It won't cure without the MEKP. As said above, it should be included with your purchase. Make sure you buy laminating (umwaxed) resin so you can do several layups without sanding. Honestly, based on the questions you are asking, I recommend picking up the phone and calling US Composites. They...
Just go with layup polyester resin like 435 from US Composites. Epoxy is more expensive, you can't tweak the catalyst to speed up / slow down the cure, and your boat was originally built with polyester. Epoxy is stronger, but the extra strength isn't needed in a rebuild.
Looks good! I don't miss those grinding days though, lol. Not sure about the stringer remnants. I touched the forbidden spinning wheel while grinding my boat too - unfortunately it was on the pad of my finger and was a lot deeper. It healed back with no finger print in that area.
A stiff batch of PB can easily fill the gap you're talking about between the deck and stringers. Pipe a tall bead on top of the stringer, lay on the deck, and add weight / screw it down.
Never heard of a fiberglass gasket. It's probably just the inner fiberglass skin, or what's left of it. You're either going to have to remove the inner skin or the outer skin to get all the rotten wood out. I can almost guarantee you aren't going to be able to find a pre-fabricated fiberglass...
I agree - that cylinder needs attention. The vertical scratches are why you're losing compression. Also, as Scott said, you're missing part of the piston, possibly due do detonation at some point in the engine's past.
You do not need to buy a bore gauge - you need to disassemble the engine an...
Not sure about your first question.
For the second question, you should be able to sand (80 grit?) the rest of the hull and re-spray the entire thing. @Scott Danforth is the most active advocate I know on here for Duratec additive and spraying gel. Maybe he can chime in?
Yeah, do whatever you're most comfortable with. But, if you want to bust out several layups in a weekend, you can go up to 2% or even slightly higher than that and be OK. I did my restoration in a climate controlled garage, so I kept it about 63F in the winter and 73F in the summer, and almost...
Looks good. PB and tabbing will make that gap nonexistent and cover all your sins. I never had to worry about poly working time until mid-80's in the garage, and even then, by reducing the MEKP ratio, I could get the working time I wanted.
Keep up the good work!
Sure you can re-gel the whole thing and change the color. You could even get away with not doing any kind of color matching after the transom repair, as long as you are OK with it not being the same color all around.
The biggest drawback I see to cutting the outside skin off is that along with the glass work you'd have to already do, you're 100% going to have to do some fairing work and re-do the gelcoat on the boat exterior if you don't want it to look bad. Doing all the work from the inside means you...
I see. While that looks much better than I initially thought....I'd still consider pulling the cap. I totally get it...I was really against it too on my build until I did it. In the end, I was glad I did, as it afforded me much easier access to everything.
Regarding cutting on the flat areas...
I would cut on the flats. It'll be easier to block sand a surface flat vs. trying to align everything and rebuild that radius when you go to put the piece back in. Think hard about whether or not you want to really try to install a transom and do glass-work through a hole with rough cut...