gash on keel

[skip smith]

I have a 1987 aft cabin Hat with a gash about 10" long approx. 3/4 wide x 1/4 deep (another story) on my keel about 6' aft of the bow. My question is should I get a "profressional" to fix this or should I tackle this myself and if so what material should I use. The bottom was stripped 3 yrs ago and redone and looks great except the above mentioned fopa. Boat's out of the water now with 18" of snow on it so it will be awhile before anything gets done either way. Thanks in advance.
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[jim rosenthal]

..I would fix myself. GRind the area clean, grind a margin around it clean also, make sure everything is dry, fill the gash with West epoxy thickened with silica, and use their release fabric to get a nice contour on it. Then sand everything flush and put a couple of layers of light fiberglass cloth- about three, in increasing size, held down with West epoxy and silica, squeegeed down. One layer gets applied at a time, and you apply each new layer before the prior one gets fully cured so the epoxy will stick nicely to the previous layer. You'll probably have to do a final fairing over it all to get it smoother and get the weave filled up. That ought to hold it for a few hundred years or so.

[Dick]

Is there any moisture dripping out of the gash? Unlikely if it's only 1/4" but if so, you may have some adhesion problems. About 2' of my keel had to be sawed out (also another story). It dripped constantly. I think the yard built an internal dam on both ends to dry the exterior area for new glass.

[Mike36c]

Jim has it about right, and you might want to throw on a couple applications of barrier coat on the repair before bottom paint. Just for peace of mind. Mike

[jim rosenthal]

...West has a barrier coat additive that I used when I did a repair like this one. It has held up fine. It is I think silica powder and aluminum powder also. Like he says, everything has to be DRY or it won't stick.

[skip smith]

Thanks guys, I'll print this out for use when the weather cooperates. By the way there is no moisture in the gash as it did not penatrate too deep.As you can tell I'm not the most handy guy on the block and this forum has helped me a lot.Thanks again
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