Help with hole in boat!

[gwaa98]

I built a 12 foot vee bottom skiff last year out of 1/4 inch luan plywood and 2x4s and she's been wonderful on local lakes. But then I started fishing in the local bayous and I found a lot of fish, and a lot of cypress knees. One of them finally holed my boat and she's been in the garage all winter. I want to repair my bottom in a way that will defeat these underwater daggers. A friend suggested sheet aluminum epoxied onto the flat sections of my bottom where the knees usually hit. Will this hold? I suppose after preparing the bottom I would slap some epoxy mixed with sawdust (pancake batter consistency) where I want to put on the aluminum sheet. Then I will put some on the aluminum and put it on the boat. Since aluminum is non-porous I ama worried it won't adhere well. Will I need to use a physical connection as well, like pop rivets, and then epoxy over those? Has anybody ever tried this, I mean adding alumnium sheet as a final ply on the bottom of a plywood stitch and glue boat?

[zember311]

There are ways to do it, if you find this is the " best " fix for you.

It also never hurts to scuff up the metal with some 80 grit sandpaper, this will place grooves in the metal and should give you a bit of bite with the resin.

I have used fiberglass resin with metal, and epoxy with metal on other projects, and scuffing will give you a bit of security.

if you are worried at all,

You could always scuff the hull area, scuff the metal, used your thickend resin idea between the metal and hull, drop some rivets around the sheet and then even layup some fabric over the metal patch and feather it out about 8 or 12 inches past the metal sheets.

Just be sure your 1/4 is dried out well before your repairs, would hate to see wood rot set in after all your effort,..

Just my two cents and ideas,

take care`

[Jeff]

See Hole in boat.