Category Archives: Boat Repair

WEST SYSTEM Boat Repair Kits

New Boat Repair Kits

New for 2012, WEST SYSTEM is offering three specialized boat repair kits designed with the do-it-yourselfer in mind. Each contains the right materials and instructions for making lasting repairs and is available at your local stocking WEST SYSTEM dealer. Continue reading

Sanding tricks from Damian McLaughlin

Sanding Tricks of the Trade

By Damian McLaughlin

All of the boat builders that I know have little sanding tricks that make a job go faster or do it better. Fairing a 40′ custom-built hull is an arduous task that is often accomplished with two-man teams and fairing boards. We do 90% of the work with a grinding device. Almost everyone in the business will agree that a grinder will remove a substantial amount of material quickly. The trick is controlling that removal. Continue reading

Flying Dutchman in need of repair

Flying Dutchman Repair

By Bill Bauer

On July 15th, 2006, a friend and I took my 1958 Flying Dutchman out for a sail in the Saginaw River. This was only the third time the boat had sailed in 30 years and the first hard sailing since my six-year-long restoration. We set both sails and made several runs in front of the Saginaw Bay Yacht Club before we hit something, maybe an old piling or maybe the freighter rudder that went missing the previous fall. Continue reading

Repair of the Tartan Ten, FLAGS

By Tony Sheppard, T&M Marine

The Tartan Ten, Flags, sustained port-side core damage in a racecourse collision. The original repair, a simple patch applied over the damaged skin, was improper and ineffective. Within a short time, there was distortion and movement in the hull side at the repair area. Water penetrated the skin and saturated the core, which soon began to rot. A significant crack reappeared and even more water went into the balsa core. Eventually, the boat was nearly unusable. Continue reading

Bolero

BOLERO Restored

By Joe Parker

“Maybe the prettiest yacht ever built.” That is what some folks say about Bolero. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, still, very few boaters would be able to take a quick glance at this yacht and not continue to stare and measure every detail with their eyes. Any sailor would imagine themselves on board sailing for Bermuda or their destination of choice. Her proportions are just right and the construction details are elegant and refined. Continue reading

The repaired furler with PVC sleeve

Harken Flexible Furler Repair

By Tami Shelton

I have a now-discontinued Harken furler unit for my F-27GS trailerable trimaran. This furler is made of an extruded PVC foil with a braided stainless internal liner, with a rod that passes through as the actual forestay. I really like this flexible foil because of its ease of use when raising the mast as well as the fact that it can be somewhat coiled and stowed in the boat for travel. Continue reading

7. Paint the hatch with plastic compatible Rustoleum™ Textured Paint for Plastic. Krylon™ Fusion for Plastic™ also works well. In the end the hatch looks as good as new.

Repairing a Plastic Hatch with G/Flex

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

A local sailor stopped by our shop with an old plastic hatch that was slightly warped and badly cracked. He hadn’t been able to find a similar hatch to replace it. He wondered if we had an epoxy that could be used to repair the hatch. I said G/flex would likely work but to know for sure we needed to do a bit of adhesion testing. Continue reading

IRYS Students splash the Herreschoff 12.5 they restored during the school term on launch day. Photo courtesy of IYRS.

International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS)

By Cynthia Goss

Photo above: IRYS Students splash the Herreschoff 12.5 they restored during the school term on launch day. Image courtesy of IYRS.

If you travel to the campus of the International Yacht Restoration School, you might think you are walking into the past. The staff offices are inside a restored 1831 mill building. Students restore wooden boats from the 19th and 20th centuries while learning plank-on-frame construction inside a cavernous building from 1903. And hanging off the IYRS docks are majestic classics from a bygone era. Continue reading

The repairs are transparent and difficult to detect.

Repairing Dented Varnish with G/5

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

Photo above: Dented varnish repaired with G/5 Five minute adhesive. The repair area is quite difficult to detect.

A few years ago a customer approached me at one of the trade shows to say he loves our G/5 Five-Minute Adhesive for filling dents in wood trim prior to reapplying varnish. I thought what a great idea. It cures clear, can be wet sanded in an hour (longer if you are dry sanding), and can be varnished over without a problem. It looks much better than filling with wood putty because it is clear. It can be difficult to match the surrounding wood color when filling with wood putty.

Continue reading

Fast Blister Repair with Six10

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

This fast blister repair method is tailored to fixing individual gel coat blisters prior to bottom painting. The advantage of this method is it can repair blisters on hulls recently pulled from the water or hulls that have been out for some time.

Fast Blister Repair Method

  1. Open the Blisters

    Open blisters with a small abrasive tool like 3M’s Rolock™.  2″ diameter sanding disk with 60-grit sandpaper. Make sure you have removed the entire blister, including the edges of the blister dome.open the blisters

  2. Clean the Cavity

    Wipe the cavity clean with an alcohol prep pad or paper towels that have been soaked in isopropyl alcohol. Be generous with the alcohol and change towels frequently so the contaminants are removed rather than spread. Repeat the alcohol wipe process and allow the laminate to dry to the touch. It is particularly important to repeat the alcohol wipe on blisters that were fluid-filled at the time they were ground away.Wipe the blister cavity clean with an alcohol prep pad.

  3. Fill with Six10

    Fill the cavities with Six10 Thickened Epoxy Adhesive dispensed through the static mixing wand.Fill the cavity with Six10

  4. Spread the Six10

    Spread the Six10 Adhesive flush with the surrounding hull with a wide putty knife or plastic spreader. Avoid overfilling the cavities because Six10 is difficult to sand.Spread the Six10 Adhesive flush with the surrounding hull with a wide putty knife or plastic spreader. 

  5. Wet Sand

    Wet sand with 80–120-grit wet/dry sandpaper or wash with water (no soap, no ammonia) and sand dull with 100-grit sandpaper. If you are using Six10 in warm conditions, you should be able to wet sand and bottom paint later the same day. If working in cooler temperatures, allow the epoxy to cure overnight before sanding. wet sand the blister repair area

  6. Paint

    The final step is applying your choice of bottom paint to complete this fast blister repair job.Alkyd finish topcoat

Why this Fast Blister Repair Method Works

Six10 Adhesive is epoxy thickened with fumed silica, which allows the epoxy to remain an excellent moisture barrier. When the static mixer is used to dispense it the blister cavity&nbspis filled with air-free epoxy. This is important because small bubbles in coatings and putties degrade moisture barrier potential by creating shortcuts for moisture to permeate the hull. In the end, Six10 produces a moisture barrier that is better than the original gelcoat.

In our Gelcoat Blister manual, we recommend filling and fairing extensively blistered hulls with WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy thickened with one of our low-density fillers (407 Low Density or 410 Microlight®). The hollow microscopic spheres used to make low-density fillers easy to sand, make them poor moisture barriers. So, the blister manual requires that an effective epoxy barrier coat be applied over the filled and faired surface.

Six10 Adhesive is an excellent option for filling ground-out blister cavities—especially if you don’t plan to barrier coat your hull.

More Good Reasons for Using Six10

Six10 is simple to use. No stirring is required when the epoxy is dispensed through the static mixer. The Six10 cartridge fits any standard caulking gun and always dispenses epoxy at the perfect mix ratio. Six10 makes filling blisters easy and efficient. This is comforting to know whether you’re doing the job yourself or paying someone else to do it.