A friend put a ding on the leading edge of the lead keel on his C&C 35 (grounding). I'm helping him with the repair...I think some heat (propane plumbing torch) and a ball pine hammer should be able to roughly reshape the ding (wearing proper PPE of course) and then fairing with an epoxy-based fairing compound. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Fixing a ding in a lead keel
- Thread starter geoffreykwright
- Start date
How hard was the grounding? How deep is the ding?
Lead is pretty malleable, heat may not be necessary. Beat it back into rough shape and fair. Follow West System instructions for fairing lead keels. It is on their website.
Lead is pretty malleable, heat may not be necessary. Beat it back into rough shape and fair. Follow West System instructions for fairing lead keels. It is on their website.
My boat came with a dinged up trailing edge wing keel. I just used a hand held sledge to tap it back into place as Dave said. No heat needed.
Then I used Total Boat Fair faring compound, sanded and coated with InterProtect E2000 ( I think that is the name) All seems to have worked well.
Then I used Total Boat Fair faring compound, sanded and coated with InterProtect E2000 ( I think that is the name) All seems to have worked well.
@Ward H has been around for a long time offering excellent advice. Follow it. Former sailboat dealer
When I had a ding in the keel on my C&C I pounded a bit to reshape. Lead oxidizes really fast and the oxide layer doesn't bond well to paint so I wire brushed the lead until it was bright and shiny then I quickly gave it a coat with epoxy (thin, no filler). After that set up I used thickened epoxy to fair it then painted. Wear an appropriate mask when grinding or sanding lead, the dust is really not good stuff to breath in.
Use colloidal silica as the epoxy thickener, mix it thick so it does not run and it sets up, well as hard as lead..