Hulls

[Walt Tice]

Has anyone had an experience like mine where Frank told me to sandblast my hull back in '89 because of (500) blisters and now I'm back to shaving by Hull-Tech in SD? HT Owner Dave Biggwither told me blast was worse than going after individual blisters because it caused the small areas of weak laminate to have to be relaminated. The newer shave process could handle those repairs much easier if they were not blasted. Dave showed me that the laminate next to gel was dry (too little resin). Don't know if this is from the factory or the blasting. I regret the blasting now but Hull-tech has controlled shaving, then waterblasting, dryout, patch repair, vinylester, full laminate, vinylester before double coats of Proline. Douglas at Catalina now says Catalina uses vinylester after gelcoat then adds another coat over the gel. Dave does not believe the change in resins in '83 was the primary cause of all the blisters. I personally think it was this or very poor QA on the resin saturation of the first laminate. After shaving the fiberglas was "fluffy" where blister were! Now I believe Dave that I will have a truly new hull to deal with! Should be down in mid-SEP. I wish Catalina had used extra heavy resin on the first laminate AND mixed it in a vaccum to avoid voids at extra cost. Osmotic is one thing but poor resining is another, damnit! WCT

 

[Jeff Walker]

Re-did my '83 hull 7 years ago.....

and so far it still looks great. King Harbor Marine Center told me what Frank Butler recommended but said using a hand planer was a better idea. They were right. I inspected the hull and there was plenty of resin in the first structural ply. They also used an Interlux epoxy system to completely wet out the surface before the gel coat was re-applied. I work with composite materials at Boeing and the problem with grit blasting is that it is very operator dependent. If pressure is too high and he stays in position too long, damage and excess resin removal will result. I also found that Catalina had a 2" plug filled where a macerator would have gone. The plug was not glass reinforced so I had the yard re-do it with 3 plys of 120 glass. Having a hole like that in my hull would have quickly sunk me. Best of luck and I'm sorry to hear about these major quality problems you've experienced. Jeff