tophatyachts.com

Good morning all,

Well I'm back after a crazy few weeks where my wife gave birth to our first child. It has been an amazing couple of month but very little time to do my own things, fortunately things are starting to get into a routine and I can work on my own projects.

I posted this over on seabreeze as well but I thought it worth asking here for specialist Tophat knowledge.

My gunwale is in need of some TLC. Looks like at some point someone has stepped on the toerail and pulled it out of the gunwale.

So far the suggestion seems to be apply some fibreglass filler compound then finish with a automotive body finish.
That seems within my capacity, though I wanted the advice or the collective - is that the correct method? Or should I give it to the marina to repair?

Thanks in advance and it's good to be back.
Regards
Alyosius

P.S. Yes, two seperate bits of damage

Congratulations on the new arrival! One thing is for certain, life will never be the same. What fun!

You will need to bog up the damage with something. A fibreglass filler, with a white tint might make it less noticeable. whatever you do, it will need to be water proof, and make sure it's dry before you fill It.

Re-attaching the toe rail might prove more difficult, as the fibreglass isn't very deep. That is perhaps why the screw pulled out and damaged the fibreglass in the first place. It may mean putting screws either side of the damaged area, and possibly using an instant grab glue like Rite-Tac to help it hang on for the future. Either that, or you could use an acorn nut and bolt right through the fibreglass, but it does cause a risk of kicking your toe on it.

It doesn't look like a job for a professional though, save your money for stuff you can't do.

Congrats on the birth Alyosius!

You'll be able to do this repair, no worries.
What I'd do is...grind out all the loose fibreglass & gelcoat, If you dont have a cordless grinder or inverter just chisel it out. Dont be afraid to dig all the loose stuff out. Then get some 40 or 60 grit sandpaper on it to get rid of any sharp bits. Then Drill a big 13mm hole through the fibreglass lip, 100mm each side of the damage. Make sure you only drill through the lip & not through the fibreglass glass hull/deck tab joint inside the cabin, or the timber.
Then mix up a small amount of epoxy(I like Bote-Cote), just enough to wet out the surfaces(damage & the holes you drilled) you want to cover (as the liquid epoxy will have a better chance of bonding into all the small nooks & crannys, rather that the fairing compound.
After that has started to tack, mix up another batch of epoxy & add "Easy sanding/fairing compound", enough to fill the damage & both holes, pack it in there, you may have to do this a couple of times (sanding between applications of the thickened epoxy) to get it fair. It sands very easily with 120 or 150 grit sandpaper.

Drill a 4mm/5mm or close enough hole through the filled holes & timber toe rail. Countersink(very slightly) the timber toe rail (& the fibreglass side of the lip, if you dont want a nut protruding onto side deck, or you could use a dome nut).
Get a bolt through each hole, cut to length with a hacksaw if needed.
Paint the sanded epoxy areas. (2 pack is nice, but you'd get away with a white exterior acrylic I reckon for what it is.
cheers

Hmm, here's another suggestion just to confuse you. Nah, not to confuse, just give you more to consider.

It appears the toe-rail was held on by screws.

Shaun suggests bolts. I would agree. Also with his saying about a dome nut or trimming back the excess bolt. I have bolts holding my toe-rail on. The exposed bolt threads in some sections are too long and I do need to trim them back. Other places my feet never go near the toe rail so not a problem.

I have some cracks similar to what you show but have not yet fixed them. My approach would be to patch with some fibreglass cloth to make a strong section to bolt through.

Late night edit: After going to bed and thinking about the problem while going off to sleep, I realised my solution given below is not very practical, the edge is too thin for easily putting in some fibreglass cloth like I say. So, scrap what I say in this post and see my next post . . . .

