Dagger Repair

Got tossed into a shoal last Saturday and I heard a crunch. Got back to the launch and pulled out the daggers and one of them has a big crack in the fiberglass about half way across about a 6 inches from the bottom. The glass below that is undamaged but separated from the foam. The separation continues a few inches above the crack as well.








I figure I have 3 choices. (In order of apparent difficulty)

1) Cut out the cracked part, epoxy the rest back down and fill the area I cut out.

2 Make a clean cut above the break Epoxy anything still loose back down. Bevel the edge. Re-glass the bottom half. sand and feather the Edge smooth.

3 Re glass the whole side.

I'm thinking #2

Any suggestions?

_________________
The ox is slow but the earth is patient

What I would probably do-

- Let the area dry throughly for several days.

- Mix up a batch of moderately thickend epoxy and slather it on the foam/inner fiberglass. Clamp evenly - possibly use sand bags to evenly distribute the clamping pressure. You will probably want to do a dry run to try to make sure you can get everything lined up as close to original as possible. Basically, get the old glass re-bonded to the foam.

- Once cured, sand any raised areas smooth. Sand away gelcoat about an inch back on both sides of the seam along the length of the crack. Wrap the seam with one or two layers of glass cloth.

- Once cured, fair in the repair with putty and sand.

- Paint if you want.

sm

if you want even clamping pressure over an uneven surface, give this a try:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... 3298,43314

it may not seem like much but remember how high air pressure is per square inch and you have a lot of square inches there when you look at both sides.

I wonder if they have something that does the opposite as that and applies pressure outward evenly?

How do I force "moderately thickened" resin up into the area of separation. I was thinking it should be pretty thin to penetrate as high as possible. Maybe thick down low and thin above the crack?

_________________
The ox is slow but the earth is patient

The resin doesn't have to be super thick, but you don't want it to run out all over the place. I would paint it in there as best as possible with a small paint brush and work it up into the cracked area with a plastic or metal spreader. Flex the laminate towards and away from the core to work the resin in the tight areas.

sm

Now do I gelcoat? I didn't realize gelcoat is 2 part. Is it thick like resin? Do I need to sand down the area I'm doing so there's not a ridge? I've thinned epoxy with alcohol, can I do that with poly/gelcoat?

Here is the current state of the repair:


I sanded down the cracked area. Then I mixed up some resin and coated the core and the glass and clamped everything together. I took a strip of glass and applied it over the crack and resined it in. I let it dry then I filled the edge of the board with some 2 part filler putty I got at the marine store. Then I sanded everything flat and to shape with 120 grit.

_________________
The ox is slow but the earth is patient