Fibre glass help

wijnendael

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Can somebody recommend what i need. Following delivery damage to the keel on our boat (earlier post) and the first quick repair not being completely successful (still leaks very slightly, however may stop if left long enough) We have decided to be safe we are taking the boat back out of the water to try and do a better repair. We are going to strip the keel and a small section of the hull back to a clean wood surface and apply glass fibre matt along the complete keel and onto the hull. When looking through various items (on ebay germany) I notice that the glass fibre comes in different weights per square meter, my question is which weight should i be looking for, a heavy one or light one and then there seems to be the option of epoxy or polyester which of these would be best for a wooden keel and hull ?
 

duncan

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This may not be what you want to hear but -

1. you really need to decide whether you are sticking with a wooden boat or creating a complete sheath
2. which ever you are going to need epoxy because it's going to be exposed to water from one side or another with all that wood and grp will absorb water.

really recommend you leave the boat in the water for a couple of weeks before you proceed with this but if you are going to play around as indicated above I would use a woven cloth with epoxy - probably something like the West System stuff - to really dry wood. Then when you put it back in and the water (inevitably) comes in around and over it it will retain it's integriety untill the hull planks swell and become watertight again and you dry everything out.

you might like to post in the classic boat forum as they will have the expertise.
 

wijnendael

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Hi Duncan thanks for the reply we are due to other commitments at the moment leaving the boat in the water for at least another week, which should see if the wood swells enough to stop the leak anyway. If this happens then we may leave it there until the winter then remove it for more permenant repairs. The boat hull is not planks but marine ply and was completey coated with epoxy resin last year (Inside and outside) then painted and anti-fouled on the outside, this is the really annoying part as we should have gone straight back into the water when it was delivered without any repairs to the keel. I have yesterday put a couple of marks on the inside of the hull that showed me the level of the water after 4 hours (about a centimeter) as it is very difficult to see if it is the same or slowing down we can at least see now after the same amount of time if the leak is slowing down.
 

duncan

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ah.............

ply and epoxy sheathed already then it sounds like you do have a problem and should be sorting it.

most likely a crack in the keel area as you said.

very different issue from a 'wooden boat'.
 

Lakesailor

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Agree there. If it is epoxied inside and out the leaking water will wick up the ply and not be able to escape. The leak needs fixing ASAP and then you need to provide some way for the moisture to escape from the wood.
I would have thought epoxying both sides of the wood was not a good idea. I only did the outside on my Heron and just used varnish on the inside. This give any damp in the wood the opportunity to push the varnish off.
 

tillergirl

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Ply is not going to swell to seal off the leak. I'm afraid if the ply is damaged then you need to repair that part of the ply. I agree with Lake Sailor that epoxy but sides is a bad idea. You now have damp laminates in the ply and there is no escape for it. I think given your previous post, you need to 'bite the bullet' (an English expression) and remove here from the water, lift the engine to remove the keel and deal with the damaged fixing. My view would be that anything else is just storing up seriouis trouble for the future.
 

carlton

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I seem to recall that you must ensure that the new ply which is to be epoxied is very dry indeed - can't remember the exact percentage but something like 10% humidity maximum. Otherwise the epoxy may not penetrate deep enough to grip.

Have a read here - http://www.westsystem.com/ - for more info before you start.
 
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