First I would grind back the broken fibreglass. Grind some angled edges. On both sides I would clamp some wood covered with plastic sheet so epoxy does not stick to it.The wood is basically formwork to hold the runny epoxy in place. Cut a heap of small strips of fibreglass cloth, many many layers. Pile them up as you cut them so you end up with a "plug" of cut patches of the cloth which can fit into the ground out section. BUT don't make the dry plug too thick. Put the "plug" into like an ice cream container and pour some mixed up epoxy over it. Gently work the epoxy into the plug. When fibreglass cloth becomes saturated it goes from looking white to like clearish. Then drop the plug in on the ground out section. That will be messy. I always use disposable gloves. Don't do this with bare hands! Once the plug is the hole, the hole may not be filled to the top. That is okay. You can shove in some bits of cloth or pour in a bit more epoxy or leave until after it has set then use a filler to even it out.

An alternative is to put the dry plug in and pour in epoxy but you run the risk of not wetting out the fibreglass cloth properly.

Hopefully not too much epoxy will escape from the mould and drip down the hull. Maybe use duct tape or something where epoxy may leak out. Like where the wood mould touches the hull.

When the epoxy has set, pull off the wood mould, the plastic should cleanly release from the epoxy. The repaired section will be the same width as the rest of the section the toe rail goes onto. Using the fibreglass cloth makes the section strong. You can then drill it and bolt the toe rail on.


The drawings below are an attempt to show the steps. From a side view. In summary, grind the broken stuff out. Don't need to grind out as much as what my diagram shows. Make angled edge. Replace removed section with fibreglass strips epoxied into place, the strips building up to approximately the thickness of the section. Use something either side like the way formwork is used with concrete to give the epoxy and cloth some shape. Put patches of cloth in.










I hope I have made the process clear.

Epoxy and cloth is actually fun stuff to learn to use. So whatever you end up doing, I just reckon, give it a go. If it does not turn out, you can grind away mistakes and start again.

All good points Troppo.
Just as a point of interest, when I did my gunwhale repair earlier this year, I had a section on the port bow where a section of the lip where it must of copped a knock & had been repaired, I ground out the whole repair leaving a section a bit longer than Troppo's first diagram, & the whole depth of the lip.
As a bit of an experiment....I simply filled the whole area with thickened epoxy(fairing compound), it is solid as anything....have kicked it, stepped on it, & it seems fine.
That leads me to believe the epoxy is bloody strong stuff in small areas where there is some support on a couple of sides, even without cloth, time will tell.

Naturally adding the cloth would be stronger, but not needed for such a small repair I reckon, plus considering the timber is protecting the area too.

A couple of tips I learnt when using epoxy:
wear 2 pairs of nitrile gloves, you will no doubt get epoxy over your fingers & if you need to touch something or move something that you don't want epoxy on, you can just whip off one glove and carry on.
Use a heat gun gently to speed up the epoxy to kick or go off.
Have a lot of ice cream containers on hand.
Have a couple of small metal spatula/scrapers.
Plastic cough mixture measuring cups are handy to mix small amounts.
Use a dust mask when handling the powders.(fairing compound powder).
Have white vinegar to clean your hands, acetone to clean off areas you spill on boat.
Tape off areas, like down the side of the hull because if you get runs down the hull & leave it, it'll be impossible to get off without sanding (your kids can show the runs to their grandkids about the repair their great grandad did on the Top Hat )

cheers

Ok, this is my second suggestion given that my suggestion above had some good points but is actually not practical. I call it a stoopid idea. Here's something I think is much better.

In the first picture, it looks like the damage is quite close to the top of the fibreglass strip and there are bits of glass fibre poking up out of the damaged area. No need to grind back. Just bind together what is already there. I would run several layers of masking tape on both sides of the damage to make like concreting formwork. Make the sides go just a little higher than the top surface. Then drizzle some epoxy in. It will soak into the little cracks and go around the bits of glass fibre and stick it all together. Just fill up level with the top surface. Hopefully the masking tape is a good one and the epoxy doesn't soak underneath and trickle down the hull.

I have masked up small repairs like this and when the epoxy has set, just pull the tape off.

With the second picture, in the damaged area there is still bits of surface gelcoat on top of the fibreglassed section underneath. I would repair as above with epoxy but first remove those bits of gelcoat with careful use of a grinder or a sharp chisel hand held and basically plane or cut off the gelcoat. The point with removing the bit of gelcoat on top of the damage is so when you fill with epoxy it gets into all the cracks and the gelcoat might stop some of that. Try not to remove too much because the epoxy, like concrete with stones in it, can set around the remaining bits of fibreglass helping to make a stronger finish.

