G-Flex repair

When I bought my Wave I knew that there were some cracks in the hulls. The boat lived a hard life on Lake Tahoe and the hulls showed it with cracks at the front cross bar. I did not know how bad the cracks were as they will filled with caulk, but they did not look bad and the asking price was more than reasonable.
I sailed the Wave for 6 months and I noticed the cracks were growing, so I was time to figure out the repair. Before I bought the boat I knew that it could not be plastic welded, but I had read about G-Flex and it's supposed miracle fix for plastics.

I bought the un-thickened G-Flex along with some silica thickener and went to work;

My starting point:


I removed the caulking, cleaned the crack with adhesive and silicone remover, feathered the edges, drilled the ends and flame treated the surface:


I mixed the G-Flex and filled the cracks. Unfortunately I could not prep the inside of the boat very well, so I only filled the crack from the outside. I built it up more than the picture shows:


I left the G-Flex unsanded and sprayed it with Krylon for palstic. Sorry no picture.

I also used the G-Flex to fix the surface cracks on the comptip. I filled the pin hole that is in this pic:


I have sailed the boat 3 times since the repair and the G-Flex seem to be holding and there are no signs of the cracks.

I am hard on the boat:
I gotta figure out how to add a video from photobucket. stay tuned
http://vid13.photobucket.com/albums/a27 ... hpole1.mp4

Cool.
Let us know how it holds up long term.

Jim

Off topic heads up here. Hobie Wave racing is heating up in the desert SW. see hobiedivision2.com for schedule.

Did he use West System 406 silica thickener? What is the best silica thickener to use?
I am going to fix a Getaway.

yes, I did use some of the silica thickener. So far so good on the repair. I've sailed it 1/2 dozen times or more and that included a turtle capsize in 25mph. I dont see any signs of the cracks reappearing. I also used krylon fusion paint to paint over the g-Flex. if you have nut allergies be warned that the g-flex contains cashews

Thanks for the update on G-Flex performance as it is less expensive than DP 8020. Got a few repairs on the Wave to take care of as well. Keep us posted.

When you drilled the ends of the cracks did you drill all the way through the hull wall? Do you remember how thick it was?

Yes, I drilled all the way through the hulls. It may have been 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick if I recall correctly.
I removed the front seat pads and the access port to get inside the hull.

Ah ok thanks.

You're a wealth of information on this! Thanks.
How hard is it to remove the seat pads? I need to replace mine anyway because they're bleeding blue all over anyone who sits on them.

i used a heat gun and putty knife to remove the seat pad. I took my time as I wanted to reuse it. Mine too were bleeding blue and I scrubbed them with a brush and no more blue blood.

Love to see posts to help keep the boats afloat. Could you post the year of mfg of your Wave? Just trying to keep track of some statistical things as I associate closely with about 20 other owners from So. Utah, through Nevada, Arizona and California, as well as loosely with others to the NE, MW and in the NW. This is the second time I've seen G-Flex in use and it is good to see a product that works which is affordable and easy to obtain. As an aside, their are paint pens available at True Value, usually at the counter that come in numerous colors. I use the white to touch up stains and cured repairs. The pens are Forney brand. I used a red one to draw a likeness of 'Wilson' from the movie Castaway on the stern of my Wave. Two years later no fade.
Anyway, I'd like to offer some unsolicited advice on the standing rigging of the boat and mast rake for your benefit as, like you, I drive the boat hard at Lake Mead and discovered that there is a solution to punching the bows in wind chop. Forgive me if you already know this.
Simple really. Add an additional chainplate to your forestay connection. If you have the ball and socket mast base system, then your good, but if you have an old H14 base system 1995/6 mfg then you should get a shorter shroud set. Each boat can set up slightly different so you'll have to figure that out. So, the mast rake should be such that when you pull up the sail, the clew edge of the sail should be about 13 inches above the rear crossbar. That's with downhaul on. You will feel the difference right away and be sailing on the back edge of the rear seat pad. The boat sails smoothly over wind chop up to 3-4 ft. Very little punching bows, which is what stresses those cross connections. You will need to nix the fiddle blocks and get a low profile 6:1 H16 style block set. Plenty of used ones online and reeve to 4:1. In big wind to weather and reaching the boat is a speed demon with the setup. Capsizes are less (none here and LM is treacherous). Also, one can sail to weather, albeit pretty scary, in 40+ gales. I've done it getting caught in squalls twice. One had recorded gusts over 50. Downwind I'd have been screwed, but lucky not yet. Nobody in the racing scene has been doing this and I'm kind of cleaning up against some excellent skippers because of the change. Good luck and thanks for your posts.

Forgot to say the the reason for shorter shrouds is that on set up your rig should be snug enough that in chop the mast won't jump the step and cause a dismast. It is a downside of mast rake if you run the rig loose. If you have the ball and socket and good standing rigging, then loose is ok if you keep the pin in the socket base.

Great to hear that scrubbing helped with the blue bleeding!

So excuse my ignorance here, but how does removing the seat pads help one access the inside of the hull?

While it is not so easy to get the pads off, still underneath each you will find a small inspection port covered with a plastic lid which is relatively flush so it doesn't readily show as a bump under the seat pad. Once in a while one has to do an inside repair so those incredible guys at Hobiecat gave us a fairly easy way inside.

Aha! Ok cool, that's awesome of them!

Thanks. I'm going to buy some G-flex today and hopefully get the repairs done this week.

Slightly embarrassing, I own a yacht rigging company, but have basically zero "dingy" or small boat experience.