Fixing my Canoe

Last week I found a canoe on Craigslist. It had been damaged in a windstorm, so it was cheap. I figured- Hey, I'll pick this up, fix it up, and learn something in the process. Then when it's done, I can have fun with it. So, I went and checked it out, haggled with the lady over the price, and strapped it on top of the car to bring it home. It came with paddles too!

Strapped on tight.

After getting it home, I needed to figure out how to repair it. It's a fiberglass canoe, and fiberglass isn't that hard to repair. I called up one of our neighbors who is really into kayaking & boating and asked him to help me work on it. Blu said of course! So I brought the canoe over to his place and we started working on it.

The Big Crack.

As you can see, it needed a lot of work. We started out by sanding down around all of the cracks. The patch needs fiberglass to bond to, so we had to sand through the paint and tough coating on the canoe to get to it. We started out sanding by hand.

Then we had a better idea and got out a belt sander.

After we got everything sanded down, we got everything ready for the patching to begin. We cut the fiberglass cloth into pieces the right size- 3 pieces per hole, wiped off the sanded areas with a cloth, and started mixing the epoxy.

After mixing the epoxy, it was time to start patching! We coated the area over and around the hole with the epoxy, put down the first fiberglass patch, then started working out the air bubbles. Here Blu is adding a bit more epoxy to make sure the patch is saturated. Then we added the next two layers, one at a time, and staggering them a bit to make the patch more solid. Here's one side of the canoe after the patches are all on. Then it needed to dry and set up for the next 24 hours or so. Wo-hoo! All of the minor patches are done!

Yeah- I didn't mention it earlier, but two of the holes needed attention above and beyond the patching with the fiberglass cloth. I mixed up some bondo and put it in the holes this morning. Later tonight I'll sand the bondo down and then put a fiberglass patch on it. Once it's set up, I'll take it out and make sure everything's fixed!

It's not pretty, but it should be fun. I'm thinking of calling it "The Green Monster."