How to fix cracked gelcoat

[IRON-PAWW]

Hi All,

I'm not so good with fibreglass.

My Outerlimits HK Mono arrived damaged and after a lot of discussion with HK support I've decided to cut my losses and repair the damage. The gelcoat on the hull has cracked in one spot. So - How would people go about fixing something like this? I have a Fibreglass repair kit which does have gelcoat included. Do I chip out the damaged gelcoat and then just reapply some new stuff? Then sand back?

[martin]

Ive had several cracks like this, I use my dremel with a small ball tip cutter or grinding point & grind along all of the cracks. Making sure I only go the depth of the gel & not into the fibres, then I fill mine with epoxy into the grooves ive made with the Dremel. Sometimes I also add micro balloons to the epoxy, never had a crack failure after repair.

[grsboats]

Martin is right but if you have cracks the problem is the flexibility of your hull.I would first reinforce the interior of your boat and then go to the botton.be sure to use a good brand epoxy resin for this task.Gill

[Chilli]

I'll third grinding out the cracks. Is that area more flexible than the same part of the hull on the other side? If available in your neck of the woods, I would fill it in with Marine-tex which is a two part marine epoxy putty. I use it on big boats and my models that are white.

[lackabucks1]

not sure if you can reach it, but if you can I'd add a layer of fiberglass inside to reinforce around the crackn in gel coat, then follow above.

[IRON-PAWW]

Thanks for the reply's guys. This is why I come here - for the vast experience of the OSE crowd.

The dremel idea sounds like the goods - got some small grinding stones that'll be the ticket for this job.

The Marine-tex putty sounds like the go, might research that & see how I go.

Otherwise - I'll need to source a marine type epoxy then will I? Like , I have some clear araldite type epoxy that you mix to glue & repair stuff. I'm guessing that isn't the epoxy you guys are talking about though is it?. Can you give me an example of the stuff you guys mean?


The boat has never run - this damage occurred straight from the box. Hull seems rigid enough. I have some fairly heavy looking glass matting that I got with a fibreglass repair kit. What sort of matting should I be looking at for strengthening on the inside of the hull.


The world of fibreglassing is all new to me........

[martin]

Any type of a good epoxy glue / adhesive will do the job, Araldite has been around probably longer than any other epoxys & is also very good for that application. With araldite you need the old original slow drying version & not the 5min stuff as its no where near as good, Z poxy 30min is also pretty good as well & easy to get as well if you cant get any of the marine type epoxys mentioned in other posts.