[quote=Dogboy]The hull construction of the main deck area is gelcoat, outside layer of fiberglass, foam, inside layer of fiberglass. This is what is known as "sandwich construction". If there is just fiberglass with no foam core, then that would be "solid laminate". The keels, flanges, and crossbar areas of the hull are solid laminate. The deck and sides are sandwich.
Most soft spots in sandwich areas result from either the inside or the outside layer of fiberglass separating from the foam. (Note that a soft spot can also result from fracturing either the inside or outside layer of glass.) The easiest way to repair small areas of delamination is by injecting epoxy into the sandwich. The epoxy will bond the separated skin back to the core. The trick is to carefully drill through the outside layer of glass and through the core, but NOT through the inside layer of glass. The best way I find to do this is to put a drill stop or piece of tape on your drill bit about 1/8" to 3/16" from the tip. This will prevent you from punching all the way through the deck. Once you've drilled the hole to your mark, remove the bit from your drill and finish up by spinning the bit the rest of the way through the core by hand. You should easily be able to feel when the bit hits the inner layer of glass and that is when you stop.
If you do happen to punch through the deck all the way, then you've go a bigger project on your hands because you will need to plug that hole before injecting or allyour epoxy will drain into the hull.
sm[/quote]
No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)
