Skier Deck Repair

Chris - Looks like you have your work cut out for you. If you are just looking to get by for a couple of years, then just wet sand the deck out with 400 grit before painting - use a sanding block. It would be much more work to individually rout out each spider crack, fill them & feather out.

Ask your auto paint store for a 'high build' primer; that may help hide the cracks, at least for a while. Wet sand out the primer with 600 grit before topcoat.

It is a good idea to scrub with a solvent (Lacquer thinner works good) before even starting to sand.

Looking forward to seeing the results!

storm34 wrote: I know Pete and others won't approve...

It cracks me up when people say this regarding Pete. What kind of spell do you have these guys under Pete!? They're all afraid of you.

I know you said it with humor in mind and I'm sure Pete isn't about to tear anyone a new a$$hole for doing something un-original, but I always wonder why you need to act apologetic to your own personal preference. Pete seems to prefer absolutely orginal, some prefer absolute customization, with most of us lying somewhere in-between. Don't worry about pleasing the rest of us, we didn't pay for your boat, and we don't have to like it. I personally love seeing everyone's little touches they add that make it "their" boat.

I know that doesn't totally apply to your original post but it just got me thinking about how I've seen people act afraid to present their ideas before. By the way...love that 88, the color is sweet.

storm34 wrote: After seeing his Dunphy this weekend I have the upmost respect for the man and his opinion. I didn't get a chance to meet him but his work speaks for itself. Truly something to strive for!

Agreed, from the pics, Pete your boat(s) look amazing.      Basically my whole point was that there are lots of boats on here that were done outside of my personal taste (some a little, some a lot), but no-less they were done quite professionally and sure look nice. It's great when people ask for opinions and truly respect the opinions given, but some people will get too caught up in pleasing the Poobah's.

And if Pete has read this, it's ironic, because I tend to lean far on his side of thinking. I love seeing boats done up the way they rolled out of the factory. Some mods are necessary though.

Thanks for the responses guys,
     I started to grind out all the cracks last night but I think I might switch to a dremel and see how that works?

There are places where the cracks look more like a NY street map and theres no way to follow each crack! Should I just take the whole area down and fill it all later?

Edit: haha look what I found on Ebay! Looks like I have a twin!

It's hard to tell if those are cleaned out enough, I ground out the gel-coat all the way to the fiberglass. My gel- coat was dark so it was easy to tell when I went far enough, I also did not have those "impact" type stress cracks more just overall cracking due to age and the sun for all those years. If you don't grind all the way to the bottom of the crack and fill back in it lets each little "island" of cracked gel coat move independent of it's neighbors and eventually the crack telegraphs back through to the top.

Also the repairs I did to the back inside corners did not hold up, the cracks came back, If I do it again I will grind the whole area down to glass and repair with new glass fabric on both the top and the bottom, inside and outside surfaces of the corner.

Ok, so in my humble, but professional opinion, the stress fracture you have in the corner, by the gas fill, needs to be ground down to the f/glass. Once you get to the glass you'll notice that the cracks are also in the glass. The glass needs to be ground down until most of the cracking is gone. Probably a couple or three layers deep. Once you accomplish that, new glass needs to be applied....my preference would be with polyester resin. Thats my preference. After the glass kicks, grind it smooth and start block sanding to get to the surface level. After that you can start the finishing process, whatever that may be.
If you don't do this, it's just a matter of time before those cracks reappear.

I don't think gel kote will stick to epoxy.

Awesome! Thanks for all the great info. I was thinking I would be wasting my time trying to grind out all those cracks! I don't think I'll rush this project since our summer is just about gone anyway. Got a heated garage at school this year! There are a few places where the cracks are not as bad as this, but need a similar repair.

I think my plan of attack is going to be grinding the gel down, fill with CPES and then Epoxy (should I lay glass and matt too?). Shoot, I'm half tempted to take the entire deck down behind the bow, would one continuous way be better than making lots of patches?

So, I don't mean to come across as "cocky" so here goes. Why go through the effort of working upside down, behind an area that's hard to see and reach, to reinforce the backside of a damaged laminate? All you need do is to remove the damaged laminate from the top and replace it with new material (matt and resin) and it'll be as strong as when it was built. The boat was built with polyester resin and can repaired effectively with polyester resin, when done properly. No need to put a backing patch on the underside because you have repaired the damage to the original specifications.
I'm not saying that backing patches and epoxies won't work, however, there is more effort involved and the cost of epoxy is more than polyester.
Being an "old school" glass guy, I'm not sure that I buy into the conversions for epoxy to polyester bonding. I've not done it so I can't really speak to that with any clarity. My biggest problem with epoxy resins is that they tend to be softer than poly/vinylester resins and are prone to swelling and shrinking more than poly/vinylester resins, especially with temperature changes.
I don't believe in leaving damaged laminate filled and covered with epoxy resins/coatings, I believe in removing damaged laminate and rebuilding the area to the solid structure that it was when it was new. It's easier and faster, therefore taking less time and effort.
Of course that's just my opinion.

8122pbrainard wrote: Chris, Cloth or mat should only be needed to reinforce a bad spot like the corner and only on the backside. The only exception would be if after you get through the gel you find a large delaminated area. Even then you can usually drill some small holes and inject epoxy into the delaminated spot with a epoxy syringe.

Thanks for the info Pete! I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to get these places supported properly since they were so deteriorated from the tree fall. I ground off all the glass and found lots of cracks and delamination.

I'm now contemplating removing the deck this fall so I can properly re-gel the crack on the hull in front of the CC Script emblem, glass the damaged deck and fix the wood supports around the blower vents. This would allow me to grind off the damaged areas and fix them properly so I don't get cracks again in a few years.

What do you all think? Would this be overkill? I got the idea from this thread on hydrodyners.com

Chris - I took the cap off of my runabout when I replaced the transom. It didn't go back on the same way, ended up with a slight buckle on one side. FYI!

Not sure if there is glass bonding the two parts together but the best way to remove rivets is to drill them out with the correct size bit. if the rivet is a 1/4" rivet then use a 1/4" drill bit. Other than that when you pull the deck off have some extra hands available because you want to keep things from flexing as much as humanly possible. If you decide to do any glass repair on the deck while its off make sure that it is laying in the same position as it would be if it was on the hull as you could possibly distort the shape of things. That would be discouraging to find after you reset it on the hull.
Nice sound to that motor on your just for fun link.

I don't know how it works with newer type resins but back in the days when '54 & '56 vetts were considered late model cars,they would put on the saturated matt and then cover it with Saran Wrap.When the 'glass set it would peel right off.I see on Wikipedia tho that the forumla has changed since then and might not work.Might be something to try on a test piece,it would save you some work.