It sort of looks like a satellite photo of a strange planet or a bit of avant garde art.  What it is though is my first shot at fiberglass repair and it’s going better than I could have hoped.  The first thing I did was to again scope out the areas I needed to patch.  There were some areas wearing out under the seat.  Too many miles! Then of course the big bit under the left combing from the surfing accident.  The glass actually looks ok, but I don’t trust it.  I also wanted to shore up the other side as well.  I’m often climbing around on the boat and it puts a lot of stress on some areas of the boat.

Once I picked out the repairs areas and cleaned them up, I cut the glass mat for each repair.  I chose the mat over the woven variety since it’s supposed to be a bit stronger. Yes, you should wear a mask when you mess with this stuff. . .

The first time round I mixed a full cup of the goo.  It was way too much.  I got about halfway through the project before it started to gel on me.  (the tin says you get 12 minutes for each batch) I also mixed in a bit of the black color I had for the gelcoat.  I had no idea if this would work, but it seems to have done nicely.

Laying down the patches on the bottom was quick and simple.  The bits under the combing took a bit more focus but the glass is sufficently sticky that you can put it up under there and then with the brush, work the mat until it adheres.  The second time around I was smart enough to make only half a cup.

I can’t say enough how great it is to be able to just slip the seat right out.  A great Rockpool feature!! In the end it took about an hour to get the glass work done.  Then I put it out in the lawn to dry.

Here is the bit under the most damaged area.  Once this section has about 24 hours to dry It will be time to pull off the old duct tape and begin work on the outside gel coat.  Which takes me to the bit I was most happy with today.  When I was in Puerto Rico I didn’t have anything with me to protect the deck from the spare paddle.  If you look right at the bottom of the picture below you can see the massive scratching that occurred.  Up until now I had given up on repairing it since this was the glittered gel coat and I didn’t think there was a way to clean it up.

Notice the white stripes under below the hatch cover.  Yeah it was bad!  Well, now that I’ve spent a couple days at this I got a bit braver.  I knew that over the glitter was a thin layer of clear gel.  My guess was that  most of the scratching was in this top layer.  Well, I got out the 200 grit sandpaper!!!  So keeping the area wet, I slowly worked my way through finer and finer grit, 400, then 800, then 1000, then by hand I worked over the areas with automotive scratch remover.  Lastly I got out the buffer.

I have to say, I was shocked!!  It came out almost. . . almost like new!  That leaves me with the last two repairs, both on the deck, and both in the glitter.  A small one in the tail which I’ve started, and the big nasty  one near the combing.

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