fixing deck seperation.

[rc10gtisthebest]

The top deck of my fiberglass boat is starting to seperate off of the bottom part of the boat. And I was wondering how i should cure this.

I thought about buying the epoxy in the syringes and just squirting it in there but i'm not to sure..

Please tell me what you did or would do in this situation..

(as you can tell from the picture the Delievery company beat the hell out of my boat :mad: :(

-Thanks

[rc10gtisthebest]

...

[rcski]

If you just squirt epoxy in the crack, The hulls do take a pounding on the water and it will probably come apart again. The best way and the way I would do it. Get a dremel with a grinding disk and grind it down about 1\16th of an inch from the crack to about one inch away from the crack inside the hull and the outside. Get some fiberglass cloth strips about two inches wide and as long as the crack. Lay down some fiberglass resin over the ground out spot, and lay your strips on top. Then brush more resin over the laid strips. fill and sand as needed. Before you do the above you might want to try and glue the crack and clamp it together first.buy complete fiberglass kits at walmarts, hardware stores, etc. for about 10 to 15 dollars. This requires a little work but it's not that difficult, and it will result in a permanent fix that if done right will never come apart again.

[rc10gtisthebest]

Instead of hacking away at the fiberglass. would you consider it a smart Idea just to go threw the bulkhead. Like take a flexy saw tip on a elec saw and just go around the premeter of the bulkhead, remove the bulkhead, repair the seperation, put the bulkhead back in place with some resin and fiberglass sheets?

Thanks for the advice,

Todd

[rcski]

If its easy enough to seperate the two have's, Yes you could do most of the repairs from the inside, and try not to do to much to the outside. First I would get some fibergass resin, mix it up per directions, then with a small swab apply it between the crack. Take some good strong tape that dosent streach squeeze the crack together and tape so they dont pull apart. remember when you mix the resin together it's like 5 min epoxy, you don't get a real long time to work with it. If you can get at the inside rough it up real good with some 60 grit sand paper. Make real sure before you put down the resin there is absulutley no oil or anything greasy on the spot to be repaired. As soon as you put down you're resin put the glass cloth over it, than brush more resin over the cloth. Seeing it's on the inside and appearance should be no problem put a few layers of cloth down. When you're finished with the inside you could try to get by with no cloth on the outside and just dab the resin into whats left of the crack and sand smooth. If there are still little hole's or valleys just mix a little more resin and repeat. I Strongly recommend the use of the cloth cause where there's a crack in a streased area on fibergass and you dont use it, it will eventualy start to crack open again. If you do a good job on the inside you probably can get buy without cloth on the ouside, I myself would do inside and out with cloth but that just me, cause than I know for sure it wont come apart again. I dont know if you ever worked with fiberglass but it's not that difficult. I fixed smashed semi truck fenders and stuff and I would rather work with glass body's than metal. Best Of luck, feel free to ask any other questions. (edit) I just reread you're last post. I would'nt just go cutting the hull apart with a saw, because it will be a pain in the arsh to join them back together again. If you can get at the inside without seperating or get the hull apart where it was originally joined would be best. If you can get you're hand inside the hull, even if you can't see what you're doing you can still do the work require'd with a little guesstamation. That would be the easiest way. I work for a trucking company out of Ohio and seen stuff go threw some awful abuse. sometime's it can't be helped. but alot of time's it's just carelessness. It's ashamed how some dock workers treat the merchandise. I seen forks go threw a beautiful Taylorcraft RC plane. A few years ago we had three 1\3rd scale plane's get remodified threw shipment.

[rc10gtisthebest]

What I meant about the saw thingy was to cut a small piece out of my bulkhead and then work threw that, and once I'm done just fiberglass the bulkhead piece back in...?


Here's a picture of the boat's bulkhead, I was thinking just cut out the Part in yellow for access to the seperation, because it's either threw that or the hull is the only way to get to it....

[rcski]

Well If thats you're best way to get to the inside what else you going to do. If it were me I would go with what I said earlier Get a dremel if you don't have one, grind some material out of the outside of the hull, just enough so the fiberglass cloth will lay flush with the hull. the first post I said 1 inch away from each side of the crack. you could probably get by with maybe 1/4 inch from each side of the crack.

[rcski]

A quick sample I made up. Took me 5 Minutes to do, should only take you 6 minutes to do the whole hull... LOL