Repairing My Boat

    All of the materials and things I needed to repair my boat had arrived Tuesday in the post. I decided that I'd start the repair Wednesday after college as it was only meant to take about 10 minutes to do. I started off by setting everything I needed up in the garden with my boat and on a table so I could have a better view of what I was doing.


    I start by taking off as much as the old damaged seam as possible before the new kevlar was put on. This was to ensure there couldn't be any tufts or bumps on the new seam.




  It was then time to mix the resin I'd be using to stick the kevlar to the boat. I decided to use my fibreglass resin which I use for repairing my squirt boat, thinking it would be good enough for my GuiGui. Mixing the resin is always a guess of if there is enough or not enough hardener in with the resin. I used just an old stick which I found in the garage to mix the resin and hardener throughly.



    Next I put some of the resin over the area which was receiving the kevlar strip. This was to help it stay put when dabbing more resin over the kevlar. Then I had to try and move the kevlar into the right place and make it bend around the nose of the boat, which was really hard as it kept coming away from the boat. After the kevlar had kind of stuck to the boat I got my release film and put a bit over the area to hold the kevlar down tight.
As you can see, it's not great
    I decided to leave the boat for a bit to cure. When I returned an hour later the resin hadn't hardened much, which was a shame. I found a way which enabled me to actually cut the kevlar as I couldn't make a clean cut without fraying the material or unweaving about 2 inches of the strip. I wrapped the area I wanted to cut in masking tape and cut through it with scissors which worked quite nicely.

I also cut the rest of the lengths of kevlar which was needed to give my boat a bit of a reinforcing in the places it had received the most knocks. 



    In the morning I got the nose almost finished and was just waiting to put the final little strip on the finish it off. I'd also decided to put a strip over the stern seam of the boat as there was a knock which had frayed. Also on the corners at the stern as they had taken a bit of a beating at different places.

    Where I have used a different resin to epoxy I've been left with these little blobs of resin which are a pin to get rid of and look generally untidy. Defiantly going to buy some epoxy resin for next time, or hopefully never!
The stern of the boat just waiting to cure

The bow of the boat almost finished
Finally out to dry in the fresh air



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