs when the previous surface being bonded to is not yet fully cured - obviously, all the existing fiberglass structure in your boat is fully cured.

With the epoxy (at least with west systems) after it fully cures - about 4 days, with a good sanding, and an acetone wipe, polyester gel coat will readily adhere.

suggest, as Trayder mentioned, you get the West Systems book - it's cheap, readily available, good info.

Bill