Repairing GRP boats

[baboonslayer]

I got a small GRP boat yesterday, and the previous owner obviously TRIED to repair the scratches, but failed horribly. I have a little fiberglass experience myself, and I know how to glass a wooden boat, but this is my first all GRP boat. Now, since I am a Redneck with a capital R, the way I would go about repairing this boat is to get a chisel and scrape off all the crap the previous owner put on, then get my sander and sand the whole hull down, tape some glass cloth on after I spray the hull off with my air compressor, paint four coats of resin onto the glass, let it dry, then paint it all with white silicon based paint.

IS that the right way to do it?

[baboonslayer]

Oh yeah, I forgot. The rub rail has a wooden core, and there is this part of the rub rail that has a small chunk taken out of it. How would I go about repairing that? I was thinking of filling in the chunk with putty or something, then glassing it over and painting it.

I further examined the boat today, and I found out that the places that the previous owner tried to repair are actually cracked. I thought it was just scratches, but it looks like I will have to cut out some parts of the hull and put a backing in the hole that I cut, then put a few layers of glass to patch the hole I cut out. This should be no problem.

[hoytedow]

Epoxy, not polyester, is the way to go. Grind out the crack entirely. Bevel grind the edges inside and out. When replaceing the missing area, restore thickness to original level along the margin of the repair. More detailed instructions available doing Google search or on other threads this forum.