A restoration tale (with pics)

If I do take on repairs, is it ok to grind grp? I have a grinder and am wondering what type of disc to use? Reason I ask is that grinder runs at one speed only and I am wondering if it is too fast for grp.

fergal.b wrote: »

the fibers can get everywhere and make you feel like you are covered in itching power.:eek:

Im well used to that by now, not to mention being covered in tar, tar balls in the hair and speckle burns all over my face from stripper. Bing it on. As I say - health and safety, how are you!

fergal.b wrote: »

Work away with the angle grinder a stone disc should be fine and wear eye goggles gloves and a good mask as the fibers can get everywhere and make you feel like you are covered in itching power.:eek:

Dont you mean a metal disk, the stone disks (I assume you mean the ones for cutting into stone/masonary) are smooth with just a few teeth. I wont be doing any cutting, just grinding back and creating a feathered taper for repairs so will be using the flat of the disk.

fergal.b wrote: »

One of these, nice post johnny f

Can you describe this, I cant read label

My question was really about grp and grinders wrt to speed and melting. Now that you say it's ok to use a grider, I think I can stick to my existing metal disks for both cutting and feathering.

fergal.b wrote: »

Keep it moving and you should be fine I can't wait to see what your next photo will be like when you cut away all the crap :eek: Good luck.

Weather bad here atm. I may not get at the boat for a while. My next job is to strip the port underside. God knows what that'll uncover. If it's raining tomorrow, I'll post a pic of all the glass / resin kit that has arrived in the past few days and document it.

Day 18

Despite the wind and rain, I went out to the boat today, got myself in under the tarp and finished off stripping and sanding the hull port underside. I'll say it again, job from hell, job from hell!!! Lying on your back on gravel and grass, working closely above your head with paint stripper and then sanders. You get covered in crap and no matter what kind of eye protection, you still get it in the eyes. I made myself a pillow out of old blankets rolled up and squeezed into plastic. This really helps. You no longer strain the neck muscles and thus use less energy. I notice a level of fitness kicking as I was able to move along under the hull and keep the sander held aloft for much longer periods then I was a few days ago. Sore shoulders at night though.

The good news is that there are no patches or repairs on the port hull underside. The side keel is delaminating at the leading edge but I knew that. So all the damage was to one side only. Makes you wonder, I wander was this boat badly moored near rocks or something and abandoned there to wreck. All the repair damage on one side???

Anyheeew, the boat is stripped. The dam boat is stripped. I'd never have believed it. And when I say stripped, I mean stripped properly, the exterior is now completely right back to the original gelcoat. That took some doing.

I'm gonna wait for warmer and calmer weather before I start any repairs. I want to plan jobs, have my cloth cut and ready for each Epoxy batch but it needs warm temps to cure. Out of technical interest for those following, here is a pic of the grp repair kit that arrived in the recent past. I ordered the Epoxy resin from Fyne Boats across the water but have since discovered MBFG in N.Ireland. I will deal with them in future cos they have a great range of stock but they also deliver this type of kit down to the republic whereas getting it from UK is a major hoohah. Most of the suppliers now either refuse to ship any 2part Expoy solution or charge a fortune as it's considered hazardous. The Hempel, cloth, filler etc arrived from MBFG yesterday.



1. Acetone, just for cleaning grp feathering.
2. Freefix 2 part bonding paste
3. Hempel Epoxy filler
4. 280gsm woven roving 6x1m
5. 600gsm woven roving 6x1m
(I went for this mix of cloth as csm is not good with epoxy. Now that I have received the cloth, the 600gsm seems very heavy)
6. Silica Epoxy mixer (came with Epoxy kit)
7. Wood flour blend Epoxy mixer (came with Epoxy kit)
8. 6Kg Epoxy kit. Catalyst is in white container.
9. Mixing pumps for Epoxy kit, helps get the mixing ratio correct
10. Chopped strands 6mm. These can be mixed into Epoxy to form a good strong paste.
11. Various sundries. Rollers, mixing trays, hardeners, gloves, disposable brushes, mixing sticks etc

Also won 2x300ml Sikaflex on Ebay last night. €15 delivered. Not too bad, I'm told the stuff is amazing for bonding wood to grp

Thanks for all the comments. At the moment - rain halts play but I'm hoping to make a new post on trailer restoration in the coming week or so.

