Blue Steel Layup Inspection / Repair Advice

[sailsman63]

@sailsman63 @Alan Gage @memaquay

If you were to add a full piece of cloth to the inside of the hull, aside from any patching, would you use s-glass or aramid? What weight? Would it be worth using epoxy over vinylester?

Like @Alan Gage said, Epoxy sticks to pretty much anything except Polyethylene. It's also easily available in smaller quantities if you don't already have vinyl ester resin around.

I also would use basic 6oz E-glass. Don't see a reason to spring for the S-glass in this context.

Also would probably use 2-3 layers, but unlike Alan, I would put the smaller layers on first. Probably start with an 8" by whatever it takes to go about 3" past the ends of the big ouch, then 16" by and maybe finally 24" by on top of that. Definitely peel-ply, or as I never tire of advocating, check local fabric stores and get a couple yards of their cheapest, junkiest lightweight polyester satin. (suit jacket lining)

I would do this interior structural patch before messing with trying to fill in the cracking/working on the outside of the hull. If there are any loose bits/hanging by a thread, pick them out before laying the patch. Maybe lay some thin cardboard (cereal box) on the outside to keep the existing hull segments aligned and fair. Once the interior patch is cured, you can fill in any voids and maybe do an exterior layer for abrasion resistance and a fair surface. Also peel-ply, whether or not you add a cloth layer here.

 

[Tryin']

Thank you!

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Sad to hear this unfortunate turn of events.

During the drive, the tag end of one of my tie-down straps came untied and was loose in the wind.

That won't happen to you again.

the damage appears on the inside of the hull as well

Do you have a picture of that you can show?

I will probably take the time to remove and refinish the gunnels

You can do that if you want, but if the gunwales are undamaged, removing them doesn't seem necessary for hull repairs.

fix ALL the gel coat, add a full layer of s-glass or aramid to the interior

Not sure you need to fix all the gel coat or even that you can, unless re-coating the entire hull, which will add weight. S glass patches on the exterior and interior of the creased area may be all you need unless the creasing is so bad you have to cut it out as Alan has addressed.

 

[Tryin']

@memaquay

I put it on a tension scale today and she sits at 41.8 lbs.



@Glenn MacGrady

Heh. No, I don't reckon that will happen again. Those lessons have a way of sticking around.

Here are some more photos. If other angles help, just let me know. It's not going anywhere anytime soon...

 

[Gamma1214]

Honestly, less damage that I'd expect given what happened... you could (maybe) do that bouncing through a boulder garden (that you should have portaged) or pinning it. I say, rough it up a little, slap some glass on 'er & paddle the crap out of it!

 

[sailsman63]

This... actually doesn't look as bad as I'd thought.

• Most of the more visible bits of the damage seem to be to the gel-coat
• Weave on the structural cloth seems to be mostly intact - not torn through. Aramid is tough.
• I seems to be laying fair, so no need to splint it in place while reinforcing.

I'd say that my original estimates on (inside) patch size were probably a bit large.

I no longer think that I'd use any sort of large patch on the outside. I'm torn between saying get some clear gelcoat to fill in the missing stuff, or cut some glass to exactly the missing shape of the gelcoat and epoxy it in to build up the surface and restore the water-impermeable layer over that structural cloth blend.

I wouldn't cut or remove any of the aramid layer. While there are probably some torn fibers, the cloth is mostly intact. Those bits of gelcoat that are peeling up and look like shards of a windowpane probably need to come off, however.

 

[memaquay]

That doesn't look too bad to me. I'd just sand around the area you are going to glass, fill any cracks with thickened epoxy, then slap six ounce cloth with epoxy over it. Should still be able to keep it under 43 pounds. I would use fair size patches though.

 

[Woodpuppy]

Agreed, it doesn’t look as devastating as I feared. Is it just the one busted rib? Two breaks? Or two ribs/1break @? I’d think they will need patches. Maybe drill a hole in the breaks big enough for a syringe tip to inject epoxy.

 

[Tryin']

Agreed, it doesn’t look as devastating as I feared. Is it just the one busted rib? Two breaks? Or two ribs/1break @? I’d think they will need patches. Maybe drill a hole in the breaks big enough for a syringe tip to inject epoxy.

Two ribs, one break each, with one rib having additional spidering/fracturing up the chine area.

 

[Tryin']

It is a significant relief to hear experienced paddlers say its "not as bad as..."

I am now more confident that I can bring it back to factory strength.

I assume most aramid composite repairs are similar, in that some poking around here for past threads about the repair process should translate to my project?

I had an old fiberglass hull that needed about 6 patches once, but it was a colored gel coat and easy to paint to match. Plus it was a $100 canoe, not a $1k canoe.

