Hello, I bought my 1982 M25 with a hole in it. The hole was created when the previous owner tied the boat to some non-moving structure by the aft cleat on the starboard side, some violent action occured (storm?) and ripped the cleat (very little backing was present to speard the effort on the cleat)off the coaming with about an additional 2.5" radius of fiberglass and gel coat. I have not done fiberglass work before but reading different books on the subject they all say to: a)Cut out all of the torn fiberglass edge b)In the inside of the boat make a chamfer from the edge of the hole towards the inside by a multiple of 2X for every inch in diameter (6" hole = 12" wide chamfer) c)Apply varying size sheets of fiberglass(starting with the smaller one first)until you have regained the original thickness of the fiberglass. The problem is that the hole is basically the width of the coaming and makes it very hard to work from the inside and use the above method. Is there a way to do the same thing from the outside? I realize that it would not be structuraly sound though, since the forces on the cleat will pop the repaired surface like a champagne cork. Thank you for your help, Thierry M25 Quo-Va-Dis
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repair
I built fiberglass boats in Fla. for several years and did many repairs. This is the easy way to get a good, strong repair with out tearring your hair out! Grind or cut the dammaged fiberglass around the hole/damage. Lay up several layers of glass from underneith, let it fallow down both sides in side the coamming. Then after that hardens, build up fiberglass in the hole to the level around it. You can use the same resin that you layed the glass up with with micro ballons added, or, just use body putty to smooth out the visable top of the repair. Make sure that when wet sanding the repair use a sanding block. If your deck is painted just prime and paint but if it's still gel coat! Get one of those small airbrush/sprayers and repaint with gel coat. The hard part here is matching the color, hopefully your deck will be pure white. It's the simplest to match. NOW, for remounting the cleat. Make sure to use a backing. The best material would be stainless steel. It's expensive and some places hard to find. Next best would be aluminum. Make sure it extends beyond the repaired area, both fore and aft. You could even epoxy it in place. Oh epoxy seems to have the best adhesion and strength, but even the cheap stuff from West marine or Boaters world will do. I'm sure the books you have cover preparing the surfaces to be glassed and clean up and such, so I tried to keep this short. Good luck
I built fiberglass boats in Fla. for several years and did many repairs. This is the easy way to get a good, strong repair with out tearring your hair out! Grind or cut the dammaged fiberglass around the hole/damage. Lay up several layers of glass from underneith, let it fallow down both sides in side the coamming. Then after that hardens, build up fiberglass in the hole to the level around it. You can use the same resin that you layed the glass up with with micro ballons added, or, just use body putty to smooth out the visable top of the repair. Make sure that when wet sanding the repair use a sanding block. If your deck is painted just prime and paint but if it's still gel coat! Get one of those small airbrush/sprayers and repaint with gel coat. The hard part here is matching the color, hopefully your deck will be pure white. It's the simplest to match. NOW, for remounting the cleat. Make sure to use a backing. The best material would be stainless steel. It's expensive and some places hard to find. Next best would be aluminum. Make sure it extends beyond the repaired area, both fore and aft. You could even epoxy it in place. Oh epoxy seems to have the best adhesion and strength, but even the cheap stuff from West marine or Boaters world will do. I'm sure the books you have cover preparing the surfaces to be glassed and clean up and such, so I tried to keep this short. Good luck
Repair
Hi Greg, Thanks for the advice
, sounds like I would be making on the inside a fiberglass backing with either stainless or aluminum plate after the topside work had been finished AND on the outside I would create a chamfer and lay-up the fiberglass patches until it was close to being smooth with the coaming surface and then finish off with a gelcoat epoxy (my boat is the factory white with a baby blue stripe below the deck-to-hull joint) this fix should be able to withstand some major stress.
Hi Greg, Thanks for the advice
, sounds like I would be making on the inside a fiberglass backing with either stainless or aluminum plate after the topside work had been finished AND on the outside I would create a chamfer and lay-up the fiberglass patches until it was close to being smooth with the coaming surface and then finish off with a gelcoat epoxy (my boat is the factory white with a baby blue stripe below the deck-to-hull joint) this fix should be able to withstand some major stress.Coaming repair
Greg described the way to go about this repair pretty well. Clean the hole by grinding away the torn material, then sand a bevel that is (as best you can) 8:1 relative to the thickness of the laminate. So if the laminate is 1/8" thick grind a 1" bevel around the edge of the opening. Now on the inside, sand the surface where you will be laminating in a backer with epoxy - 2 or 3 layers as Greg described. Then cut your patches which are concentrically smaller pieces of glass, but our recommendation is to begin with the largest first. It is just shy of the diameter of the hole, then the next smallest and so on until the smallest is last and it should be slightly larger in diameter than the hole diameter. The reason for this layup technique (large first to smallest last) is to allow for the greatest bonding area possible on the first patch to return as close to original the continuous fibers that are being replaced. Be sure to prep the bonding surface of the backer by sanding so the inside and outside laminations bond together. Fair the repair on the topside with epoxy filled with 407 Low density filler to create a putty. Sand it flush and fair. And yes, use a backer of some kind when you remount the hardware.
Greg described the way to go about this repair pretty well. Clean the hole by grinding away the torn material, then sand a bevel that is (as best you can) 8:1 relative to the thickness of the laminate. So if the laminate is 1/8" thick grind a 1" bevel around the edge of the opening. Now on the inside, sand the surface where you will be laminating in a backer with epoxy - 2 or 3 layers as Greg described. Then cut your patches which are concentrically smaller pieces of glass, but our recommendation is to begin with the largest first. It is just shy of the diameter of the hole, then the next smallest and so on until the smallest is last and it should be slightly larger in diameter than the hole diameter. The reason for this layup technique (large first to smallest last) is to allow for the greatest bonding area possible on the first patch to return as close to original the continuous fibers that are being replaced. Be sure to prep the bonding surface of the backer by sanding so the inside and outside laminations bond together. Fair the repair on the topside with epoxy filled with 407 Low density filler to create a putty. Sand it flush and fair. And yes, use a backer of some kind when you remount the hardware.
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