At 2:13 AM -0700 7/30/00, Doug Lloyd wrote: > >I thought my seminar hand-out might be useful. [BIG SNIP] Thanks for the great document Doug and thanks to everyone else who sent tips. I made my repairs last week and so far they seemed to have turned out well. I lost about a foot and a half strip of gel-coat and punctured the hull a few times a few years back. This is on the stern keel and while most of the repair work I did has been successful, the keel always managed to loose gel-coat after rocky landings etc. I know this is normal wear and tear, but I was sick of having to re-gel coat constantly. So this time, I applied the gel coat, let it lightly set-up, then flushed it with a razor. I let this cure overnight. The next day, I lightly sanded to build up some texture, then put down a foot long strip of fiberglass seam tape. I cut the ends to points and wetted out the glass with polyester resin. I let this cure overnight. I then sanded the strip edges down to flush them with the hull and then went through my normal wet-sanding, first 220, then 400 and finally 600. I then polish the hull with a polishing paste and finally Turtle Wax. The hull looks great. You can see the keel strip if you look (I have an ivory/beige hull) for it. We'll see how it works. I know there may be some delamination due to the wax content in the gel coat, but am thinking that the adhesion may hold. I haven't noticed any change in handling. I keep my boat at a rowing club and they were impressed with the repair, and those guys and gals are pretty fanatical about hull repair. A couple things I have learned over the past couple years doing the occasional hull repair. Not all gel coat resins come with air-inhibiting wax. I get my gel coat resin from Current Designs, and theirs is, but we had some a few years back from, I believe NDK, and theirs wouldn't set up. We later discovered that it contained no wax. Also, when doing the sanding on a hull, use your hands not your eyes to see how things are progressing. Once you quit feeling gel coat edges, you know you're done. I find this a lot easier to do when wet-sanding. Finally, resin and gel-coat will eat through a lot of plastic cups. So if you have to use plastic cups, double or triple them up. My last tip, if you are buying disposable filters for sanding, read the label. Most filters displayed are simply dust filters and the label will explicitly state that they are not for sanding fiberglass. I have only managed to find fiberglass filters from 3M that were quit a bit more expensive than the regular dust filters. If you know you are going to be doing a lot of work, it might make more sense to get a respirator. I got one a few years back and am glad I did, I have a hard enough time keeping latex gloves in stock much less filters. -Patrick *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Jul 30 2000 - 20:30:42 PDT
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