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I had flipped my 1962 13' over to bottom paint it and found a small crack that was "bleeding" some rusty color. I sanded it and cleaned out the crack. There was a small hole in the crack. I filled in the crack with the epoxy resin that you mix with hardener, then added the high density filler to the epoxy to make a "paste" and spread it over that to fill it all in. I am letting it dry and I have to sand that down. The question is, does that then need some new gel coat spread over it or is it ok to sand it and then put the bottom paint over it? I'm a total newbie and I hope I'm not messing my boat up. I've been trying to read up on it and I talked to the sales person at West Marine. Any advice or insight would be very appreciated. thanks!
I found a similar problem after my 1st season with my boat, I did the same thing with 2 part marine epoxy (less the filler). It's been holding for 20 years. You can roll your bottom paint right on.
You did not say if you did a little prep work on the area as to get a nice surface to bond to. If you did and you finish to the finish height of the hull you should be able paint it and get many years of service from it.
yes, i hope i did my prep right. I cleaned it good then i kind of opened/cleaned the crack up a little with a sharp nail slowly and carefully. (I was wishing I had a dental tool) I continued to clean it by alternately gently sanding right in the crack only and then scraping with the nail to remove loose debris. In doing this I realized that there was a very small hole right at the worst part of the crack. The hole was maybe 1mm or less, so when I was done with the prep I mixed up the 2 part epoxy mixture and I had a syringe with a very skinny tip and I first brushed the epoxy along the crack and it started slowly goning into where the hole was so i injected some into the hole until it kind of filled up so there was a little puddle of the epoxy along the crack. Then i cut up fiberglass cloth into shards and put that along the epoxy and got it all neatly in the crack. Then I put some of the white powdered filler in the epoxy mixture to make a paste and trowled that over. Its been drying. Hopefully tomorrow night I'll go check it out and sand it a bit. Then just the bottom paint!
Hey thanks for the replys, i feel better about the whole thing. I'll post some pics soon. I have to finish painting the engine too...lots of work but I actually love it! sorry this is so long...thanks for reading and replying.
