Cracked Joint

I managed to create about a 12" crack where the side meets the bottom of the boat on my Chesepeake 18.  The exterior joint apears cracked all the way through.  The interior joint is still solid and it isn't leaking.  (Note: Always untie the bow safety line before raising your pop up camper with the kayak on top)

 

Current plan is to sand down through the paint, Fill the void with thickend epoxy and cover with fiberglass tape a couple inches longer than the visible crack.    Is that the best approach, all suggestions welcome, especially as to making the repair less obvious.


2 replies:

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RE: Cracked Joint

Robert, Without a picture, your explaination sounds like a good repair stratagy.

If you have not done this before West System publishes a great fiberglass repair manual (even though your kayak is wood, the skins are fiberglass and therefore she is a wood cored glass boat) http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/Fiberglass-Boat-Repair-and-Maintenance.pdf

see the chapter on skin repairs. Thier manual applies to all epoxy glass repairs. This will outline how to get a strong repair (proper overlap ratio for the glass, and how to make the repair "disappear".

The hardest part with small crack repairs is getting yourself to grind or sand open a large enough area to fair in the enough new glass for the repair to be strong. The West manual outlines this very well.

Good luck, and post some before and after photos.

Joel

RE: Cracked Joint

robert,

the plan you have outlined sounds fine with one additional recommendation i would make.

before filling with thickened epoxy, soak the crack with unthickened epoxy.  you want to ensure all the voids are filled in the crack. thickened epoxy may not easily reach into the thin edges of the crack.

this should be done in one session, so when the unthickened epoxy is getting to syrup consistency, you can then come in with the thickened epoxy to create a fair surface for the glass work to follow.  i would use a mix of woodflour and cab-o-sil or cell-of-fill.  this will give you good sandability and structural stength,

sand the area to be glassed a little more than a faired surface so that when you put the patch on, it will not 'bulge' and will be fair to the final surface.  otherwise, in making it fair you will sand all your glass off.

outlining the whole repair area with tape (like prepping a person for surgury) makes it a bit easier to control the process and prevent getting epoxy outside of the repair zone

i have repaired my daughter's CLC 14 after a similar accident....and you can never tell now that there was a problem.

howard

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