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Hey Ron, can I pick your brain for a few questions?

I'm restoring a Viper and my plan for my build is going to be a Frankenstein of how you did yours and how proprider did his.
I'm fairly confident that doing the interior structure won't be an issue, however, my hull is pretty beat up on the outside too. In your rebuild articles on the Hydrostream.org site, you added cloth and cloth strips to the outside hull and strakes. My questions for you are in regards to that:

#1 - Did you simply coarse sand the gelcoat to allow for bonding of the new cloth, or did you grind/sand as much off as you could? I can't really tell as the pictures aren't that large, and the hull still looks fairly blue. I'd like to do the same for my boat, as most of the clearcoat is gone and the metalflake is flaking off the metal bits in places.

#2 - What kind of cloth did you use? I thought that I could probably get away with using regular stitchmat, but I want to know what you used.

Thanks!

Hi Adam

I had to support the outside of the hull because of the stress cracks in the factory layup especially at the lifting strakes.
I really needed the 2 layers in these areas.
I roughed up with 80 grit and used vinylesther resin. I used 6 oz cloth. I was able to use a bondo spreader to squeegee our the excess resin and keep it flat. Stitch mat is too thick and won’t roll over the lift strakes.

Did you see the .org registery article? If so click on the thumbnail picture and it goes full size.

Vinylesther or epoxy is ONLY WAY you will get cloth to stay adhered to ground glass.

Hope this helps.
Ron

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Thanks Ron.

Yes, I'll be using vinylester resin. Epoxy just isn't in my budget, and we pay through the nose for materials here in Canada. (1 gallon of VE resin is $70 - West 105 epoxy is even more at $130 a gallon)

One more inquiry....

The original gelcoat on your Viper...it looks like it was a Bruiser metalflake...that someone gelcoated over (as you stated in the article) in a lame attempt to duplicate the Bicentennial colours.

In part 2 of your article, it looks like you left quite a bit of flake on when you laid the new cloth over.



I'm assuming glassing over the flake is OK as (maybe) it adds texture for the resin/cloth to adhere to?

Hi Adam.

The flake is buried in clear gelcoat so I had good "tooth" weather it was grabbing the gel or the flake.
Once sanded, the surface was able to accept the vinylester resin. This resin has a much more "adhesive" quality so you can get away with putting cloth directly over a sanded surface.