Hello everyone,
I recently decided to restore a 15' 1975 checkmate with a 75hp johnson stinger 2 that a friend bassicaly gave to. So far i have replaced the stringers, floor, transom, carpet, and have got the motor running like it should. Last week i started the process of getting the topside ready for new paint and in the process fix some small cracks that were showing. So I got the top completely sanded and it turns out the entire thing is covered in what appears to be bondo. Seeing how this is the first time i have done work like this on a fiberglass boat i have been doing a ton of research through out the project and one thing i have read a lot is that you should not use bondo on boats. Does anyone know if this is how the boat was originally made? I know that at some point someone had modified the boat ( they added a different windshield, steering, dashboard, removed all the fittings/ lights and i believe changed the color of the topside) which has me wondering if the bondo was added by them. The bondo is pretty thick in a lot of places and i think that the thickness and the fact that bondo doesn't like to flex is the cause of the cracks, which after i sanded the paint of i realized there are a lot of. I sanded a couple of the cracks down to the fiberglass and it seems like they don't go into the glass and are just in the bondo itself. At this point im thinking of just sanding the bondo until the fiberglass starts to show and fixing what cracks are left but if that is actually how the boat should be i will just start going crack by crack and fix them unless there is a better way. I will post pictures if it helps. Thank you for any advice i can get.
I recently decided to restore a 15' 1975 checkmate with a 75hp johnson stinger 2 that a friend bassicaly gave to. So far i have replaced the stringers, floor, transom, carpet, and have got the motor running like it should. Last week i started the process of getting the topside ready for new paint and in the process fix some small cracks that were showing. So I got the top completely sanded and it turns out the entire thing is covered in what appears to be bondo. Seeing how this is the first time i have done work like this on a fiberglass boat i have been doing a ton of research through out the project and one thing i have read a lot is that you should not use bondo on boats. Does anyone know if this is how the boat was originally made? I know that at some point someone had modified the boat ( they added a different windshield, steering, dashboard, removed all the fittings/ lights and i believe changed the color of the topside) which has me wondering if the bondo was added by them. The bondo is pretty thick in a lot of places and i think that the thickness and the fact that bondo doesn't like to flex is the cause of the cracks, which after i sanded the paint of i realized there are a lot of. I sanded a couple of the cracks down to the fiberglass and it seems like they don't go into the glass and are just in the bondo itself. At this point im thinking of just sanding the bondo until the fiberglass starts to show and fixing what cracks are left but if that is actually how the boat should be i will just start going crack by crack and fix them unless there is a better way. I will post pictures if it helps. Thank you for any advice i can get.
