jserb

guys i have a probem i need solutions fast. i am finishing an airboat and i guess i undercatgalized the fiberglass and now its just a bunch of goop on some cloth!!!! i need to know how to fix it!!! someone please help. the box said "1 quart" and said to add 1 tespoon of catalyst for one ounch. BUT i didnt want to use the whole can of resin so i decided to do some math and i cam up with 1/2 cup of resin to 1/8 tespoon of catlyst. please someone help me!!!!! i need ANY help you can think of!
HOW DO I FIX THIS MESS ON MY BOAT!!!

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

You could try hitting it with a heat gun might help set it off.

Failing that, scrape it all off the best you can and do it again.

Don

Zac Price

Yep, what hattend said.

Heat helps the hardning process, and if heat doesn't help wipe off and try again.

3dd

My Feedback: (6)

go to ace hardware and get a gallon can of acetone and lots of shop rags and start wiping,if it didn't set right it won't set right.and the math should be ten to fifteen drops per ounce of resin depending on what brand you use

Tachikaze

jser,
I had this same problem in the construction of two of my boats. I either messed up on the mixture or I used old hardner, either way, the resin failed to harden.
Save your self a lot of time, do not even try to get what you have done to harden, it will not woek. If you try to heat this you may get some superficial hardening, but the inner depth of the resin will not harden. When you go to sand the resin to finish you wil expose areas if sticky unharden resin, you will find this trough out. If you try to place another layer of glass over this with the correct mixture, you will not have a firm layer as it will be sitting on that softer sticky layer. When you go to sand, if you expose any of the deeper layer, you will be openig up your new layer.
You will save your self a lot of time and materials if you just use the acetone as recommended, pull alll of the stuff off and start all over again.
Trust me, I have tried all of these things to try to avoid redoing the job and they all failed.

Macleod

As Tachikaze has stated, Dont bother to fix it, get it off and prep the job for glassing it again. Scrap the goop off clean with acetone (Dont destroy the job you are glassing) make sure the acetone has fully evaporated before beginning again.

One important thing I have found over the years of Fibreglassing is do a small amount of resing in a container add the catalyst (About 2%of the volume of resin in hot weather and 4% of the volume of resin in cooler weather, for polyester) and mix and time the geltime (the time between, finishing the mix to when it turns to gel). this will give you your working time with the resin. Working Temp is between 25C to 35C (77F to 95F)

Our polyester resin starts blue in colour and turns green with catalyst and can go brown/red if too much catalyst....

Do the same test with the epoxy or vinyl ester resins following the manufactures instructions for the hardner.

krpnova

Ultraviolet light will cure the resin. Set it out in the sun and it will cure.

Tachikaze

No, the ultra violet light will not cure it. Been there, done that. Do as suggested, remove the old stuff and start anew. You will save your self a lot of time and money.

krpnova

I beg to differ with you Tachikaze, but I have been doing fiberglass work for over 40 years,and it will work. Set some un-catalyzed resin out in the sun and see what happens.