So I'm most of the way through the transom repair. Upon using the GelMagic I realized it got squeezed out a lot, so on the "messy side" I just completely ripped the flap of gel coat off along with the remaining layer of plywood that had started ripping off, since it would have been too complicated to go behind the gelcoat and use filler for the half that was missing the layer of plywood and then GelMagic the remaining plywood layer to plywood and then GelCoat to plywood, esp with how much GelMagic goops out once clamped.
So once I ripped all that junk off on left side I just spread Rotfix on the clear spread of remaining plywood, and Sculpwooded over that. Looked like a kid's messy playdough job, but once sanded it looked great.
Side to the right of the engine well was more straightforward, and I GelMagic'ed that twice (after first time I saw the thinner portion of it still had a gap so I spread that part open again and spread the Gelmagic better with a popsicle stick.) After that it held very nicely.
For fiberglass, I decided to use the same layering for all the repair spots, folding one layer of CSM and one layer of cloth over the edge of both left, right, and on the ledge of the motor well. This *mostly* worked well, except for a few places where there were air pockets I couldn't get rid of, and some complications that came up because the glass+epoxy didn't want to fold and stay where I put it. I wasn't using transfer sheets or anything, I dunno if that would've helped. Have never used them yet. I also went ahead and covered that big patch of Sculptwood with the same CSM + cloth layer. Came out really well. Today I started building up the top edge of the transom with the 3M High Strength Marine Filler and just need to do one more sanding to get that locked in. I like that it just takes 30 minutes to cure; really fits doing a bunch of work and coming back to it in a reasonable amount of time rather than waiting hours like with epoxy.
- Transom as I get ready to glass it
- Transombefore.JPG (204.49 KiB) Viewed 543063 times
Transom as I get ready to glass it
- Left side Sculptwood after covered with glass
- Leftsidecovered.JPG (201.08 KiB) Viewed 543063 times
Left side Sculptwood after covered with glass
Oh! And I got to say, the little cups of Sculptwood and it's hardener look so much like cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, it's crazy.
My ScrewOut kit mostly worked well for getting the old "floorboards" out that are underneath my benches covering where the foam is. Foam looks fine there and also forward in the access port on the floor of the cuddy bin. I pulled the trigger on getting the Clearcoat and LPU from System3, but now I'm wondering if I'm forcing a swanky vision on my boat that doesn't really fit: the "footboards" are just 1/4" plywood, as is most other wood other than my coamings, which are themselves not that pretty of wood either...I did some research about if I could get some nicer looking plywood, but it seems it just comes in grades that have to do with imperfections? And I'm assuming that they don't really sell nice 1/4" thick pine boards? I guess I could go up to 1/2", or I could even get some kind of veneer that I could glue to the footboards (and the coamings for that matter.) I don't know. But the money is spent already so I guess I'll just stick with the raw-wood plan. I'm planning to stain them darker anyways so I guess it won't be as obvious that it's cheapo plywood!
Feeling like I'm really getting some speed under me now, with built up knowledge around glass repairs, fairing, etc. Found another place where an edge is delaminating at the edge where the bilge steps up into the cuddy "shelf" all the way forward. Plan to possibly do a similar Gelmagic repair to that tomorrow. Unfortunately, the weather is going to change in like one or two days, and I haven't secured access to a shared garage yet (discussions are ongoing,) so sadly I might have to switch to non-temperature sensitive epoxy/gelcoat/clearcoat/PU repairs for the next 7 months.