Repair & maintenance: RS 600 Repairing a leaking hull joint

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RS 600 Repairing a leaking hull joint

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Repair & maintenance
Forum Discription: Questions & tips on the subject
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5055
Printed Date: 17 Aug 25 at 8:58am
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Topic: RS 600 Repairing a leaking hull joint

Posted By: Jimbob
Subject: RS 600 Repairing a leaking hull joint
Date Posted: 09 Jan 09 at 11:34pm

Some of the solutions proposed in topic for repairs inside an RS 600 are quite ingenious. So maybe some of you can help me.
The joint where the two hull sections meet opened and leaked along a length of about 300 mm at the point where the boat is supported on the launching trolley. I have made a repair by opening up the join a little bit, packing in epoxy and bolting the two halves together while the glue hardened. That has worked well enough. But the joint has started to leak slightly again; and the bolts don't look very good. Anyone got any suggestions for a better more permanent repair?

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Jimbob

Replies:

Posted By: Stevie_GTI
Date Posted: 10 Jan 09 at 3:37am

what did you put in your epoxy mix?

The usual way we would repair a leaky seam is to dremel out all of the join mix in the effected area, and then a little bit more, and then refill with a new join mix. To my knowledge the seams in a 6 can be pretty thin so you need to work relatively hard to make sure that plenty of mix goes into the seam.

Its best to do this with the boat upside down, and you need to make sure your mix is thick enough as when epoxy goes off it gets hot and will simply dribble away from the seam (make sure there are plenty microfibres in there as they will help prevent it running away)

Posted By: Jimbob
Date Posted: 10 Jan 09 at 1:04pm

Hello Stevie_GTI
I used ordinary two part epoxy glue. And I did the job with the boat on its side. I thought about dremelling out the joint but, as you say, each of the two joining leaves there is only a few mm thick, and dremelling didn't seem practical for me. I could see me being left with no leaves to glue together! So I drilled my bolt holes, put the bolts through, forced the two leaves apart with a screw driver, and put little wooden wedges in to keep the joint open while working. I then pressed the glue in with a spatula till it started to go off, then tightened up the nuts. The current slight leaking is occurring at one end of the repair next to where the joint wasn't opened and I couldn't get much glue in. And I realise that closing those two points satisfactorily is the weak point in my method.
I could remove the bolts but I haven't done so in case the joint opens up again.

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Jimbob

Posted By: Stevie_GTI
Date Posted: 10 Jan 09 at 1:12pm

i would advise using epoxy resin, and thicken it up with glass bubbles, micro fibres and colodial silica.

that is what the original join mix will be. the ration will be 2,1,1