Making Repairs to Fibreglass Boat DAMAGE!

The mixing of the resin is where a lot of mistakes are made

If you do not put in enough MECA or enough hardener, it might never harden

It might just turn into a goo because it didn't get mixed properly

For today, let's talk about just making some repairs, some things that you could do

some things that I've learned from doing fiberglass on my own, and just things that I've observed working around boats

and then being around fiberglass people in the industry, watching repairs who made

transoms done, decks pulled out, stuff like that. The tools that you need to do fiberglass repairs are pretty minimal

You really only need like a four and a half inch grinder and an orbital sander

When it comes to the grinder, you're going to want like heavier grit, like a 24 or 36 grit

So that way you can really eat through gel coat and paint and stuff like that to get down to glass wherever you're going to be making your repair

The main thing to know about the different resins is that you can pretty much, the general rule of thumb

is that epoxy can go over polyester, but you don't want to put polyester over epoxy

Just because of the bonding properties that polyester has compared to epoxy

epoxy you can pretty much put on anything and it will stick, whereas polyester might delaminate or debond later on down the road from epoxy

if you put poly over epoxy. I've seen people do it, though, and I don't know with the longevity

that's just general rule of thumb and pretty much what I stand like what I do is basically go off of what I'm told

And so when the fiberglass guy tells you don't put polyester over epoxy, you don't put polyester over epoxy, let alone try it, you know, try it out to see what the long term effects are

I've never tried that. That's just what I've been told. There's basically like three different types of glass that you use

You've got like cloth, which is more for like beautification. and doing cosmetic repairs, not really structural

Then you've got mat, but mat is also not really as structural

but it's mainly for adhering two things together. So if you put like two pieces of cusa together or you put, you know

anything, you can put it underneath cloth. It's for adhering two services together

So you would take a piece of cusa, put a piece of mat, and then another piece of cusa, stick the two together

and that mat basically creates a structural bond between the two surfaces

And then you've got your woven roving or 1708, I think is what it's called

And that's basically you've got a piece of mat with a piece of woven together fiberglass on the other side of it

That's pretty much the structural thing that is used when it comes to making repairs

Other things that people use outside of, like if you're making a glass repair

which anything that you've got to crack, if you've got a crack on something

you want to put glass on it because if you just try and use putty, the putty will eventually crack itself

and it doesn't really fix what you're trying to fix. So when you kind of crack or large holes

something like that, you need to put glass on it in order to make sure that that damage

doesn't come back later on down the road because a boat is always flexing

That's something that people really don't think about whenever that boat is going through the water, it is always like, it's always flexing

It's always twisting. It's always bending. It's always warping, I guess you could say, because you've, you're pounding through water being

propelled by engines at, you know, speeds of 50, 60 miles an hour

So any kind of crack or spot like that, it needs to have glass on it or else, you know

putty will eventually crack. Repairs that are going to be difficult, I would say you want to

stay around curves because curves take the most amount of work and then edges edges are easier than

curves but anything like an inside corner that has a curve to it that's a difficult thing to mess with

compared to a flat surface a flat surface like if you got a just a crack in a flat surface you just

grind that crack down lay glass in the in where you ground it down soak your resin up that's

another tip with your glass so the heavier stuff like mat mat you really don't have

have to wet out like pre but 1708 or woven you're going to want to wet that out before you put it

on your surface so wherever you're repairing you definitely want to put resin down on that repair

once you grind it down and get down a bare fiberglass you wet that out but if you're using like

1708 you want to put like a piece of plastic on a flat surface put that glass on the plastic

and then wet it out with resin so pour resin on that glass and

and then, you know, let it soak it in and really roll it into the glass

So that way it's pre-soaked, I guess you would say. Then pick it up, put it on wherever you're making your repair

and then continue to wet out that glass and come back with what's called a rib roller

which is just basically a tool that's got all these ribs on them

You can get a plastic rib roller or a metal rib roller. And what you're going to do is roll the glass

so you'll put resin on it and then roll it with the rib roller to work any air that's in the glass out of the glass

And then when it comes to layering, depending on how bad the repair that you're needing to do is

