Ever wish you hadn't?

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I can't say I try and repair boats or fix things myself.... not much point with P&B up the road.

Originally posted by Kev M WP_20140215_004.jpg by Kev "The Prince of Darkroom", on Flickr

Oh grief guys, don't exaggerate. This stuff ain't that hard. I'm no expert, but this is how I'd approach it.

By the looks of things its a rather scrotty repair which needs redoing because it wasn't done brilliantly the first time, or maybe an equally scrotty adaption to put the block in?

Not sure what the gunge is without handling it, but it all needs to come off anyway and everything sanded back to good fibre.

This is a pivoting rudder presumably, and we're looking at it from the back along the stock?

Take all the gunge off and sand plate and mating surface back to good and flat. Take a good look at the resulting mating surface, it may be it just doesn't have enough area at the top.
Glue the plate onto the rest of the stock with a nice strong (plenty of microfibre) epoxy mix. You want to get a nice fillet on the inside of the stock against the plate, so you'll need to do your best vet impression with a rubber gloved finger to smear it in there...
Either leave the fillet quite clear of the holes where the block goes through, or else make the fillet doubly deep, it just depends what's practical.
Review how much area ended up glued at the top. I fear it won't be much. If so it needs reinforcing. Radius the join in that area, and then run some carbon cloth - about 3 layers - from the main body of the stock onto the join. Hard to get it neat, but peel ply and pvc tape may help. Don't worry if it goes over the holes for the block.
When all cured, cut the hole for the block out neatly. If you managed to get the inner face flat then just pop rivet it on. If you didn't and you have a big lump of filler instead then drill and use self tapping screws. Tapping the hole and using a bolt and loctite would be even better, but who has the stuff to do that?

It is a bit sad that so many have lost the practical skills or the desire to fix things themselves. I think our consumer culture and lack of practical jobs has certainly a lot to answer for and I wonder if the majority will ever go back to learning the necessary skills to carry out simple repairs. Sure doing it yourself will probably take longer but there is an enormous sense of satisfaction once you've done it. I am wondering 'what have I done' with the deck of my Grad but I take the view that it has to look worse before it gets better!

Edited by craiggo - 06 Mar 14 at 7:02pm