One of many fractures in the deck.
After cutting out damage.
Three layers of glass on the inside. This will be hidden under the upholstery work. The wood blocks are held into place with hard putty and it holds an upholstered band via screw. What a crappy job on a lot of the glass work inside. I can do a much worse job and I am willing to prove it.
The filled coat. I will sand this down and put a color coat over the top. It rained last night and it didn't leak, good sign.
"There's a small crack on the port side" the previous owner tells me. "Is it close to this big crack?" I ask.
This is the beginning of a story that I do not know. She was hit hard on the port beam, fracturing a 2' section of combing. There is more resulting damage at the cabin sole. Today I really want to stop this leak. A surveyer would have been a whole lot less excited about this boat. It just goes to show that by looking at me, you would never have suspected that I didn't have a brain!
A fill coat of polyester resin. I wanted this on before it rained. It doesn't look pretty yet, but it is functional.
This picture is inside the quarter berth, looking at the fracture. I cut out the ragged edges and water damaged glass with a hacksaw blade.
Now we are getting somewhere. I can see daylight. This deck to hull joint is quite typical of the questionable factory glass job throughout the interior. When the boat is pointed in the appropriate direction at night, you can absorb the moonlight through this hole. Maybe I could cover the hole with plexiglass and have a "mini skylight" in the quarter berth.
There are three layers of glass and polyester resin on the inside and then I filled the gap on the outside with four more small layers of glass. Hopefully this will all be cured by tomorrow so I can apply a gel coat before the next rain. I really want to stop the port side from leaking through these fractures as I am removing as much wood trim as possible for refinishing. NOTE: I hate polyester resin. It stinks. It is sticky. It is a pain to apply glass cloth using polyester. It takes forever to cure. Enough about that.
2009 - on the hard was a good time to do something about this unsightful damage. I ground out the polyester patch after realizing the virtues of epoxy. I believe this was six layers of glass, some for strength and some for filler.
After several layers of glass, I mixed up some epoxy with filler and layed this beautiful layer of putty. Evven thought there is still a lot of work to do on this patch, I can appreciate the new color of the damaged area. Sometimes a simple change of scenery can do a lot for motivation.
After the putty dried, I brushed two coats of epoxy and finished sanded with 400 grit. This has one coat of Petit Easypoxy. Please notice how my photography skills use direct sunlight to to enhance the damaged area. I am so glad to get to this point with this area, it has been bugging me since day one.