Boats For Sale:
Stress/Sprider Cracks??? |
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Wacko 
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Joined: March-21-2009 Location: BC, Canada Status: Offline Points: 293 |
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 Topic: Stress/Sprider Cracks???Posted: March-23-2009 at 11:14pm |
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Hello,
I have tried doing a search on this with no luck. I understand that stress cracks suggest that the stringers need to be replaced, my question is how do you repair the cracks once they are there? Thanks in advance |
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86BFN
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Joined: July-28-2008 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 882 |
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Posted: March-23-2009 at 11:28pm |
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I don't think you can "repair" them other than re-gel coating the boat.
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79TiqueRebuild
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Joined: January-21-2009 Location: Kansas City, Mo Status: Offline Points: 238 |
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Posted: March-24-2009 at 12:31am |
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bradtm16
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Joined: March-11-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 62 |
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Posted: March-31-2009 at 5:51pm |
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When I repainted my boat last year I had a few pretty bad spider cracks in the hull. I went to guy that my dad knew that used to repair fiberglass boats. He told me that you have to grind the spider cracks down until they are no longer visisble. If that means going into the fiberglass, so-be-it. Grind the area to no less than 1 inch wide, this will allow for good surface area for any filler or new glass that needs to be added later. In my case, some of the cracks were just in the gel, where I used a filler material to bring it back to surface level. There were a few bad spots that I had to sand into the fiberglass. I made these spots atleast 3-4 inchs around. Then I filled them in with new fiberglass, then filler on top to bring to surface level.
The way he showed me to sand was using a cordless drill with a 2" sanding pad attachment that you can get at your local auto paint store. I used 20 or 30 grit sand paper to sand out the cracks. He said if you use a high speed drill or grinder you can burn the gel and mess the fiberglass up if you are not carefull. That was the first time I had ever done any real body work like that. It is a pain in the butt doing the final sanding job but it just takes a lot of patience and sandpaper to get it right. Or you can let the person repainting or gelcoating do it for you. |
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eric lavine
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Joined: August-13-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13413 |
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Posted: April-01-2009 at 12:22am |
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on point there brad, one bit of advice if your over 40, clean the area and outline the stress cracks with a sharpy pen, I'll use a roto zip and at the ends of the cracks i'll make a small circle, then I'll come in with a round bit and crate a larger but shallower river then with the 2" grinding wheel I'll go over the entire area so all of the repaired area becomes connected.
to fill i will shred glass in very small slices so it doesnt get a big glob and will seperate in the resin. i find a paint stick works well to fill the cracks and a hair dryer to get it to kick quickly to avoid runs, you can use talc to thicken up your resin. once done sand flush to basically the 2nd deep groove abnd then fill the entire area with duraglass. sand to finish and prime, 2 part epoxy primer |
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"the things you own will start to own you"
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bradtm16
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Posted: April-01-2009 at 12:36am |
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Yeah, I used a sharpy also, very good hint. Hard to see the spider cracks with all the dust.
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