Hull and dek repair

I trying to get my young niece and nephew into sailing and have picked up a old laser that is complete but with a few problems I intend to correct. I'm looking for some detailed instructions on the repair of a Laser where the hull and deck have begun to separate around the bows and mast step and now require rebonding. In fact I would like to rebond the entire seam joint between deck and hull all around. Any instructions, type of resin to use [epoxy or polyester] techniques, clamping, etc that I can print out would be most welcome. If I find I don't have time to complete the work myself in time for summer, as a backup, I would be happy to have the name of any craftsman that could do both the repair and a respray as well. Location is near Ellsworth, Maine.

Rebonding the seam joint

For this process, I chisel some of the out the old filler, you want to go down at least a few millimetres, the thicker the filler the deeper you go. Basically, you want enough depth that any new filler you use is bonding between the deck and hull and not across old filler and fibreglass.

If you're only doing a small segment of the gunwale, I've found G clamping the edge of the gunwale will prevent the crack migrating further down the length of the gunwale.

After cleaning up the gunwale, line the area with masking tape. The edge of the masking tape should be at least 5mm above the crack. When you finish filling the crack, this 5mm will give you a region which you can sand down leave slightly rounded and will also assist with the pouring process by directing the resin into the crack. Another advantage is that it will also fill some small areas outside the crack which have previously damaged.

As for what type of resin, I think it depends a little on the condition of the gunwale. If the gunwale looks as though it's been severely banged around, epoxy resin will aid in glue all the old filler deep inside the gunwale, but using epoxy means that you can't use polyester resin again in that region and epoxy is potentially harder to repair in the future, but has structural strength, unlike polyester. It's a tough call to make, but I tend to prefer epoxy.

Generally I do not use clamps to bring the gunwale together, unless the fibreglass is damaged or you've got no existing filler for several centimetres down the joint. If you don't clamp the joint, the filler not under stress to hold the joint together as both the hull and deck are in a relaxed position.

If you use epoxy, firstly I attempt to pour resin down the crack initially, so that resin bonds the old filler together, if the resin is disappearing very quickly, thicken it up a little with micro-balloons, you still want the resin to flow easily into the crack. Use a stick to pour down to avoid getting resin everywhere.

To fill the area which you’ve chiselled out, use a much thicker bog mix of epoxy and micro-balloons. The mix should only just flow and is applied using a knife or spatula. Fill the crack above the height of the fibreglass of the hull and deck. As mentioned above, using the masking tape will make this possible.

If you use polyester, I basically do the same process above, but use purely resin with no micro-balloons. I don’t like using a polyester bog, as from my observation, it tends to fall out with the first bump, unless a lot of old filler is removed.

After the resin has set, sand down the excess filler and leave a small round cap over the region.

Repairing the mast step

While I haven’t done this repair myself, from my observations, the better repairs have involved using an epoxy-micro-balloon bog mix.

You need one or two holes inspection hatch holes drilled into the deck in the vicinity of the mast step. Having two holes makes gaining full access to the area simpler.

Remove by chiselling out any remaining bog around the mast step base

Make up a thick epoxy bog and liberally spoon it around the mast step base.

Others might be able to give you more details.

Those details are much appreciated. Thankyou

As these are the two most common repair issues, you'll find many threads already posted here with ideas.

Use the search function at the top, seach on "Hull Deck Joint" and "Mast Step"