I mean, two to three layers of glass is going to be plenty of glass

Again, depending on where it's at. Like if you're doing a transom, different story

generally you're going to want to do three to four layers of the 1708

you'll put your mat on your existing glass then your transom then your mat

then your cooosa or wood and then you're going to want mat 1708

and then probably like three layers of that 1708 to make a good solid transom depending on how big the boat is

how much weight, how big the horsepower, the engine that's going on there, is it getting in bracket

Like all those different things are going to weigh into exactly how many layers

of glass you need to put on there. But something that you definitely want to do when you're doing your glass

once you get it wet out, You really want to take a faring filler and apply that over the glass

If you let the resin dry up, then you are going to need to sand it in between layers

And then if you also put any kind of wax, like usually use wax on the last layer, which allows the resin to harden

So I'm not exactly sure how the chemical bond works, but basically air

prevents the resin from hardening. So you put wax in there, and that wax layer on your last layer of glass

is going to have that wax go to the top, which creates a barrier between the resin

and the outside air, and that barrier is what allows the resin to cure quicker

Now, you can't put another layer of glass onto a layer of resin that has wax in it

you'll have to let it dry, let it cure, and then grind that down before putting on your next layer

But if you do them all at the same time, you put on your layer of glass

you wet it out, you get to your last coat, then what you can do is put faring filler

over the top of that, which is going to make it easier to sand, and then put a little bit of wax in that faring filler

so that way it will cure hard as one single, bond in one piece of glass basically

Then you can come back after it is cured and it'll be easier to sand down

opposed to having to grind down raw fiberglass and raw resin. What that looks like is basically take a spot that you're going to repair and wet it out

wet your glass out, put your glass on there, rib roller to get all the air out and then get it

built up to where you want with just your, let's say you're using polyester resin

just your polyester resin and your MEP mixed together to make your resin mix

which will make it harden and kick off. And once you get to your last layer, you mix up another set of resin

You basically take resin, take your faring filler, put it into the resin, mix it up

and then add your M-E-K and your sanding aid. Depending on what you're using

if it's Total Boat, FGCI, West System, this depends on what you're using

is going to depend on the amount that it is mixed together

But like if you're just using polyester resin and M-E-K-P, usually it's like 10% wax is what needs to be adding

So your sanding aid is like 10%. and so if you put in like eight ounces of MECA into your resin

then you're going to want to put in eight ounces of the sanding eight

It's basically a one for one on the MECA. Again, it's going to depend on what you're using

what type of resin, what type of hardener, if it's using epoxy like West system

that is just a pump for pump. So one pump hardener, one pump resin

and that's how you mix it up. And that's pretty much the best way. to do it is mix up your sanding aid into your faring filler and then put that

faring filler over the top of the repair that you just made. So that way when you come back

after it's cured and hardened, you can just sand that down with your orbital sander. You don't

need to take your grinder and grind it all the way back down to glass. Then you can come back

with one last layer or two more passes of your faring filler, depending on how pretty you want

it to look. You can make it really, really smooth and get it all nice and cleaned out. So that way

when you paint it, you can really hardly even tell if there was a repair made there

Now, the mixing of the resin is where a lot of mistakes are made, also depending on your temperature

So in a colder climate, you're going to want to add more hardener or more M-E-K to allow it to kick off

If you're in a hotter climate where the temperatures are high, like 90 degrees or something

like that, then you're going to want to mix in less hardener because it's going to kick off

quicker. If you do not put in enough MEK or enough hardener, then it might not adhere properly

So it might never harden. It might just turn into a goo and then you've got to scrape this

goo off of whatever you're trying to repair because it didn't get mixed properly. You really want to

go off of whatever the instructions are. If it says to make up eight ounces of resin and it requires

four cc's of your m e k put in that four cc's and then put in the four ounces of sanding

aid so that way you know it's going to adhere properly based on what percent most of them

will have one percent one and a half percent two percent compared to meka i think what that means

basically is that if you've got a hundred percent mixed 99 percent of that's going to be resin

one percent of that is going to be mek and that's kind of kind of a general rule of thumb, again, depending on the temperature

