coolmedown

I want to tackle a fiberglass project on my boat. Its a non structural job dealing with fixing holes in my dash. One hole is about 2 feet by 7 inches and I can get the back of that hole. The other hole is the size of a large softball and i have no access to the back of it. It look like the thickness is about 1/2" or so. My question is, IS this something I can do, never have done any type of fiberglassing before? Whats all involved and what products would be best. Any help, as long as its not in tech talk, would be appreciated. The shops around here are asking a ton of money to this. Im not opposed to doing the glassing myself and paying to have it painted.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

Its certainly within the grasp of many advanced do it yourselfers. I guess it comes down to what your time is worth in real life. Fiberglass work is one of those things that if it starts going bad it goes bad quick and get even more costly to correct. Look up any one of my threads in this section and you'll find a lot of pics and info on some of the processes. If its something you feel ambitious enough to tackle dive in and post questions in this section. I have talked/posted many people through anything from screw holes to transom jobs. And if all else fails drop it off at my shop lol.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

Oh btw somewhere theses a thread on filling dash holes in a thirty five ciggy flat deck I did. If ya can't find it I'll dig it up.

What are the holes from? The one sounds kinda big.

coolmedown

Glassdave you are the man here at OSO. The hole is from the guy who owned the boat before me. He had a lot of sonar, cb's, charplotters, all very old, and had them mounted in the dash above the cabin door. Cut it all up. I removed all the old stuff and am left with a hole. I want my dash to look like this>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDh9V...ature=youtu.be I aslo will have to have a hole repaired where my guages above my steering wheel repaired as well. I dont like the tier system the old Cigs had for their dashes. Liek the youtube shows, no tier system just flat with a garmin.

gare

I know it would be better if it was fixed right, like how your talking about, but another option would be a carbon fiber panel overlay. Even if it was temporary you could mount the electronics you want just to see how it looks then make the changes you want when you glass it in. Just a thought.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

heres the thread i did on filling dash holes . . . . these were smaller then the one ya got. . . . . just scale everything up

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/f...ash-holes.html


That boat sounds bad azz in that clip Thats actually one of my hatches on that boat. K Voghts right? Great to see it out and haulin the mail! Him and his brother have a lot of work in those bad boys, looks awesome.

coolmedown

Great article GlassDave.. So my materials purchase list is
1. WestSystems 404 High Density Filler
2. WestSystems Polyester resin
3. WestSystems 407 Fairing Filler
4. 3M Vinylester Fairing Filler is this the same stuff you talk about in your other articles or is this the product (3M Premium marine Filler)
5. 24oz Bi-Ax cloth.
6.??? What other glassing cloth do you recommend?

Anything else you can think of?

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

thats a good list, you might want to switch to a 1808 bi ax cloth instead of the 24oz. the 1808 should be all you need but its nice to have some ounce and a half mat on hand for minor surface filling and stuff.

coolmedown

And I wonder how much of these products I need to purchase? Any idea?

coolmedown

It appears West Systems does no make a polyester Resin. So who makes a good one?