Re: My tri-hull transom replacement w/ pics
Well some stuff is getting done finally.
I set the windshield in place to get the dash boxes positioned so that the "walk through" door would work properly.
Its a pretty tight tolerance so I wanted to make sure they were in the right place.
I have been filling holes all over the place. This thing is Swiss cheese. Over the years people have mounted just about everything to this boat. Normally holes are filled from the inside surface. This allows for a minimum of cosmetic work on the outside gelcoated surface. The process is the same whether the grinding gets done from the inside or the outside. I'm doing them from the outside because I am painting, and I wont have to deal with access problems I would have working from inside the hull.
Here is a prime example of what NOT to do when filling holes.
These holes were filled by simply backing them with a piece of wood and pouring polyester resin in to them. (I know because I did it about five years ago) As you can see the resin has broken loose and dropped down in to the holes exposing them. The resin shrank as it cured and is falling out.
To start I grind a perimeter around the holes that tapers down in to the hole forming a shallow funnel shape. These holes are small enough that there is no need to go too deep. The idea is to replace enough glass to maintain strength and to expose enough surface area so that the resin has a strong bond.
This is probably a little overkill for those holes. I just wanted to insure that I have a good bond. I am using polyester resin to glass these holes up.
Next I cut some fiberglass circles using 1.5oz. csm and some light weight surfboard cloth. I started with a small button to cover and fill the hole itself. i then covered that with progressively larger circles until the "funnel" is filled with resin and cloth to just below flush to the finished surface.
I topped off the repair using the tightly woven surfboard cloth to make a relatively smooth surface to minimize grinding when I finish it. I used this hole as the example because the other two are going to need some dowels to fill them.
