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fiberglass problems please help


rrb

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I'm working on my first boat and am building a minicup from stevenson's plans. I was able to leak test the boat last week and found a few leaks in some of the seams. One around the mast daggerboard box, one on the port side where the bottom hull met the side wall and one along the transom. I figured that to best correct these I would just fiberglass along the seams that were leaking. I purchased a fiberglass repair kit from a local hardware store and mixed the resin and what small amount of hardener I had and went to work. Apparently the kit must have been sitting for a while because as it turns out I had essentially no hardener and my glass work never cured. I went to the hardware store and bought some more MEK peroxide hardener and attempted to mix the remaining resin with this hardener and then to coat the uncured areas. This however has lead to splotchy curing and poor results. Is there a way to correct this problem? I'm in a bind because my apartment complex is also breathing down my neck to get the boat moved off the lawn and out of the way. (It had been inside my apartment until it was time for painting and leak testing.) Let me know if anyone wants the pictures from the apartment complex pool adventure.

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I'll second Johannah - Take it back to good stock and mix up a fresh batch (using epoxy that hasn't been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years!

Different brands of Epoxy Resin age more gracefully than others - having said that I always try to apply the 'fresh is best' rule - (cooking and boat building :D )

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I'm not much of a epoxy authority but I would try to remove all the uncured with acetone and the cured stuff with a sander. Get it all cleaned up and then glass all the seams with a good brand of epoxy. Call a local car repair shop which does body work for some advise. There is good write ups on the net. Do a search using fibreglass, epoxy, plastic boat repair, and any other keywords you can think of.

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RRB;

Your resin is not epoxy and will behave differently. The polyester will eventually harden in the preasance of even the smallest amount of hardener. The normal amount to add is only 1% and if you squirted only half that in it would still kick eventually.

One problem you may be facing is one of moisture in the joint after your leak test. Moisture slows the cure of polyester. We have had problems with curing on damp days and so you can imagine what damp wood will do!

Try warming the area with a hair drier before grinding it off. Heat always speeds the cure.

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The fiberglass repair kits are almost all polyester resin. They do go bad as you have found out because they do have a limited shelf life. When the second batch didn't get the first batch to kick off then you have the resulting mess.

My suggestion is to take styrene or MEK, (not MEKP or acetone) and remove what you can of the uncured polyester resin using a good stiff wire brush and plenty of styrene. Styrene is one of the primary components of polyester resin and is used to thin it. Uncatalized resin may kick off eventually by exposure to sunlight, the UV will help to kick it off.

But you have had it outdoors and that has not helped.

If you have catalized resin in place and can remove most of the uncured resin with styrene or MEK (Methyl-ethyl-keytone) you can try getting a fresh batch of polyester resin and hardner from a boat repair shop or West Marine or other boating supplyer. Mixing that up and applying it fresh should take care of the remainder of the problem and allow you to end up with a cured glass job.

Otherwise, remove what you can with the styrene or MEK and then as Arnie stated, start grinding it off, or use your belt sander with 50 grit down to the bare wood and start over with epoxy resin and glass instead.

Good luck.

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not the news i really wanted to hear. The problem is from a lack of hardener somehow the MEK peroxide dissipated from the tube included in the kits. I'm going out of town this weekend and will be unable to work on the boat until sometime next week--- perhaps that may give the hardener to actually kick in and cause the cure. If i read some of the posts correctly a little bit will cause the cure to occur at some point though not very quickly. Anyway I've got to move the boat to an out of the way location here at the apartment because they aren't really keen to the idea of having it in the yard any longer. That also makes my task more difficult because of access to electricity. Anyway thanks for the advice hope to hear more about my new question. And I'll be in touch when I get around to fixing my problem.

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I think everyone else has supplied sufficient answer to your request...

I want to know about your last statement of the first post:

Let me know if anyone wants the pictures from the apartment complex pool adventure.

This sounds like a late night stelthy excursion... lets have some more details! Please!

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let me add something here to Barry's excellent post.

MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) and Styrene are both bad stuff, with the stryene being the BAD one.

If you choose to use either, PLEASE do it somewhere were you have LOTS of ventilation (NOT inside an apartment) and wear gloves. Not thin wimpy ones either. Also - a organic mist rated respirator wouldn't be a bad idea either.

I can't stress enough that these chemicals aren't something to play with unprotected.

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I had initially hoped for a very secret mission to test the boat. I wanted to go at 3 in the morning under the cover of darkness in camo and shoe polish, however, we ultimately decided on a weekend when I knew the office would be closed. We did have to put the boat over a couple of locked gates so we could get the boat into the closed pool. What a bunch of reckless daredevils we were. The pictures mainly just show that the boat is finally nearing completion and actually floated. I'm having difficulty posting the third of the pictures which is me trying to paddle back to the side of the pool but i'll try to include it later. Below are the first two though.

boat.jpg

boat2.jpg

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Charlie rest assured I understand the problems with the solvents. I have already been forewarned several times by my uncle about the hazards of MEK and the resulting liver damage and the ease by which it is absorbed through the skin. He swears by it though for its ability to remove problems and on a side note we've determined that it does not have harmful effects on aircraft paint though and thus will remove glue without damaging the finish.

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Well actually after sitting for about 2 days the resin cured and seems to have made a good fitting. I purchased some west systems epoxy to secure a couple of other seams however. I have a couple of questions about this stuff though. Can I apply it over paint or do i need to sand the paint down to wood? Can I just rough up the paint and clean out the dust? (the first two questions are about securing/strengthening seams) Is it possible just to paint the epoxy over the paint in places to harden the boat up a bit and protect the current paint so that it provides a little more protection against delamination? I'm sure I'll have more questions as this part of the project progresses but wanted to get these out now when I had the chance and before i got started.

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Good news about the polyester!! It's best to grind the paint off for the epoxy. Even if it sticks to the paint its hold on the wood is only as strong as the paint...

One thing to note is that if you go back to using polyester, keep it away from the area where the epoxy is as the epoxy tends to stop the polyester from hardening! I found that out the hard way....

Love the pool shots!!

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Good pool shots. We used to test our boats in the pool before going to far in any direction. Now that we don't have one, I think it may have contributed to the tenderness of the latest boat (still being debated betwixt Peter and myself).

We stored the first Weekender in our pool for several months one time. It was fun having a boat in the pool, and we had friends who visited and decided to stay in the boat instead of the house!

Mike

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