Soft Side Hull

go for it!

Mike we just did this repair on a prindle 18. We did the normal drill holes then fill with west. Once the area was solid we then feathered more west on the area to bring back the shape. We didn't put any thing in the hull to push the sides back.

Thanks David for the tip and coastrat for the encouragement. The sides of my hull are severly mishappen - it would take a couple of gallons of bondo to bring it back to shape! Thats why i am considering the pressure idea. I did put pressure in the Hull and it does take most of its shape back.

The beauty of these things and epoxy is you can experiment, it's like silly putty. If you can get the shape back from the inside, i would try that for sure. Less bondo is GOOD! I think I would also experiment with light filler to lighten the injected material. Same with the faring, I'd use polyester epoxy with faring filler or something light. Marine short hair Bondo seems heavy to me. Never done a soft hull tho.

Thanks for the tip.

Should i have the hull on its side - so it is up - when i do the epoxy injection?

Does it make sense to do one portion at a time? or commit to the entire hull?

We put hull on its side so the area we where going to be filling was as flat as possible. Because this stuff with settle where ever it will run. We would mix up about 3 pumps and 3 spoon fulls of epoxy at a time and work over the whole hull. That way we could let it set up and do it again if we needed to.

edited by: duderdude1, Jun 25, 2010 - 01:04 PM

make sure to get some coloidal sillica with the west epoxy for injecting and filling/skimming. mix to mayonaise consistency...good stuff!

Sounds like all the advice is good. Level is important. I always use West System. Do it very early in the morning or late evening to keep heat down. If you go to a good feed store, you may be able to get a 35 cc syringe. With that much area, I would have 2nd person mixing and both wear rubber gloves. I use bondo to fill divits next day. Pete

I had a large soft area on the port hull of my p-16,luckily it could all be reached from inside, thanks to the access hole on the deck.I injected over 2/3 of a quart of the west system 105 epoxy 205 hardener mixing only 4 pumps at a time, with the west system mini pump kit I bought.The pump kit made things easier for one person to mix & inject.I had an old marinade syringe to push resins into pre drilled holes,watch ambient temps cause it was about 70 degrees when I did the injecting, and after all holes had been filled the epoxy must of found a low spot to pool up causing extreme heat as the mix kicked off,it started to smoke! Ithought the whole thing was gonna melt!! but it hardened in about 4 minutes time in that spot alone&discolored the gelcoat a little, the other areas cured as expected &I put 2 layers of glass weave on as added insurance. It was a 30 x14 inch soft spot I was fixing,and its solid now,& it didnt cost that much.

edited by: nitrodub, Jun 26, 2010 - 03:35 AM

Thank you all for the advice and David for the pictures too. I purchased the West Epoxy and measuring system and tested in large area with hopes the it would work. Unfortunately, i think my hull is too far gone. The entire side of the hull is saggy with the firmness of cardboard. I put about half a litter of epoxy into one area and it didn't seem to help much. I took it out on Sunday and noticed lots of flexing and stressing on the inside of the hulls near where the forstay cross cable attaches. As much as i am up for the challenge of repairing her, i think the time and money would be better put toward finding new hulls or another boat. 🙁

Thanks again for all the advice and i did take photos of my endevor (using air pressure to bring the hull to form)if anyone wants to see.

Thanks again.