Fiberglass hole!?!

So my canoe has taken a hit. I have asked around and have some ideas of how to fix it, but just wanted to see what other people would do. The cracks (holes) are about 6 inches long and run verticle when the canoe is sitting flat. Any instructions of how to fix would be great. Thanks. Here is a picture, as you can see a buddy tryied to fix the hole but didnt know what he was doing.

 

You can get fiberglass repair kits and repair it yourself. But, you'll probably never match the color on your own. If you don't care about that, then with a kit, a grinder and some time you can do a pretty fair repair job yourself. Then get some epoxy paint or a good marine urethane and paint the whole canoe. It will look like new. The main thing is to grind back until you have only good laminate to bond to. This is what is called a secondary bond and to do it right you need good clean fiberglass laminate to bond your patch to. You can make a form to fit the inside of the hull and put some mylar or use mold release on it so the resin won't stick to it.

However, if you want a repair that is indistinguishable from the original fiberglass then take it to a professional fiberglass repair shop. They will not only repair the laminate but they will match the color and anyone but an expert will be hard pressed to see where it was repaired. This will cost more, but then it all depends on what kind of results you want.

 

Grind it back. Till it looks pretty. Tape something on the back, formica is perfect, thick plastic bag will do, doesnt really matter as long as it stops plastic dripping everywhere.

The whack a load of glass matt on a piece of plastic bag and pour on resin (make sure to catalyse) till its wet.

Once you have 1 layer decide to either make shape using car body filler then cover with little matt/resin or just continue with resin/matt till right shape.

Body filler is slightly lighter.

U can the gel coat it using ANY COLOR. As for surface finish try to sand back using 800 wet and dry.

Then get a spray paint can thats same colour as your canoe and spray it. The canoe looks kinda old and you never get that good a colour match with old stuff unless you know someone who knows someone anbd its really worth doing.

On some jobs especially black boats I have used spray paint and NEVER had a comeback...

 

When doing the repair:

See the cracks in the gelcoat? Grind the gelcoat away in that area as well, fill all with mat, grind smooth, and paint the area. Otherwise the paint will crater away from the cracks. Don't forget to re-scratch the repaired area, if you want to make it indistingisable from the rest of the canoe..

 

Thanks for the replys

Thanks for the posts, I think that I am getting the idea of how to repair. One concern I have is how much should I grind away from the crack? DO I gradually grind more away as I get closer to crack? Or do I just grind away until I get to the fiber glass weave? I cant wait to fix this problem and with your help it looks feasable by a novice boater. Thanks again for the help.

 

What you are aiming for is a semicircular shaped inderntation where the crack is with chamfered edges out towards the good surface of the canoe. Into this semi circle you put filler, resin/matt etc. So long as you take it back till its shy of the original you will be fine.

The further you go back or the more you grind, the more you have to fill.

Err on the side of caution. grinders make a good mess of single skin grp. possibly better get some 60 grit sand paper?

 

Type of cloth

So I have been looking at the type of fiberglass cloth to buy and am confused. DO I want fiberglass mat or do I want fiberglass cloth? If cloth what oz., or doesnt it matter? Thanks for the help everyone, I am a fiberglass user forever now that I know how simple it really is.

 

If you are using epoxy then cloth as it does not wet out matt too well, also cloth will give you higher strength for weight of laminate.