Repairs

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13 years 8 months ago #4702 by aracer
Repairs was created by aracer
Today I rather stupidly dropped my new V12 off the roof of my car - had been being so careful with it, and only put it up there to avoid scratching it on the ground. The sum total of damage is one broken rudder snapped in two at the base of the shaft, one big dent in the side right at the tail and some small gelcoat chips at the bottom of the nose - could have been a lot worse I suppose (though right now I'm possibly most irritated that I didn't get the paddle I'd driven 4 hours round trip for!) Looking for any tips and comments on repairs.

Is the rudder a total write off, or is it possible to repair a broken shaft? The blade itself is absolutely fine - any chance of drilling out the existing shaft and gluing in a new one?

The big dent is right at the tail in a low stress area. Is where it landed on a small stone, hence has dented the whole sandwich, but is I think still watertight, so I'm thinking of just using some car body filler to fill the dent. Would proper epoxy resin with a bit of CSM in be a better bet? I'm thinking the body filler will be more flexible though, hence less likely to crack out.

I can do gelcoat repairs for the chips, but slightly confused about the construction of my V12 performance. According to Epic it has a polyester gel coat, which all my sources suggest doesn't bond well to the epoxy used in the layup - this might explain how the gelcoat has just chipped off right down to the weave. Should I use proper gelcoat or a bit of epoxy to seal the weave?

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13 years 8 months ago #4708 by latman
Replied by latman on topic Re:Repairs
Yes you need a new rudder ,IF you could drill out the shaft and glue a longer piece in there there is nothing you could do to stop it spinning inside the blade (with a bit of torque).There are 3 small "spreaders" ? built in to new epic rudders.
Be Careful with the colour white you use for Gelcoat repairs, Those off the shelf in Australia are not a good match .maybe your dealer can get you what the used in the china factory.(its a bit purple)
CSM uses a binder to hold together which is softened by the styrene in Vinyl ester and polyester resins ,Epoxy doesn't have any styrene so you will have to chop up cloth if you want to make a paste(very hard to sand smooth).
I think you should just use body filler too(bondo in USA) to fill a dent in a non structural area. Good Luck

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