Peeled my bottom, what am I looking at now?

[Wind River]

I have used a Gelplane to peel one side of the hull on my Hudson Force 50. This was no easy task and the Gelplane manufactures claim of an experienced user being able to peel 9 square meters and hour was not at all what this inexperienced user even came close too. It took me about 25 hours to complete one side. Granted, it is a full keel boat with a 40 foot water line, 14 foot beam and 6 foot draft so there is quite a bit of surface area. I was peeling at the maximum depth of about .095".

In all the videos I watched before starting this project, what I saw after a cut was made, was clean white/cream colored fiberglass. What I got was anything from blackish, to yellow. I can see that cuts have not gone deep enough to completely remove every part of the blisters but they are opened up. There is quite a bit of a red material that is still on the hull. I am curious as to what this might be. After the bottom paint is cut through there appeared to be a grey barrier coat, then white gelcoat and then this red material that relatively thick, like a fairing material, but with a boat that was made from a mold I don't see a reason there would be a material like this between the gelcoat and the first layers of fiberglass. This material was very hard to cut through and would eat up cutting blades in a hurry. I went though 12 sets of double edge blade to do this one side.

Since the Gelplane left behind some ridges that will need to be sanded out I thought I would try a variable speed polisher/grinder wit an 8" pad and some 40 grit paper to take down the ridges and down to the bottom of all the blisters.

So what am I looking at here? Was there just too much material for the planner to remove in one pass? Not looking forward to doing two complete passes on this hull but I am committed now so what do you think?

[Wind River]

More.....

[Wind River]

Does all the color difference mean anything?

[zboss]

The pink stuff might be fairing compound.

[Jim Cate]

why would there be fairing compound inside the gel coat? They did some odd things in those shipyards, but I don't understand that one!

Maybe Minaret will chime in and offer advice... or the OP could PM him.

Jim

[Sailmonkey]

What my brain is telling me is that the boat was built over a male mold instead of a female mold. At least that would explain the fairing compound. As far as the different colors.....hopefully minaret will have some ideas.

[SV DestinyAscen]

Weren't these boats built with the same molds as the Formosa 51s?

If so, they're female molds - two halves bolted together. If gelcoat is original, I'd guess there was possibly some mold/boat separation issues and repair was done once they pulled the mold apart?

If not original gelcoat, someone spent a lot of time covering up that hull w/ fairing compound.

[Emmalina]

Peeled mine like a banana LOL took a while but now with 5 layers of epoxy on the hull I have peace of mind.. Various colour differences where down to humidity !

[billknny]

The pink sure looks like polyester fairing compound to me, aka, Bondo. You can tell by looking there is no glass in it, that it is an intermediate layer between the glass laminate and the gelcoat.

Those bubbles in it help explain why you have so much trouble with blisters in the first place. There should not be such voids in your hull.

[minaret]

Very clear what you are seeing is a previously done peel job and blister repair which failed. All the signs are there. Probably it was insufficiently dried.The redish filler is WEST with 407. Looks like alternating grey and white barrier coat, Interlux 2000, no gel. Make sure it gets really dry this time before coating. Meter readings are?


Any interest in selling your peeler when you finish?

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Wind River

Does all the color difference mean anything?

Yep, a lot of these boats were built outdoors in open molds. Rain, dew falling before full cure, workers sweat, all forms of moisture leave milky white spots. Black looks like it's the internal ballast.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Wind River

Does all the color difference mean anything?

Looks like a classic dry chopper gun layup. Depending on meter readings might be a candidate for a double or triple peel, followed by glassing the whole bottom back up in a couple of plies of vinylester.

[macman4190]

Originally Posted by minaret

Very clear what you are seeing is a previously done peel job and blister repair which failed. All the signs are there. Probably it was insufficiently dried.The redish filler is WEST with 407. Looks like alternating grey and white barrier coat, Interlux 2000, no gel. Make sure it gets really dry this time before coating. Meter readings are?

My boat was just peeled, dried, finished. Based on that experience, this reply is spot on.

[Clivevon]

I agree with Minaret. My first thought after reading your OP was to ask if you were sure the boat hadnt been peeled before. When was your boat built?

I assume you are peeling again because you have high moisture readings again. As I understand it, normal osmosis repairs just peel off the gelcoat & then recoat with epoxy. If you have uncovered significant fairing compound, maybe they had to go deeper into the laminate on your boat - as they did with mine.

As I understand it - I'm a boatowner with bitter experience in this area (eventually came good) - it is essential to do what it takes to dry out the hull before commencing the rebuild of the hull. In my case that took peeling, more peeling, lots of steamcleaning, multiple Hotvacs, 2 shotblasts, then Bingo - it suddenly dried out. The moisture readings which had been stubbornly high suddenly dropped dramatically.

I was told that on my 1981 boat, the uncured Glycols were trapped in the hull & the boat would not dry out until they were removed, no matter how deep. My experience certainly bears that out.

Good luck.

[Clivevon]

In case it helps, you can see a more detailed description of my boat repair here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2016043