Weekend Work

First order of business – fix the holes in the boat. I had drilled them a couple of days before, and let them dry out, since it had to be dry to create a secure bond. Bright sunshine was predicted for the weekend – perfect.

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Nooooo! Dodging Jack the Ripper, I made it to the boat.

The stuff I was going to repair the holes with was called Marine-Tex, and came in two pots. One was the actual stuff itself (it’s epoxy with fiberglass thickener) and the other was the hardener.

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Mix them together and it’s set within the hour, so you have to work fast. I was worried about the dampness of the area, and my abilities at using the stuff so I decided to start on a project that if I DID muck it up, it wouldn’t have such a high consequence if it failed.

The ‘fasteners’ that hold the cabin ladder in place had come off completely, so this was a great place to try out my technique. Below you can see the before and after pics.

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I eventually managed to get in the holes, however I managed to get it all over my hands, my trousers, my shirt, the steps, the random screw I used to jam the putty into the hole in desperation, my face, the counter, a cloth, the floor and the sink. Apart from that, it went ok! I left it to harden.

The next day, I arrived back with a heatgun, so I could dry out the holes.

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Armed with this, I dried out the holes in the hole, before filling them with marine-tex. This time I managed not to coat everything in it, and got most of it in the hold and smoothed it off. From the outside this is what the repair looked like.

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I’ll leave this a couple of days, then sand it down and bevel it to a slight saucer shape. I’ll then fill it with fiberglass mat and eproxy and shape it into the correct place, providing extra strength.

With that stage done – I decided to remove the head. I got bin bags, kitchen roll, tape and gloves ready.

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I had assumed that the entire thing was self-contained but as soon as I unscrewed the bottom green goop started leaked out. Nooo! Not like this!!

I jammed kitchen roll all around the edge and managed to soak up most of it

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After managing to soak up all the goo (which I think was detergent), I sealed off the two pipes with tape and kitchen roll.

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Next step will be to remove the holding tank itself (blech) and the heaps of pipes.

Matt

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