Maxprop wrote:

Questions:

I have an old Laser which has a hull/deck flange. The bond is lost along
quite a bit of the flange.

Do you mean that the the flange is damaged, big chunks torn
out of it, or that the area of the bond between layers is
gone soft & cheesy?

.... It appears that someone attempted to rebond it
with epoxy at one time, but unsuccessfully.


It was probably considered successful, at least for a while.

My questions are these: 1) Since polyurethane adhesive, such as 3M 5200, is
often used as a hull-to-deck bonding agent on larger boats, wouldn't
polyurethane be suitable for a smaller boat, too?

Yes. A lot of people like Sikaflex better.

.... 2) The space between the
two shells along the flange is too narrow to get something as thick as 5200
to flow into it. Since Gorilla Glue is a polyurethane adhesive, any reason
it wouldn't work as well? It would flow nicely into the space and it
expands when it cures, which would fill the space nicely.

Any opinions or experience with Gorilla?


I haven't used Gorilla Glue much, and IMHO it isn't really
very strong (so I don't plan to use it in the future). It
does not fill gaps very well either (again IMHO), seems to
foam up.

The best way to repair a hull/deck joint is to seperate them
and re-attach them along the full length. Yes it's a PITA.
But if you need a project for a long winter, it's great. At
some point along the way, you'll be telling yourself 'it'd
be easier to just build a d^%% boat from scratch' which
tells you you're on the right track.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King