General hull repairs.

I have been altering between structural reconstructions of the bow, the bow eye and now the gunwale with general patches of the hull. I'm getting pretty close to done underneath. (or at least done with the repairs, I still need to glass over the bottom. The laminate is to thin and I need to be able to handle some rock interaction while crabbing.

Most of the ideas on how to work the mat and resin I got from Andy Miller and his blog/youtube channel  Boatworks Today. http://boatworkstoday.com/

I also got a lot of good advice and suggestions from the guys at Mertons fiberglass. http://www.mertons.com/  Most of the material I got from them and from Express composites.

As shown in the picture there were quite a few patches done over the last 52 years..

Bottom is getting close to be ready for a coat of glass.

Most of the repairs were not undercut as whaler instructs but simply cut out using a abrasive saw and then patched and covered with weave

This is what one find after peeling of a few layers of glass.. I wish the dude could at least have tried to put the cutting blade on the side and at least tried to blend the repairs..

Typical hack repair.

About 2 minutes with the multi tool and the orbital sander, 15 minutes of messing with mat and resin and then sanding and filling with some more mat and glass and it looks like it is going to hold up.

Finished repair of the repair.

Most patches I digged out the foam and filled with new 2 lb foam that I got form Merton.  The vinyl resin does not cure against moist foam and if there has been any ingress of water it is hard to be sure that it is dry. It is also very fun to play with the foam.

Fresh foam sanded down with 36 grit on dewalt orbital sander with vacuum hose attached.

After I get the foam flush I sand it down a little and then I undercut with the carbide sanding blade on the multi tool.

The edges are undercut with the carbide tip on the multi tool. (this is actually an area where I did not re-foam.)

Laminate laid up, as you can see there are some voids, Those are ground out using a small disc sander and filled with Merton's Deck and Hull putty (milled glass and vinyl resin). http://www.mertons.com/Epoxy/polyester_Resins/putty.html
After i started to use this putty  as filler i realized how well it works filling under the glass lip when fixing holes . Its much better than trying to make mash of csm fibers.

After sanding and possibly a few more layers the patches blend in very well.