Any fiberglass guys at this forum?

[yellow4]

Before rudedog was let go from his work. He was in the process of reinforcing the inner hull after he cut out the tub...

He was going to post pics of how to put the tub back in after it was removed.

My question is how to properly re-glass the tub underneath the gas tank back into position and make it structurally sound....

[cbrich]

Can you post a picture of what you are talking about?

[yellow4]

http://greenhulk.net/forums/showthre...t=15030&page=2

Look at superduty's post #15 Those are the pics of the tub..

thanks

[Jeepster]

Usually te way to repair a fiber glass hull is to simply grind the surface to a very rough finish removing everything that is delaminated, or impacted, then to re-glass using catalyst+resin+fiberglass mat, and then roll the mat adequately to release the air bubbles trapped in the mat+resin ass'y, the roller used is kind of a pizza paste roll, (you know the little plastic fingered spiked rolls). And then add another layer, and do so repeatedly....until the adequate layer is achieved.I personnally do....one coat of catalyst resin spreaded on the hull with a large 4 inch paintbrush, then lay the mat....roll it into place with the laminating roller, then recoat another coat of resin, and another mat layer, re-roll for laminating...and again, and again....

But honestly...considering you will have to redo almost the entire gelcoat layer outside too....i'd say...what the hell you did with that hull man...???

Did it falled from the third floor or what...? LOL

[cbrich]

I would have thought these craft would have some kind of core material like wood (just like most boats) but styrofoam is just plain wrong. You need to added somekind of core frame made out of wood or aluminum, have a grid pattern, fill the void with a dense two part foam. The foam shoud be safe to to laminate over.

I am sure you are worried about weight, so wood is out of the question and aluminum cost too much. You only option I can think of right now is make supports out of fiberglass, by wrapping a 2x4 with plastic wrap and laying fiberglass over it. Once th resin has hardened the 2x4 should just pull right out, since resin (epoxy, or polyester) don't stick to plastic wrap. Then cut the fiberglass shells to fit the hull and laminate inplace, I would fill the voids with foam.

[yellow4]

would balsa wood be a possibility? It is supposed to be ultra light weight.

wrapping glass around this wood and incorporating in that area in front of the two areas they glue the inner and outer hull together (foot) would provide signifigant strength along with the foam core.

But making hollow 2 x 4 shapes should they run wide wise or length wise? I would think length wise?

[cbrich]

Balsa would work. After more thinking about this I would do the hollow 2x4 fiberglass support running both length wise and across the hull. Fill the void where the 2x4 with a 8lb foam, you could even use the 16lb foam and it would one stout ass structure and you have less supporting structure if you went with the 16lb, 3 supports running length wise and 5 supports running the width. You could even do it with 8lb too, just fill the rest with 2lb foam.

[yellow4]

got it. that sounds like a pretty good design plan. That should provide enough support where this won't happen again. Hopefully I am only going to have to do this once. Thanks for the valuable information cbrich, I appreciate it.