My mistake with my previous post was thinking of a much thicker section to repair, it is not thick at all. Also, there is still much material in the damaged section that is useful because the epoxy can get around it and bind it strongly together.

In fact, Shaun's experiment using thickened epoxy to repair a section of edging and it turning out strong indicates to me that in your case there is certainly no need to try to use fibreglass cloth in the repair but just go for binding together what is already there and building it up a bit. Perhaps straight epoxy held in place by some kind of formwork like masking tape or use a mixture of epoxy with something in it like filet powder or even a stiff type of epoxy that won't run (maybe something like Araldyte]. The stiff epoxies may not need any formwork but I use formwork where ever I can because I find even a fairly stiff mix can slump a bit anyway.

So there you go, hopefully I won't be drifting off to sleep mulling over boat repairs and change my mind again.

troppo

In my second suggestion of just repairing with epoxy, which is what Shaun was saying all along, I said some masking tape could be used as 'formwork' to hold the runny epoxy in place until it set. Here's some pics of a different type of repair but showing how masking tape can be used. The repair is of the cabin top grab rail.



The wood of the hand rail where it touched the cabin roof was slightly rotted but enough good wood remained that I decided to build it up. So after a little sanding I put the masking tape 'dam' on and poured in some Botcote epoxy. When set, I took off the tape and sanded the epoxy surface to shape.



Easy, what can go wrong? Well, this can:



If the masking tape is across a dirty surface or not stuck down properly, epoxy can weep underneath. In this case, I just lightly sanded the leaked area and it got covered with the decking oil no problems. Can be a problem if it leaks down the hull. As Shaun said, tape off areas on the hull where a leak may go.

Epoxy is amazing stuff and well worthwhile playing around with to see what it can do.

troppo

Re the rubrail mounting screws, I had similar problems in the gunwale of my Compass 28 after the PO had made a mess of replacing the rub rail. I drilled out the old stripped mounting screw holes in the fibreglass to 10mm, then wetted as much of the inside of each hole as I could with unthickened West System Epoxy, then used a 100ml syringe to inject thickened epoxy into the hole. When drilling out the holes I moved the drill slightly side-to-side to create some overhang; as the epoxy was injected it spread into the hole and filled these overhangs, which prevents the new plug from pulling out.

I let it all cure for a week, then mounted the rub rails, screwing #10 self-tappers into pilot holes in the epoxy plugs. It's now very secure and does not leak.

Relying on screws in 1/8" thickness of f/g was a definite design flaw.

Cheers, Graeme

Well, thanks for all the advice. I'm now confident enough to make an attempt at it myself.

Troppo, I would not call your first suggestion stoopid suggestion. You were not the first to suggest it, but you were the only person who was able to explain it in a way I understood. And I also got a much more impractical suggestion elsewhere of fibreglassing in a piece of hardwood, still not sure how I would do that in such a small space...

Anyway tomorrow after work will consist of going to the hardware store for a chisel, woollies for some latex gloves and mixing pots and the local marina who has West coast epoxy.

I want to remove the rub rail before I do the repair but I'm not sure I'll have enough light to do it all. If I have to I'll just hold the rub rail far enough off the hull to do the repair.

Thanks again for the help thus far. I will take pictures as I go.

Good on ya Alyosius, that's the spirit! Have a crack at it and learn from your experiences.

For me, I can't say I am happy with how much I have had to repair on Windchaser but I have to say I have enjoyed learning a heap and am still learning. I have also enjoyed having a boat which over time has become so much nicer to use. Despite not all my repairs turning out how I wanted, like varnishing some wood and having to sand it off again as I somehow got dust on it, overall, it is very satisfying to work out how to do something then get it done. Even if it takes a few goes, that is okay.

So, I hope you enjoy your repairing and building new skills. Oh, as others have said, congratulations to you and missus with the baby. Having a new bub in the house is certainly a huge learning experience!

troppo