78 Glastron with cracks. Should I worry?
 

I have a late 70's Glastron Starflite 140 I/O Mercruiser. After getting
it ready for the first outing of the season after storage, I noticed a
fairly long (6') hairline crack on the bottom port side along the keel.
In some places it has widened to about 1/16th of an inch. Should I
be concerned? Should I sand and apply fiberglass resin or something to
it? I can take pictures tomorrow and host them if needed.

TIA

"DjE" "diskman_1 atyahoodotc om" wrote in message
...
I have a late 70's Glastron Starflite 140 I/O Mercruiser. After getting
it ready for the first outing of the season after storage, I noticed a
fairly long (6') hairline crack on the bottom port side along the keel.
In some places it has widened to about 1/16th of an inch. Should I
be concerned? Should I sand and apply fiberglass resin or something to
it? I can take pictures tomorrow and host them if needed.

Yes, you should worry!

Fiberglass/polyester is *not* watertight and quickly get soaked with water,
making your boat several 100 pounds heavier.

Even more important, water inside the gelcoat is a sure recipe for osmosis
(blisters) which can, if left unattended long enough, delaminate your boat.

This is not a big problem, as long as you attend to it. But I would have
tried to find out how this crack came in the first place.

Remember to apply gelcoat/topcoat on top of the epoxy resin to make it
watertight.

--
Dag.

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:45:43 -0500, DjE "diskman_1 atyahoodotc om"
wrote:

I have a late 70's Glastron Starflite 140 I/O Mercruiser. After getting
it ready for the first outing of the season after storage, I noticed a
fairly long (6') hairline crack on the bottom port side along the keel.
In some places it has widened to about 1/16th of an inch. Should I
be concerned? Should I sand and apply fiberglass resin or something to
it? I can take pictures tomorrow and host them if needed.

It's not as if you have a hole in your boat - oh wait, you do have a
hole in your boat.

Yeah - I'd be concerned.

As old as it is, I'd be surprised if it didn't have something if it
was used on a regular basis.

In repairing, you might want to widen out the crack a little so you
can see into the crack and check it out - it may only be a gel coat
crack although at 1/16th wide, I'd suspect not. In any case, widen
out the crack evenly on both sides and about an inch or so fore and
aft of the crack. Clean the crack with a good solvent. You might
want to sand inside the crack and along the sides of the crack for
about an inch so the resin can get a good grip.

NAPA sells chopped fiberglass already in resin- all you need is to add
the catalyst. Pack the crack with that stuff, sand it down and it
should last you a while. You could also use a quick set epoxy filler,
but it won't stick as well as the glass will. Don't use Bondo.

Good luck.

Later,

Tom