The hotter it is, like say summertime, you want 1% because it allows you to have more

working time with the resin before it starts to tack up. Whereas if you mix it too hot or in the winter, it'll just take forever to cure and it

it'll just take forever to cure, which is another problem. It becomes gooey and it doesn harden properly So generally in the wintertime when it colder you mix it up more like 2 And again this is all on the bottles and containers

that the resins come with. One thing that I've done, I've done that before where I mixed it up too light

and it just turned into a goo and I had to scrape it off the

where I was doing, putting on the repair. It was actually inside of a transom

And that's just a lesson that you learn messing around with the stuff, which means that proper mixing is a crucial aspect to doing your glass repair

Getting all the air out of the glass is another big factor, making sure that you wet out the thicker woven piece before applying that on there and then rib rolling all the air out

applying the sanding fare or the faring compound on top of the resin before it cures

which we say things like tack up. That just means that whenever you're working with the resin, as it starts to get hard

you basically get a working time again to the percentages, 1%, 2%

the colder it is, the more percent you add it because you want it to cure

and you want less percent in the hot because it will get hard too quick

meaning that you have basically say 10 minutes, 15 minutes of working time where the resin is in a liquid form

After 15 minutes, it'll start to kick off. And that just means that it starts getting solid

And it's no longer a liquid form. So as it hardens, if you try to keep working with it, it will start to pull out and clump up and, you know, mess up whatever you've already done

which can be a problem. So as soon as it starts to kick, that's it

You're done. You can't do anything more with it. And then after about an hour or so or 30 minutes

depending on how you mix the resin up, it'll start to get tacky

And that means that you just take your finger, you put it in there, and it's just kind of tacky

It's not really liquid. It's not hard. It's tacky. It'll tack to your finger

That's the time when you want to apply your next, coat. So if you're doing another layer of glass or you're doing another layer of the faring

compound, as soon as that gets tacky, you can put that faring compound on there. Now, when it comes

to the faring process, you really want to do that mixture of let it tack up, put another layer on

there, and then, you know, do however many layers it's going to need you to get the smoother

service that you need, but make sure that you put that sanding aid into the last coat that

you put on there. So your last coat of faring compound needs to have that sanding aid in there

So that way it creates that barrier coat that we were talking about, which allows all those layers that you put on there to get hard and actually cure 100%

Without that sanding aid, without that outside layer, it will get gummy

I mean, it'll eventually harden up. But the problem is that even when it hardens up, I mean, it could take

weeks to get fully cured. And if you're trying to make a repair

you really want to get the repair done. So if it takes

if it's tacky or gooey, it may be hard to the touch where like you rub it

and it's not tacky. But if you go to sand it, it will gum up the sandpaper that you have

And it could take weeks to get hard and stop gumming up your paper

And sometimes depending, it may never tack up. I mean, it would be months

before it will ever get hard to where it's not going to gum up your sandpaper

which is why it's so important to make sure you put that sanding aid out of that wax mixture

into the last coat that you put on there. So if you do have a layer that you put on there that didn't have wax in it

and it's gumming up your pads, there's a couple ways that I think people are cleaning the sandpaper

Really, you're kind of just, you need to buy the 50 pack from Home Depot and use the war

sander and just kind of strip them off that way it's a cheaper sandpaper. Otherwise, I think you can get an

abrasive pad that you can hold on the sandpaper, which will remove any of the gumming up

that's on the sandpaper because that's what's happening is the unwaxed resin

is they basically call it a laminating layer and that unwaxed layer

is the outside layer that's exposed to oxygen is not, it's tacked up, it's not hard

So it just puts it onto the sandpaper and just spreads it

You pretty much are just wasting a lot of sandpaper, or you can try and use that abrasive sandpaper cleaner

They have, you like turn on your, on your orbital sander or whatever you're doing

You turn on your sander, hold that on there, and it takes a lot of that stuff off

But being gummy, uncured resin, I don't know how well that thing will work

I've heard people soaking in an acetone or kerosene or something like that

And like taking all your old sandpaper and soaking that in those chemicals to get it to come out

I don't know if they do, you know, just take a jar of acetone and put your sandpaper pads in there and pull them out and see if the gummy resin comes off of there

