Cracked my transom, broke my heart.

I reversed my H16 into my house and put a crack in my transom. It's much smaller than this one https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=36885 so I am wondering you think I could get away with filling it with something (epoxy or polyester resin)?
https://imgur.com/a/u080YUS

Should I do an air test to see if it went all the way through (I assume connect a compressor to the drain and put soap on the crack)?

Thanks, you have more gut feeling for what will or won't work than I do.

Be SUPER careful putting compressed air into your hull. My dad had a sailing buddy that figged he could dry our the interior of his Starcraft Skylark with his shop can on blow. All was going well until he thought "I wonder what'll happen if I stick my finger over the other drain plug?" Took about a second to blow the deck off his boat, completely separating it from the hull! Even at a very low pressure, just think of the area of square inches that pressure is acting upon.

_________________
Bill P
'00 Wave
Webster NH

There is no way to tell the extent of the damage without doing some investigation - i.e. grinding - especially without a picture.

If you have broken glass fibers, simply filling with resin or putty is not sufficient. You need to grind out the broken fibers and laminate new glass. The only way to tell the extent of the damage is by using a sanding disc to remove the gelcoat and inspect the fiberglass underneath. Essentially continue grinding through all broken material until you reach the undamaged layers. Then build it back up.

sm

Thanks for the tip Bill about the compressor!!

Thanks Sm, I see what you mean. Btw you mentioned 'without a picture' not sure if you saw this https://imgur.com/a/u080YUS

But I get the idea, grind it down until there is no split and then build it back up... a bigger job than I was hoping for...

Ok, I didn’t notice the link to the pic in your original post.

I would definitely not trust a repair that only consisted of smearing some resin in the crack. You have done structural damage. It needs to be repaired by replacing the broken fiberglass with new glass.

sm

Just wanted to give an update and ask if I am on the right track with my first glass repair.

Here's a photo of my sand job https://imgur.com/a/KS4dH3i

I drew a sharpie line above the drain socket, which makes it look like its falling out but it's not so ignore...

Have I sanded it back sufficiently?

Can I go ahead and get "Bondo Fiberglass Resin Repair Kit" to fix it? Seems popular from what I read but apparently it's a loose 'mat' rather than a cloth, would cloth be easier/better?

Thanks for the advice.

Hard to see what’s really going on from the picture but I suspect the crack extends above and below what was shown in the original picture, you may need to sand more. Basically want to sand down to eliminate the crack and the sanding should be done in a tapered fashion at least at 10:1. So basically if you have to sand down into the crack 1/10” deep, you would want to sand back from the crack 1” all around. That is the minimum, more is always better as it will provide more bond area for the new glass. I would also try to get a good amount of glass wrapped around to the back of the transom. That would likely involve removing the drain plug housing and nearby gudgeon to allow adequate sanding and placement of the glass.

You want to use glass cloth for this repair, not mat. Cloth has longer, oriented fibers, which provides a stronger repair. Mat is much shorter fibers in a random orientation. It also tends to be much bulkier. You may even want to use “S” glass which is stronger than more common “E” glass. S glass has tensile strength approaching that of carbon fiber.

I would probably not recommend using Bondo brand glass/resin (hardware / auto store stuff). I would use decent quality materials. I have used uscomposites.com for fabrics and resins for years and always had good results.

sm

Probably could inject thickened resin into the gap and then glass up the ground down portion. Usually, you sand a little more and expand the glass coverage, but it doesn't LOOK like you did internal damage, but rather nicked it. Does the transom move when you push on it in that area or is it really solid? To the point made above, it's very hard to tell off of pictures. If you're just filling in a hole and fairing it out - then that's all you're doing. If the transom got loosened/is flexing, etc., then the repair is way bigger - but possible.

BTW - haven't seen a Super Tigre sticker in a while. Ran me about 4 or 5 different styles of those engines in the day. Alas, that hobby is all but dead.

_________________
ChuckC
H21SE- 408