How do I repair the fiberglass on my boat? It has drill holes where someone drilled to fit a canopy onto it.?

Question

I bought it used and it has several drill holes where the previous owner had drilled into the sides of it to fit a canopy...also has a few gouges in the fiberglass sides I would like to repair.

Answer 1

If you can get to both sides of the drill holes, sand the back side with rough paper, apply epoxy, and back with fiberglass cloth. Fill the front side of the hole with epoxy and lightly sand to match the surface. If you can't get to the back, take a small piece of fiberglass cloth, wet it with epoxy, roll it up and plug the hole. After it cures, cut off the part that sticks out (a dremel tool works well for this) and lightly sand, you may need to surface fill with more epoxy. If the gouges are shallow, you can just fill with epoxy and sand, if they are deep, you may want to cut a strip of fiberglass cloth to fit it, then fill with epoxy. Sand to to match. Note that you are better off getting a good epoxy than you are the discount stuff. The discount epoxy tends to be yellow and sometimes brittle.

Answer 2

fill the holes with some 5200 sealant... you will need someone who does gel-coat work to repair the body of the boat...

Answer 3

Fiberglass repair is fairly easy. You can get a kit at most auto stores. Just make sure you wear gloves to protect you from the fiberglass.

Answer 4

for drill holes buy some fiberglass resin and fiberglass mat at home depot.  and some touch up paint  , feather the edges with some 80 grit paper  about  inch around the hole.  make sure you sand well below the gel coat( painted coat)  using the fiberglass mat cut out a piece  slightly bigger than the hole and one  about as big as the  the sanded area.

misx your resin per instructions on label.  apply resin on sanded area with a smaill 1" paint brush( just enough to get the smaller patch to stick)  then coat the pacth with a bit more resin.. you are now done with ths batch  of resin toss it! trust me.

wait for patch to dry. sant it a bitmake it kinda smooth the repeat  the patching process with the bigger patch.. If after sanding you still have a low spot you can use a plastic body filler  such as bondo. to fill. . Sand with 180 grit then 300grit wet sand. prime and paint.  keep in mind this is only a cosmetic repair if this was below the waterline there would be much more work involved

Answer 5

Is this boat a nice, gel-coat finish?  Or is this boat more of a rough, painted fiberglass type finish?  On a gel-coat repair, I would fill the holes with 5200 made by 3M, avail at most hardware places and boat stores.  They also sell small tube of gel coat repair, its a white epoxy.

I keep both of these products on my boat at all times, and I try to keep up with hairline cracks, chips, etc all season.  It works great on my white gel coat, matches fine.

Answer 6

for the holes you can use button head bolts with head painted in the color of boat ,tighten it with nuts ,it will look ok