REFIT HELP!!!!!

Okay  some help please from anyone with POF skills better than mine.

I have an M Class Monitor that is POF.  However the card plating over the POF started leaking so I have started a refit.  Now I have removed all the card plating - so far so good - and used filler where I can see a few visible gaps in the POF.  Now started the sanding down process so effectively I will soon have a nice smooth hull with no trace of the glue or remainder of the card plating.  I am not going to replate her just want to make her watertight for some sailing as opposed to making her a plated replica of the original.  Clearly although I have only filled in gaps where I can see there is a separation there will be other hidden gaps the water will seep through and I will need to make sure these are covered and proofed before painting.  I also don't want to use FG cloth and resin on the outside.  I was thinking of using something like shellac as a coating over the now bare planking and then painting over.  Anyone got any advice as to a quick easy way to waterproof the hull on the outside?   Sorry for any dumbness in my question - only ever built 2 POF and its fine building but this is the first refit and I don't want to completely take off the stanchions etc and virtually start from scratch.

hi matey......if you don't want to use grp resin and cloth on the outside, how about it on the inside, if you can get to all the areas of the hull...........I am of the type who couldn't do pof for love nor money and always had gaps and so coated the insides with resin and surface tissue ( a very thin lace cobweb type cloth ............but if you don't want to use that then try "Bounce" cloths..the cloths that the misses puts in tumble dryers to make the clothes smell nice after a tumble......with these you can use either sanding sealer or a varnish to impregnate the cloth, and it will set rock hard.............but to put a varnish on the outside is a futile exercise as the timber expands and contracts as the air in the atmosphere moistens and dries, and unless you have someway of anchoring those planks they'll continure to allow water in. neil.

Very helpful Neil.  I might explore the bounce and sanding sealer method but as for resin and cloth - any particular brand of resin you have used?  I don't want to remove the motor mount and motor etc so I want something I can 'swill' round inside before it sets so it can get into the places hard to reach.

If you don't want to use any type of cloth inside, then just resin (from Halfords) works well. Pour it into each compartment and swirl around.

The other option is sanding sealer and aircraft tissue on the outside - provided you are down to bare wood.

Barrie

All methods work fine, pouring resin in a hull gap with no cloth will water tight the hull, but it will cost you extra weight and won't add much strength that's why we normally add cloth to the resin to create a Strong casting.

Adding cloth will do the same thing watertight the hull and add strength, but it will take a bit more work to get the cloth into all the gaps and no air bubbles where water might get trapped into should you not seal the hull properly.

P38 (body filler) around any gaps, planking gaps etc and sanded down will help seal a leaky hull. you could use an equivalent wood filler, but this will require a sealed finish/ sanding sealer or a paint as P38 can be porous and wood fillers on a similar wavelength.

I use West system epoxy or the fasglas (halfords cheappy tins) they do work really well, if im glassing up larger areas i will use the west systems expoxy as i can get up to 2 hours work time using their slow cure mix, but mostly for hull repairs and sealing i do swear by the halfords fasglas cheap 10 min setting time epoxy.

Not sure if that helps maybe...

RR

Thanks barrie and RR.  This advice with Neils helps no end.  Halfords we will go!!

Well have used some Fasglas in the insides and worked it in all over so now just waiting to test for water integrity tomorrow when it has fully set.  Hopefully I have covered it all over but we will soon see.