Repairing Shell Holes: More Glassing, More… Fun.

Yesterday, Jared and I divided up and worked on two different tasks. My job was to fill in all the holes in our fiberglass shell.

To figure out how to do this, I watched this video from TAP plastics and read this phenomenal thread on FGRV. Thank you, wonderful people of the internet, for sharing your passion.

The pictures speak to the process better than text, so look at the images for a play-by-play of the process.

Day 1: The Small Holes

For these, I used the TAP Plastics method of repairing the gel coat and fiberglass together. Gel coat is weird, and it didn’t seem to layer like it did in the video. I ended up re-doing most of the holes. The one I didn’t re-do ended up looking like the gel coat encapsulated a grotesque, prehistoric Amazonian centipede. Can’t wait to fix that one.

The fiberglass mat I used was leftover from the floor, which is thicker than the mat recommended for patch jobs. This meant bubbles galore — the successive layers of mat couldn’t conform around the last layer because the mat was too stiff. Bubbles suck. And look ugly.

Basically, by the end of the day, I was super frustrated because I was 100% sure everything was just going to look awful and fall off and I was going to have to do it all over again anyway. At t = 36 hrs, it looks… fine. And still holding.

Jared with the dremmel

1. Clean up the edges of the holes and grind out a tapered area on the backside of the fiberglass (not shown).

2. Tape wax paper or mylar to the outside of the shell as a non-stick surface to glass against.

3. Tightly tape styrofoam or something conforming (but stiff) over the wax paper to provide a rigid surface to glass against.

4. From the inside, paint on a layer of gel coat. Let cure ~ 1 hr.

5. Glass on using polyester resin 3 layers of mat. First layer should be slightly larger than the hole, and the next two layer should be successively one inch larger than the previous.

You can see the different l ayers because of all the bubbles. Awesome.

The glassing of this hole came out nicer. No bubbles.

Finished hole. Looks… okay.

The one I didn’t re-do ended up looking like the gel coat encapsulated a grotesque, prehistoric Amazonian centipede.

Glassing away. Super frustrated because I was 100% sure everything was just going to look awful and fall off and I was going to have to do it all over again anyway.

Argus commiserating with me.

Day 2: The Big Holes

Today, went much better than yesterday. To repair these giant vent holes I used Dan’s guide on FGRV, and that went GREAT. I just did exactly what he recommended, adding in a little bit of gap fill to make up the difference in the shell thickness due to the curvature of the body in order to get a good smooth seam. Have a bit more work to do to glass the outside seam and fill in the screw holes, but I feel good about these patches. Hoo-rah!

1. Lay-up a piece of fiberglass the size of your opening, a cut an old piece of fiberglass to size

Giant vent holes

2. Tape wax paper to a piece of plywood and screw it on over the opening. Screw from the inside — through the shell into the plywood.

3. From the inside, fit the fiberglass pieces into the hole and screw it in place into the plywood.

Because of the curvature body, the shell thickness was much thicker at the bottom of the vent hole.

4. To ensure a smooth seam, I mixed up some polyester resin and added a thickening adhesive filler to gap fill and smooth out all the seams

Smooth seams and no gaps

5. Use 2 layers of mat to glass over all the seams. I made the first layer about 2″ wide, and the second about 3 – 4″ wide.

All patched up!

Patched hole from the outside. It’s not bad! The seams are pretty smooth. The patch looks fought, but it actually feels smooth (resin is translucent). Still needs some work, but quite pleased with the result so far.

Stylin with some over-the-cuff sock action. (The jeans from the thrift store were too short and my ankles were getting itchy)

Mixing up some resin. Feeling happy.

Time: 11 person-hours

Dollars: ~$45

• more gloves
• more rags
• more brushes
• Bondo