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Reply to: Gcat soft deck repair

[quote=mattson]Two methods I used: I repaired a relatively large soft deck (about 3 ft long) on my H18 using the epoxy injection method. I drew a grid pattern and drilled holes every 2 inches. I had small sections of clear packing tape precut and taped to the edge of the deck for quick retrieval. As soon as epoxy would start to emerge from the holes, I would cover them with the tape. Once all covered, here was the problem: It was a large enough amount of epoxy to generate a lot of heat. Inside the foam core, there was not much dissipation. The deck got hot. Real hot. I sorta stood back with a beer to see if it would burst into flames. In the end, I had some waves in the deck but it was rock solid. I sailed the boat for over 10 years with no issues, other than a couple of other smaller delam issues showing up. It seems once you have this issue, it can grow. I ended up replacing the hulls as I figured it was just getting too bad. On my Prindle, I purchased it with some damage to the deck, where it was cracked in front of the deck ports right where you sit, and was flexing. I cut some carbon fiber cloth and 1/4 foam in a length as wide as the deck, and a width narrow enough to fit in the deck port. I figured I could use the outside curvature of the deck and make the panel on the outside first. I laid some polyethylene plastic on the deck, then some wetted carbon fiber cloth, then the foam, then another layer of wetted carbon fiber. Then a layer of polyethylene plastic, a thin section of sheet metal to cover it, some very short spacers of 2x4 precut to the right lengths and angles, then a 3/4 thick section of iron I keep around as an anvil to press it all together. Once cured, I had a foam core carbon fiber panel, exactly contoured to the deck. I spread thickened epoxy on it, lowered it into the deck port, affixed it inside of the deck, then put a precut 2x4 vertically to hold it in place. I tapped a small wedge between the 2x4 and the keel to snug it up. The deck is rock solid now. Note this was a smaller damage area than my first example.[/quote]

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