glassing the deck in the cockpit
I've finished sanding and scraping the gelcoat from the deck in the cockpit. Now I'm laying a few reinforcing bits of glass mat and resin to try to stiffen up the flexible areas I think got the crazing started in the first place. I don't know how this will work out because they say polyester resin doesn't stick too well to old glass. I'm too cheep to get epoxy resin and I had this kicking around (it's older than they say it should be too) so we'll see how amature hour at the glass factory works out.
I cut out the pieces of mat for the weak areas, then I mixed the resin. The directions on the can call for 14 drops of hardner per oz of resin. I had no intention of counting out 140 drops and measuring out ozs, so , in my true half assed fassion, I winged it. The first batch was too hardener heavy, so I mixed the next batch a bit skimpier. If I missed by too much I guess I'll have a sticky deck for a few years. They say these resins harden anaerobically. I have no idea how to rig up a vacuum bag, so if this needs to be without oxygen to cure it will have to wait for paint.
2 Comments:
Aye!!! Captn' Ferrell here from Dos Fresco....thanks for stopping by....I see you've your hands full as well....lots-o-luck and, ugh, well--I'm short on quippy nautical sayins' yet....I'll stay in touch...I'll be posting some new notes on the boat soon too...
later,
myferrell/dosfresco....
I've been looking around the hull at some of the little zings in the gelcoat and thinking about trying out a few ideas. (That's always a sign of trouble.)
I have a bucket of the dust from sanding away the deck's gelcoat. I wondered what would happen if I used this as filler instead of microbaloons. I mixed up about two oz of resin with about an equal volume of powder. Next I added a bit of hardener and mixed it in. Then I wandered around the boat painting this concoction into any diggers I could find and waited for it to start to thicken. When it began to gell I pushed it into a spot where there is a gap between the deck and the hull at the stern. This is where a bit of the orriginal calking compound was knocked out in a particularly hard bump some time ago.
I'll check back in a day or two to see if this mess sticks well enough to be considered a repair. I think I would have better luck with epoxy resin, but I'm working with what I've got for now.
Cheers! Z
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