Holes in hull ?!?!

Briguy · #1 10-10-2002, 12:45 PM

Billybob gave pretty good advice. However I would drill the holes out with a 1/4 bit, glass from the outside and then take a bit of resin and pour or inject it into the drill hole from the inside and let gravity do the work. It will be fixed forever. I would never ever ever fill in a FIBERGLASS hole with a caulk. Fiberglass and resin were made for each other. Polyester resin is cheeper and should do fine since that's what the boat was made with.

Standing Room Only · #2 10-10-2002, 03:27 PM

Use West Marine Epoxy, slow cure hardener. Mix in Cabosil (West Marine Colloidial Silica) or WM structural filler (?microfiber?) and mix until a paste consistency. Don't add too much. Add in WM barrier cote. tape outside of hole after drilling. Get a syringe injector and inject into the hole. Do this from the inside of the boat, retracting the injector so that no voids exist. Slap a small patch of biaxial glass over the hole and wet with resin. Sand/grind the inside patch a bit when done to fair. I had a few of these in mine and would never trust a soft sealant, even 5200. I find Marine Tex too brittle.

[ October 10, 2002, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: Standing Room Only ]

Tom · #3 10-16-2002, 09:29 AM

(just to clarify, WEST Marine does not make epoxy, additives. or the WEST SYSTEM. Wet Epoxy Saturation Techniques were introduced to the mass market by Jan and Meade Gougeon "the Gougeon Brothers" in the midwest in the '70s. They were pioneers in the lightweight use of wood materials and cold molding. Some of their early projects were large iceboats, inland racing scows (A's and E's) a whole bunch of offshore race boats, and the actual renovation of a number of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural masterpieces). Don't give West Marine too much credit...