Kaholo damage repair

Builder's Forum
1

 Last fall my Kahola fell of the rack in my garage and got a few dents. Most sanded out but one will require a patch in the wood. I have now stripped the fiberglass from the top and noted that I have an 18 inch crack in one of the cedar boards along the grain, under where the deck pads will be installed once it is refinished. For the large dent I was going to router out the damaged area and inlay a patch (will be visible but not too significant). I won’t go completely through so that I don’t damage the integrity of the inside layer of fiberglass. Looking for suggestions for the long crack. Thinking of just fiberglassing over it and letting the epoxy fill the gap and strengthen it or fill first with some mixed wood flour and epoxy first, then fiberglass over. Open to other ideas as well. I don’t have a lot of experience with fiberglass as this was my first and only build, and that was 11 years ago.

Thanks for any help

2

How wide is the crack?

Filling it with unthickened epoxy should be fine if it's wide enough to let the epoxy run down inside. The only reason to use thickening agents like woodflour are to keep the epoxy from flowing out, but if there's glass on the inside that shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure that the crack is filled with no bubbles.

I'd fill first and then apply glass if it's a wide crack. If it's narrow, just laying down the glass and letting the excess epoxy soak through is fine.

Laszlo

 

3

   Thanks Laszlo. Should have included that… it’s less than a 1/16th.