 

[Tryin']

Nova Craft finally got back to me. They had much the same opinion as you folks. They also offered to sell me a full width piece of the matching material for $340. Do you think that would be worth it? Put a couple fiberglass patches down, epoxy the rib cracks, and then homogenize the interior with a full piece of cloth? It would definitely look better. And I would think a full layer would strengthen the hull even further. I think it would still be easy to keep the weight under 50 pounds.

I dunno, I'm just stewing around on it. It's in the 90s here, so I'm not interested in messing with it for at least the next week.

 

[Alan Gage]

Personally I'd stick with fiberglass on the interior. It will go clear once wetout. Use peel ply, add a couple more coats to fill the weave, sand the edges smooth and it should be mostly invisible. The patches should be topped with something like spar urethane for UV protection (epoxy is sensitive to this). You can choose sating, semi-gloss, or gloss to match the current sheen.

Or you could just buy your own carbon fiber for a heck of a lot less than $340. It's about $30/yard from Express Composites if I remember right. It will be a lot more work than fiberglass though. It's thicker and will not conform as well as fiberglass. It will take more resin as well.

For aesthetic purposes a full width factory patch on the outside would make more sense.

Alan

 

[sailsman63]

Put a couple fiberglass patches down, epoxy the rib cracks

Yes to glass patches but the rib cracks depend on what's in the ribs: If there's some fiber or solid core, yes you want to glue that back up with epoxy. If, however, the rib is foam or similar it's just structurally a box beam. The strength will come from running a glass patch - perhaps a couple of layers - over the surface.

Regarding the matching patch cloth - I personally probably wouldn't bother. From what I can see, the bulk of the structure is intact, and I'm not sure that the improved asthetic from a matching patch would be worth the extra prep, expense, and the fact that the ends of the patch will just not quite line up with the underlying main layup.

 

[Gamma1214]

If it were me, I'd do what I felt was required to make it structurally sound & wouldn't worry at all about aesthetics. I look at boats the same as I do our bodies: the scars they carry are just like tattoos except that they often have better back stories.

 

[Tryin']

We had a nice day last week so I got around to chipping away at the loose gel coat. This looks like it's going to take a while. All of those little fractures probably need a "v" cut into them if I am going to add a skim coat to prevent water intrusion and layup oxidation. Maybe worth it, maybe not. Nova Craft quoted me "looks like around $650" to fix things to their spec. Not real sure what that entails other than "interior patching and gel coat repair".

Anyway, just giving voice to my overly-ruminative thoughts.

 

[Tryin']

Worked a bit more today. Popped up a bunch of loose interior resin and removed the seat. My order from Total Boat arrived, so I now have all the materials needed. Confidence, not so much.

The seat was held in place by stripped-out, bent-up hanger bolts that were threaded into the wood the whole way through. I had to take a saw to the seat to get the frame off so I could reverse the bolts back up through the drops and rails. Got three out ok, but the forth was buried like a deck screw and pulled up a chunk on the way by. I have a Swift seat and drops to replace it.

Might actually put down some glass later this week. The rib under the seat has three cracks that are allowing a lot of flex. I will need to build it up a bit. Do I reinforce the rib first and then use a larger piece to cover the whole repair zone, or do I put the big piece down and then build up the rib?

 

[Tryin']

Laid down some cloth patches and epoxy three days ago. Went out yesterday afternoon to put the top layer on and the previously applied patches didn't look right. Sure enough, they popped right off the interior of the canoe with just a little pressure. The exterior stuck well, but all the rib and crack repairs on the inside did not.

I guess I will have to go a bit more aggressive on the surface prep. I was hoping to avoid a fuzzy mess, but maybe there is a happy medium. The exterior looks terrible due to the epoxy-infused fuzziness.

No pics due to my frustration at the time.

Down side is that there is no way I get this done by tonight to be ready for a trip to the Sylvania Wilderness tomorrow. Up side is that Sylvania Outfitters has a canoe for me to rent, even on such short notice.

 

[Gamma1214]

Bummer on the adhesion issue but hang in there. Enjoy the trip & deal with all that when you get back.

 

[memaquay]

That sounds weird. I have only seen that happen when someone used polyester resin on top of epoxy. The polyester would not adhere to the epoxy at all. However, epoxy sticks to everything.

 

[Tryin']

Yes, that's what I was banking on. Some of the small patches held perfect, but the big rib repairs did not. I roughed it up a bit with some 120 grit and wiped it with acetone, but no dice. Maybe coincidence but the only ones that didn't take were also the ones where I used peel ply. It came off so easily that I wondered if there wasn't some kind of wax residue on the interior.

I'm going to test some smaller areas before getting into the big chunks again.

Regardless, I'm off to Sylvania. It will be something to do when I get back.