First of all, does anyone know what the difference is when you cut out epoxy vs poly?

I can tell there’s a couple different resins been used “repairing” my boat in the past. Some puddles of resin are like orange colored glass, and others are like cutting through plastic.
Problem is, if any of this is epoxy, all my work will most likely not stick to any previous work.

So I’m in the middle of restoring my old gal.
In the middle of cutting out the transom and knees, I found this patch. From the outside, it doesn't look like this is plugging a hole, but I have no idea what this is made of, or why it’s here to begin with.

Whoever did this is NOT a pro, they even tried glassing over paint.

Most of what that did was very poor workmanship, you can see how much dry glass there is. I pulled it all out with a small pry-bar. What’s left is extremely solid.

How should I address this? I’m guessing I gotta grind all this out…

Here’s the glass I just pried off with a simple prybar.

There’s also *At Least* 25 holes in this transom. I’m gonna fix every one of them while I’m this far in.
Anyone working on anything almost 40 years old should beware of what might be lurking behind some old repairs.

nice

do it,
do it right!
worth the effort at that point !

Yep buddy you gotta grind it all off.

In fact after you de grease the entire bilge and grind off the bilge paint or gelcoat that's on there from the factory so you'll get a good bond when you install the new stringers and glass, you'll be 1/2 done grinding off all the original tabbing in the whole engine room.

Tyvek suits replaceable cartridge mask a sh!t load of 36 grit, then ride the grinder till it burns out and buy another.

i swept at least 50 pounds of grinding dust out of the bilge on my last little project and that much again probably blew all over the neighborhood-
swear to God thought all my neighbors were on heroin walking around scratching until i realized what it was.




Fiberglass dust.

Even as a hobby, all the extra grinding is worth it. Easier to fit and bed down the new stringers, for sure a better bond and a better looking job to be proud of, even when i do it.