Day 19

Since May 1st, it has rained non stop in the North West. When I say it has rained non stop, I mean non stop. I think we had a 20 minute period on May 7th where it abated slightly but apart from that, I have started putting two of every animal I can find into the dam boat. I literally have not been able to go near the boat, I spend quite a lot of time trying to keep the tarp pinned down as it's not only raining a lot here, it's also almost constantly windy and some days it's just plain blowing a storm.

If I can't get at the boat, then I need a fix so let's have a go at the trailer. I took the trailer asunder in the past week and stripped off as many parts as I could. There were three roller brackets on the main beam that were beyond repair so I lobbed them off with the angle grinder. The trailer itself is plain steel or cast iron so it's fairly rusty. The wheels are pure rust buckets as is the hitch which has seized.

I decided to give an old trick I used to do a try. Rust removal by electrolysis. This is a really simple and very effective way to get rid of rust and it's great fun for anyone into science and chemistry. (remember this from school?). Basically we use a baking soda solution, an anode, an electrical charge and the workpiece to be de-rusted.

Make up a container of water, add a little baking soda (or washing soda), perhaps a teaspoonful for every litre of water. Get yourself a sacrificial anode, in this case, a lump or two of iron or straight steel, any ferrous metal should do. These are connected to the positive side of the electrical source and placed in the solution. The workpiece is connected to the negative side of the electrical source and also placed in the solution. Make sure you get this polarity right! The piece and anodes are now fully submersed in the solution but make sure they do not touch.

Fire up the electrical charge. If all is well, you should immediately see tiny bubbles coming form the piece under the water. If you see nothing, check your connections. Connecting to old rusty lumps of iron can be tricky. get a wire brush or angle grinder and clean the metal back, then retry the connection. For my power source, I used my battery charger. It can operate at either 12 or 24 volts and has a boost switch that pumps out 20 amps. So I set it to 24v @ 20 amps and for each piece, I left it run for 24 hours. As the electrolysis takes place, your anodes rust down and the tiny bubbles combine to produce a rusty sludge on the water surface. This is good, it means that the process is working. By the way, those bubbles are pure hydrogen so do this in a well ventilated place and do not smoke or do anything that might cause a flame. A hydrogen build up will blow you away!!

Another thing worth mentioning is that 24volts @ 20 amps is the kind of current you will feel. Put your hand in the water, grab an anode and see what happens. Bit more than a tingle. So beware, operate with rubber gloves and remember that connecting and disconnecting your positive lead to your anodes often produces sparks (remember that hydrogen) so you can see the need for ventilation. I did my electrolysis outside the window with the battery charger inside.

Electrolysis works strongest in line of sight mode so having a few anodes connected up together and surrounding the work piece is ideal, or else you can turn the piece every so often so that a new side faces the anode. The results are amazing. Electrolysis works only on the rust, paint and any layers above good metal. When it gets to bare metal it stops. You will see some of the results I achieved in the pictures below.

In the meantime, seeing as I am working on the trailer, I am going to need a towbar. After a few weeks of looking and searching, a call to North West autoparts last week finally yielded results. Guy there had one. I was delighted upon calling to see it came with the electrial assembly and all fitting nuts and bolts. Haggled him down to €50. Needs a bit of a cleanup and painting.

I was also delighted to be able to restore the trailer ball hitch. My local hire shop was able to supply me with a new safety release spring so I now have it stripped, and primed. It will be as good as new. Unfortunately I was not so lucky with the jockey wheel. It is ceased beyond repair. Even my local mechanic could not budge it. Looks like I'll have to fork out for a new one. Can't win em all.

The trailer frame itself is being stripped and will soon be ready for painting. I am using Hammerite rust primer on all parts followed by a Hammerite "straight to rust" overcoat. I dont know if it'll be any good, the overcoat is not going onto the primer too well. Perhaps I didn't need a primer at all but I'm old school, I could not bring myself to paint metal without rust primer.

1. Towbar bought for €50. Came with all fittings, nuts and bolts and the electrial assembly. Great bargain. Sometimes I love being poor.


2. Electrolysis bath. Here I am using two anodes opposite each other. They are connected with a bit of spare cable terminated with croc clips. The workpiece is placed between these so that we get full electrolysis from two sides at once. You can see the before and after, where the process creates a rust coloured sludge.


3. Rusty wheel before and after.


4. Trailer ball hitch before and after. Amazing result. I also installed a new safety release spring so the unit is now as good as new. The after pic was literally 5 minutes with a wire brush, the paint and gunk just fell off it.


5. This is my battery charger. The ideal chargers are the simple types with good high amp options.