I've never tried it. You might as well just for $30 or whatever it is buy the 50 pack of sandpaper

you know, sandpaper discs from Home Depot and not use your expensive

7 inch or larger sandpaper discs that are a lot more expensive

Buy the cheaper ones and just go through them to get that layer off and then don ever make that mistake again Those are going to be the main tips that I could think of is you know making sure you putting the wax in there fare it out in between layers grind it down and you can fare everything out

Different types of microballoons are going to be or different types of faring fillers are

based on how easily they sand. The thicker it is, it's not going to be as smooth. And the

thinner it is, which is the easiest to sand, will allow you to put on a smoother layer

West Systems has the easiest ones to remember because it's basically numbers, 406, 407, 410

It's basically the 410 is the easiest to sand. And then as you go down the number list, it gets harder and more structural, I guess you

would say, but it's harder to sand at the same time all the way down until you get to

what's called collidial silica and collidial silica is a structural filler it's used a lot to fill in voids and

gaps and stuff like that when you're doing different projects you'd fill something and then

glass over that just to fill up a void of something now once you get to the gel coat and the

painting phase that's a whole different story because like gel coat you have to mix in m-k with that as

Well, paint, a lot of paint is basically a one-to-one versus the gel coat that you mix in your M-E-K

Now, if you're going to spray it, then gel coat, you have to reduce it or you have to thin it, basically

with a thinner based on the brand of what you use, if you're using Interlux, All-Grip, Total Boat, any of those

they all have specific instructions for how much you reduce that paint

in order to use it in a gun to spray it. But the main properties and differences between gel coat and paint

is that gel coat cures a lot harder. It is basically, if you think about it

like the paint is a one-to-one and it's a paint, whereas your gel coat isn't a one-to-one

It's the M-E-K with the gel coat. And you can almost think of it more like

It's a resin and paint as a paint. So paint, you can peel off of a surface

Jel coat or resin, whenever you put that on there, it becomes part of it

It's a bond based on like that resin bond. So if you got your glass, let's say your glass, you don't put gel coat on bare glass

You put, you know, some kind of faring filler or something on top of that glass

But if you, are you, I guess you could put gel coat on top of the glass

you don't want to put paint on bare glass, but that glass or that resin

that gel coat like adheres to that stronger than the paint does

Your paint will, you know, basically be a separate layer, whereas your gel coat is almost like a part of the glass

I guess that's probably the best way that I would describe it. I'm sure there's a better chemically correct

way to explain how gel coat is different from paint than that

But that's the idea. And that's what makes it more durable. So you definitely want all of your floor surfaces or high traffic areas to be

gel coat versus paint because again, if you paint a floor, that paint is going to wear off because it's high traffic

You really want to use paint on things that are, you know, the sides of the boat or the insides

gunnels of the boat vertical surfaces that aren't going to be taking a lot of abuse over time

Whereas gel coat, it'll take that abuse and it'll last a lot longer

And if you just keep it straight up white gel coat, if you drop lead weights or stuff like that down on it and you chip it

then it's a lot easier to repair because it's just white gel coat and you can just take more wide gel coat and put it on there

Obviously, it's going to fade over time so you'll be able to see that repair. but it's a lot less color matching

whereas a painted surface or, you know, trying to color match something

that's a whole skill all in and of itself. Color matching, I mean

even some of the best professionals have trouble color matching different things

Though some people can get really, really good at color matching. That's kind of a trial and error thing

And like me, or your average DIYer, good luck. I'm not going to be able to color match something like if you got a scratch on a boat

Even if you, unless you use like the same paint, then, you know

let's say I use ice blue all grip and I get a scratch on there. I can fix it with ice blue all grip

but you'll be able to see the difference because, I mean, it's paint

It's mixed up and the tone can vary from can to can

Obviously, there's going to be minimal variances there. But if you've got like a boat that's got a custom color on it

for you or I as a DIYer to go in there and try and color match that

it's going to be extremely difficult. I guess if you spent enough time with enough mixes

then you could probably get it really, really close. But by and large

that's a skill that takes a lot of practice. And I definitely do not have that

that skill. But if you want to know more about this subject and how to do these things physically

then we've got plenty of videos on the YouTube channel and we also have the boaters program

where we do different workshops and stuff like that, how to repair things hands on

So if you want to check that out of born againboating.com, that's available for you