Tender winter maintenance

K

KeithH

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 Sep 2002
Messages
174
Location
W Sussex, UK
Visit site
I am having to "do up" my 9 ft GRP tender over the winter. The wood at the gunnels has gone rotten - it was only cheap sofwood. I plan to replace the wood with some hardwood, and have a couple of questions:

Should I glue the hardwood strips onto the GRP? If so, what adhesive would you recommend? I was going to use screws to attached the wood on either side of the GRP. Glue as well?

The boat had a thick rope attached to the outside of the wood as a fender. This had been crudely attached by webbing loops - but the rope sags eventually between the attachment straps and looks terrible. I did consider using the D section PVC tube instead, but it is amazingly expensive for this cheap-skate... So I would like to re-use the thick rope. Any ideas on a neat way to fix the rope to the wood?

thanks
 
Resin, Resin & Resin? I suspect screws will offer a route for sea water into both the wood & GRP. Use resin & tape (a la mirror dinghy) for a strong, waterproof joint.

Resin will probably hold your fender rope on provided you can keep it in place long enough for the resin to set. otherwise why not lace it through small holes in the new wood?
 
I use for my dinghy a 5cm diameter rope with a stainless steel cable inside, fastend with lines on the stern of the dinghy. To prevent the rope of falling down, I use several small peaces of wood (3 cm thick) with rounded corners, underneath the rope to keep it in place. The form of the dinghy is such, that the rope can not fall off over the top if the steel wire is tight.

Peter
 
Mine is a plywood tender so cannot really advise on the attachment of the gun'ls but I wood have thought that an epoxy resin glue would be one option but with lots of screws through from insde. Sikaflex 292 might be a better than epoxy though. It is intedned for structural bonding but remains flexible and will help seal the screw holes.

Don't use polyester resin, even with tape, as it does not stick that well to wood. (I know it was used for the Mirror, I built one, and I made my tender by the same method).

If you are fitting inner and outer gun'ls fit the inner one first, with screws going in through the fibre glass fron outside. Then fit the outer one with screws going right through from the inside (Just the same way as they are done on the Mirror) Mark where the first lot of screws are so that you don't try and put the others in the same places.

I had a rope fender held on with bits of tape for many years. Not very satisfactory and did not look nice at all. I now have it laced on with thin nylon cord. That follows the lay of the rope round the outside but pulled into the lay it barely shows. It then goes through a vertical hole in the gun'l before going round the outside of the rope again etc etc. Looks much nicer! Difficult to explain but I hope you see what I mean. The ends on mine are tucked round the corners onto the transom where they are still held with bits of tape fastened on with small brass plates. The very ends of the rope are sleeved in short pieces of plastic tubing but maybe whipping would look nicer.
 
Epoxy resin doesn't like movement and will tear away the surface of the wood when you row.
I have a mate who fixed his rope rubbing strake on by making a channel with battens and then making some small stainless clips with a screw through the middle He twisted the rope open and fixed the lower strand to the gunwhale between the battens, then twisted the rope tight again and moved on to the next spot for a clip. When tightened up the outer strands (by this I mean those away from the gunwhale) cover the clips.
You can just see the two battens above and below the rope on the left of this pic. He just used his hidden clips across the transom. The battens were to stop the rope trying to ride against piers and jetties.

Tenacity17.jpg



Tenacity02.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies. I think you are right about epoxy being too brittle to fix wood to the GRP. But what else could be used. Is polyester resin less brittle?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Is polyester resin less brittle

[/ QUOTE ] Probably even more so and will be less saisfactory than epoxy because it adheres to the wood less well. As I already said!

What is your objection to srews and Sikaflex 292?
 
On my old tender I used 1" pipe insulation from a hardware store. It works quite well, for a while, just pushed onto a line of glue along the top of the gunwhale, but the main problem was getting it to stick long term, as it tended to float off when the dinghy was submerged (which is another story..)
 
I am with vic 100% on the inner and outers/sika etc

I would however drill a series of holes all the way through the whole thing, sealing internally with a touch of epoxy then redrilling slightly smaller, through which I would lace to the rope around the outside.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top