Repairing Threaded Screw holes in Fibreglass Boat!!!

[breakthelines]

G'day guys,

As the title suggests I have been performing some general maintenance on my Seafarer Vantage and some of the screws on the hatch lid hinges are threaded, whats the best way to repair the holes so the screw will be able to be screwed in nice and tight again?

Cheers, BTL

[Nathan Tuskes]

generally you just drill the hole out oversize then fill with a bog mix(resin and talc or qcell then redrill pilot hole and rescrew

[bigjimg]

Gidday BTL It will depend on the amount of depth you have.If you have only got shallow skin to work with it may be best to drill through and use a countersunk bolt with a dome nut and washer to the inside.If you have got some reasonable thickness,say for eg 12-17mm then I would drill down without penetrating through with a 6mm wood bit{the ones with the spurs used for dowelling]and plug it with a 6mm wood dowel using epoxy glue.If you push the dowel in a mil or so top up with flow coat and polish back to brand new and start again from scratch.Sounds like alot of work but if your handy should only take a weekend to finish while enjoying a beer or three and listening to the radio while the glue and flowcoat go off.I"m about to use stainless threaded inserts epoxyed into the floor to fit my seat bases soundly onto the floor of the boat as they where stripped from the day they left the factory.Good luck.Jim

[Jarrah Jack]

Screws into glass will always come loose. Apart from the other ways suggested a nut and bolt can't strip the thread in the glass.

[chris69]

Well being a hatch and you can get under it over size with bolts or over size and fill with a plug epoxyied in as sugested above but try to use bolts with a washer on the under side and nylon lock nuts.

[Apollo]

What others have said about changing over to bolt and nuts is spot on. If this is not an option, then the solution is to get a small rat tail file and clean out the existing hole very slightly to give a good adhesion base. Mix up some good quality epoxy (making sure it has no air bubbles) and then with the bolt to go into the hole, smear a thin coat of vasoline over and through the thread (if you want to be able to get the bolt out again easily). Place the epoxy and bolt in the hole, taping up both sides of the hole to prevent the epoxy from running out secure the bolt from moving around. Let the lot fully cure and you have a new threaded hole perfectly matched to your bolt! We have been using this method for years on sailing boats and it works a treat. It is worth reinterating that if the bolt is required to be loaded for alot of strength, then go the bolt and nut.

Steve

[BM]

Items that can fall off and be lost should always be through bolted. I recall an old old boatbuilder telling me that some years backs.

So hatches should definitely be through bolted as screws will strip of over time. Likewise windscreens should be through bolted too, but some manufacturers use self tappers. Unbelievable but true.

Cheers

[Fed]

Have you got 2 self tappers into the deck and 1 self tapper + 1 screw & nut on the hatch BTL?

[breakthelines]

Sorry lads syuff up on my part it is the fibreglass floor cover for the fuel tank that has 2/6 screws threaded, so I can't use nuts and bolts.

[thylacene]

Without piccies it is hard to tell, but soemthing like this http://www.uncarvedblock.com.au/products/Stainless-Steel-T-Nuts.html might do the job if you can get to the back with the cover off.

[Fed]

I'm putting a curse on your boat BTL, I went to check my hatch hinges (Seafarer) to see what you were talking about and guess what, one of my hinges has sloppy screws.

I've got a bad feeling mine is an alignment problem and I'm betting when I tighten it up the hinges will bind. A Seafarer fit out problem and my warranty expired 25 years ago, what a ripoff.

[STUIE63]

I used a rivet thing it had threaded bores to accept metric bolts they were available in metric and stainless . it is designed for sheetmetal work so if the glass is too thick then it won't work . if you want more info then pm me and I will track down what they were called