1986 Outrage 18 Fibreglass Repair

Repair or modification of Boston Whaler boats, their engines, trailers, and gear
Don SSDD
Posts: 313
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 6:58 am
Location: Nova Scotia

1986 Outrage 18 Fibreglass Repair

Postby Don SSDD » Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:26 am

My Outrage has a bad crack under the rub rail on the starboard side, the rub rail is busted (there and several other places) and I am replacing it with a new rub rail from Barbour.
The vertical area the rub rail base sits on has a crack and about a 3 inch piece of the surface fibreglass is loose. I am cleaning up the loose bits and filling in behind with West system 2 part epoxy and then clamping the repair until it sets up. This will make it structurally strong but the rub rail does not cover all of the repair below the rub rail.
There is fibreglass showing and the gel coat is missing, what are my options for a repair of this section that is visible? Just replacing the gel coat there will not bring it up to a smooth surface.
1. Can I epoxy the exposed fibreglass to fill the damage so I can then sand that smooth? After doing that, will gel coat stick to the epoxy? Or
2. Can I epoxy the exposed fibreglass to seal it, then repair the damage with an auto body fill to get it smooth, then either paint that or gel coat that?

Thanks,
Don
1986 Outrage 18 with 2001 Honda 130 HP
Former Owner 1991 Guardian 19 with 1994 Evinrude V4 140HP
Former owner 1987 Montauk with 1998 Mercury 90HP
Nova Scotia

KARLOW
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2018 3:20 pm

Re: 1986 Outrage 18 Fibreglass Repair

Postby KARLOW » Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:41 am

Here are a few options. You can repair buy adding some some wood and epoxy. You can use epoxy wood an polyurethane foam.
You may try to use just epoxy that has been thickened with ground glass or some combo of the above. All of that should work fine. The problem is the finish. Epoxy does not play well with polyester. You can bond epoxy to polyester no problem, but the reverse is not true. Your best bet is to repair and paint. You can try to replace the epoxy with polyester but it does not bond as well for repairs. You might be able to use able epoxy primer between the epoxy repair and the gel coat finish