...and here are my questions for everyone, including a few issues I ran into.
1)
Should I leave the 1" x 3" piece in place? I'm thinking no, but welcome other opinions. It would make for less unsupported epoxy, but my new exoxy would have to be a thinner coat onthat end.
2) When grinding down I hit a few areas that had voids. Are these from air pockets? Below are some pictures of the biggest void, which is about 2" accross.
How should I handle this? I'm thinking I should grind it out until I hit solid glass all around the edges and then fill it with thickened epoxy. You can see in the second pic that there is still some hollow area under the fiberglass.
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3) This is the biggest problem. I was grinding towards the forward end of the work area, and all off a sudden hit a wet spot in the fiberglass. I kept grinding around the area so find where it was coming from and water continued to seep out of the upper part (starboad side) of the ground out hole. Kept seeping out for at least an hour, and may still be leaking (had to stop and cover boat for the night). When I covered it up it was seeping maybe up to a teaspoon every minute or two.
I can't figure out where its coming from. Before starting the project, I sprayed a small amount of water (maybe 1-2 quarts over 2-3 minutes) over the shaft log to confirm the original leak. That water was minimal. Some may have hit around the bottom of and below the hole, not the top though. This was the only water the boat has been exposed to since July, except for some rain (not a lot) getting through the cover occasionally. Non of the glass or resin around the log, even where I made it leak yesterday was wet like this.
Any thoughts as to how this could happen and what I should do? Hoping I dont need to grinding up my whole bilge? You can see from the pics that I'm almost up against the sidewall of the bildge.
Started around the middle. Whole area wet...
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Thanks!