Fiberglass question

[Nate Moroshan]

I will be making my first attempt at fiberglass repair soon, the attached picture is of the hardware for the steering wheel pulleys being a bit to tight and damaging the inside fiberglass above the rear birth in my E29. Does anyone have ant tips on how to repair this and possibly reinforce the area.



Thanks.

Nate M.

 

[Dave Neptune]

Repair

Nate, do you have much room to work on the back side? A "fish plate" may work well for you. Rather than trying to grind and replace the gel coated "viewed side" you could bond a piece of teak on the inside for the asthetics and ues epoxy "possibly reinforced" and pull another piece in from the back side and screw them together (also form the back side) and nothing will show but the bolt heads holding the brackets through the teak. The strength will be in the "patch" and the teak (or material of your choice) will cover and reinforce while masking the destroyed glass under it. The epoxy will bond to the old FRP better than FRP itself!

Dave Neptune

 

[Flight Risk]

Nate,

Dave's suggestion is great for repairs like this. Trying to duplicate gel coat finishes has always been hit or miss for me and is pretty expensive to hire out. I had a similar situation on my SJ24 where the baby stay was anchored through the deck. A nice piece of teak looked better than the OEM install when it was done.

Only tip I would add on the epoxy is to use filler to thicken it, makes for better gap fill properties. I cheat and use West System 610 from the tube since it is easier to store than the liquid with pumps in cans, etc.... I have had good results with the 403 microfiber filler when I needed to thicken up the 610 even more to help fill gaps when installing "backing plates" for hardware. When adding filler to the epoxy, I keep adding until it gets about like peanut butter. Makes it easier to work with and does not "run out" from behind the work while it cures. The West System site also has some great info on working with glass composites in general.

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/

Chris
E34 Flight Risk

 

[Matey]

Steering repair

Nate,

I'd start by looking at the back side as well. I believe the glass is crushing because of rot behind, not the hardware being overtight. Teak or G10 would work well like Dave suggested, but I'd definately replace the wood behind with teak or marine ply sealed with West Systems. It's pretty straight forward to work with. I buy their resin in gallon sizes these days.

Good Luck .. keep us posted (pictures are helpful)
Regards, Greg

 

[Nate Moroshan]

Thanks for the tips, the problem will be getting to the back of the repair as it backs up against the wall of the compartment that holds the pulleys. I don't want to do the whole grinding and gel coating process and I think Greg maybe right about it cracking because of rot, so what I'm thinking is maybe cut out the damage and fill the hole with a Teak or Marine plywood like Greg said but will I have to glass over the wood after its in there or will it be strong enough with just the wood? I'm going to make as esthetically pleasing as possible I just want to make sure its as strong and functional as it can be what do you guys think?. I will post picture of the repair as I get into it.

 

[Dave Neptune]

Idea

Nate, if you use a piece of teak about 3/4~1" thick large enough to cover the "bad area" by at least a few inches you should be strong enough for mounting. The piece on the inside will be srtonger and superior to the wood mounted on the inside. The plate on one side will spread the load over the covered area. once you have the piece cut do a bit of grinding, sanding or rasping so the piece fits against the edges you are patching. When you mount it do it with epoxy or JB weld. It will bond the piece every bit as well as glassing it in and it will look nice and cover the bad area. You may not need to fuss with the back side much at all.

Dave Neptune

 

[Mark F]

Hi Nate,

I had the starboard side steering pulley pull out of the plywood. The difference on my E27 is that the bolts did not go through to the cabin fiberglass, you can't see any fasteners from the quarterberth. What I ended up doing was to add a threaded rod and coupling between the starboard and port side pulleys. Kind of a compression strut. It isn't the prettiest thing but it works and you can't see it anyway. I'll take a photo next time I'm at the boat.

You do want to secure that pulley, if it lets loose you will have no wheel steering. Mine let go in the "slot" in the SF Bay in 25 to 30 knot winds. Fortunately the guy I was sailing with knew where the backup tiller was and had it installed in less than a minute!