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Bubbles and soft spots forming under fiberglass in cockpit
I finished my Shearwater sport a couple weeks ago and have already taken it out on a few short paddles. This past week several bubbles formed under the glass in the cockpit. When I cut some of them away I found that the epoxy underneath was soft and sticky. There are also a lot of areas where the wood apears darker than it used to be. Is this just epoxy that wasn't mixed right? Is it possible that exessive heat has denatured the epoxy? I've been storing the kayak outside under a tarp, but it has been extremely hot lately here in Florida, and the kayak/tarp are in direct sun during the hottest part of the day.
It doesn't appear that bubbles have formed anywhere else.
Thanks.
2 replies:
RE: Bubbles and soft spots forming under fiberglass in cockpit
I agree it’s probably a bad epoxy mix. My experience is that it will need to be cut out, dried up and patched over with new glass. The dark wood is wet wood! Make sure this dries to near the original color before the repair.
RE: Bubbles and soft spots forming under fiberglass in cockpit
» Submitted by hspira - Sun, 7/15/18 » 3:15 PM
AP,
i am going to suggest it was a bad mix of epoxy that never fully cured.
while excessive heat can soften epoxy, it shouldn't be sticky if it was fully cured.
i have one boat of over 17 boats i have built over the last 20 years where i had a problem similar to what you described....and i ended up having to eventually pull the glass off of the soft section, clean it up and re-glass.
on a cool day you can probe the hull with a dull nail and if you can make an imprint.....that is where you have a problem. in my case, it looked like i had one bad batch during my glassing and so after probing the entire hull i identified what appeared to be an area probably associated with a single cup of epoxy that was not curing properly.
that said, excessive heat can soften epoxy....and it is not hard in direct sun-light in hot climes to get a really hot surface...especially if it is under or wraped in a dark colored tarp. so i noticed, for example, that my strapping left an imprint on the hull after being on the roof of my car on a hot day.
i try to keep my boats in the shade when being stored or if i have to park with a boat on the roof, to try to find some shade if i am going to be there a while.
h