Recommendations Wanted - Fiberglass Canoe Repair
Frogdog
Member Posts: 3,025 ✭✭✭✭
Just snagged a fiberglass canoe that a neighbor was getting rid of. Pretty neat little boat, but I need to fix her up just a bit. Fiberglass is all still good, but it’s got a lot of spots here and there on the outside of the hull where there are tiny areas of small chips/nicks through the outside coat. I’d like to seal everything over so water doesn’t intrude through these nicks and weaken the fiberglass. There are too many areas to just use a tube of epoxy, but I also don’t feel like attempting to re-do the whole gel-coat. Ideally, I’d like something that I can just paint on over the whole thing. Was considering trying FLex-Seal, elastomeric paint, or even brush-on bed-liner. I don’t care about the looks…. Just want to keep it functional and water-tight. What do y’all think? Any ideas?
Comments
The Bondo company makes a nice fiberglass patch kit, easy-peasy to work with and Home Depot even sells it. I've used it over the years on canoes myself. Painting is your choice if it matters.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Isnt much more effort to use a thin coat of fiberglass and do it right?
Fill the cracks with fiberglass, shoot entire boat with a epoxy, and repaint. Nice project and you'll have a new boat.
40
Gorilla Tape for fast and dirty.
First question: Can you swim?
Makes a huge difference on how important a permanent repair is.
wouldnt take much effort to re gel-coat a canoe. you can also add color to the gel-coat for a very nice re-finish job. buy a cheap harbor freight spray gun and throw it away after you are finished.. clean up is much easier that way. lots of videos on spraying gel coat.
That's why the government makes you wear a vest. I suppose with enough vests they could keep the canoe a float.