Damaged marine ply

[themannsindorse]

P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } I have a 20' cabin cruiser (see picture) with a GRP hull and marine ply top. I purchased her two years ago and the time has come to re varnish her. One problem I have is a previous owner (I am the third owner) used a power sander and accidentally went right through the top layer of ply one of the side panels. He or she did notice notice this at first and quite a bit of damage was done.
This has left depressions and also a lighter golden colour. My first thought was to just strip the varnish off, stain the light coloured bits to match the undamaged bits and then revarnish. However it would be nice if I could somehow re veneer the entire section or possibly “fill” the patches so that it all becomes flat again.
Has anyone out there had to tackle this kind of problem and do you have any tips for me?
Thanks. Peter. Dorset. UK.

[chrisjs]

From personal experience with other projects, I very much doubt that you will ever get the newly stained portion to match. I also doubt a thin veneer would hold up very well. Is it possible to hide the defect area with some sort of overlay or trim piece - or perhaps the area is too large? Failing that perhaps you could cover the whole larger section with thin marine ply (rather than veneer), and match the other side in the same way? Last option is probably the easiest and most likely to succeed. Fill the damaged area with fiberglass resin, smooth flat and paint with marine paint, and match the other side again. Of course you try staining first because if it does not meet expectations, you can still move onto the other approaches!!

[Boracay]

Would it be possible to fill the damaged areas and then to laminate heavyweight fibreglass cloth on top?