damaged floor

I have just got a mirror but bottom is very weak and leaks in many places is it possible to glass over the complete bottom and if so how would i go about it as my diy skills are limited so any help would be most gratefully appreciated

Since you say the bottom is very weak and leaks in many places, I would replace the entire bottom of the Mirror with new plywood. There are a number of places in this forum that give good help on how to replace various plywood parts of a Mirror.

Also there are quite a few members of this forum who are very good at this task. Perhaps they will see your message and be of more help that I can be.

Pete

dictate's picture

Paddy, I would agree with everything that Pete has said.
I would add that if your diy skills are limited to a degree that discourages you from facing this task, you could consider looking out for a "hull only" on offer; they come up fairly often and you could well find a sound one worth transferring your existing fittings onto.
Incidentally, where are you based?
Take a look on ebay or on a facebook site called "dinghies and dinghy bits for sale".
You would need to post a "wanted" item on the latter and see what materialises.
Good luck whatever you choose to do. Oh, and welcome!
Dick

sail_and_oar's picture

Hi P Cleary and welcome.

Perhaps you could give us a little bit more detail. For instance when you said "bottom is very weak" do you just mean it's flexible and bendy? My boat is too and has been since I bought it in 2002. I think they're all like this.

Over the years I've managed to make holes in at least five ways

1 smashed hole in bottom of boat (twice)
2 fibreglass tape split along central seam
3 centreboard case came loose and began to leak
4 floor battens came loose and water got in through nail holes
5 footrest lost grip on it's securing screw which dropped out allowing entry of water

For all of these ills except the centreboard case, fibreglass could be used to keep the water out. The centreboard case is a bit different in that the seam which leaks is up inside the centreboard case and glassing it effectively would be very difficult.

For anything but a quick fix to get you through the season, fibreglass probably isn't the way to go and in any case it's probably better to attend to the individual leaks than glass the whole boat. If you want to use glass you really need to;

Remove paint, varnish, dirt from the hull
Get the plywood really dry
Use marine grade epoxy resin in your fibreglass. Polyester resin often sticks to the boat very poorly.

You can do a leak test with the boat on it's trailer by pouring water in it to see where it escapes from. Don't overload it with tens of gallons of water, a couple of bucketfuls should do. Let us know where it's leaking and we can talk you through the repairs. A bad centreboard case is a bit of a bear to fix. I hope yours is OK.

Mirrors are really great but plywood boats and DIY go together. If you hate DIY think about a plastic boat. It will cost more to buy but will be much cheaper to maintain over the years and may make you happier in the long run.

Having said all this, when I bought my Mirror I knew how to fix cars and weld but almost nothing about woodwork or boats. I just picked it up as I went along but made a lot of stupid mistakes while I learned and had to redo my bad "repairs" later.

Cliff

Kelly's picture

I've done both on my various boats. You can use thickened epoxy to fill gaps pretty permanently and it is strong. A two part epoxy (like West System) mixed with a filler (such as Cobosil) will fill seams, strengthen joints etc. There are different fillers that can be used but Cabosil is very tough - also tough to sand (think rock). If there's a crack on a seam then some fibreglass tape will help. Replacing an entire bottom will be a fair amount of work however if the bottom is completely shot it may be warranted. The suggestion to get another hull may not be a bad idea depending on how far gone the hull is. I have boats that I have glassed over completely - adds some weight, adds some durability (for rocky shores etc.), certainly adds some cost. If the wood is in good shape just look to seal up any cracks. Hard to say without a bit more info/seeing some photos. Cliff's right - DIY skills are acquired by trying things. If it doesn't work, try something else. Wood is pretty workable. And there are LOTS of videos to show you how. Building, repairing, restoring boats is nearly as much fun as sailing them! I've got some photos of one of my boats (a Mirror) that I did an extensive repair/restoration on - at the Can-Am Dinghy Cruising Association site https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Can-AmDinghyCruisingAssociation/info
- drop by and have a look. If I can answer any questions feel free to send me a message.
Kelly

Thanks to all replies you have given me food for thought it seems glassing over is not the best idea so is it best to replace bad timber or strengthen existing wood say by putting another floor in the cockpit area

Kelly's picture

If the wood is rotten cut it out and replace it. I can send you photos/instructions of how to do it. If it's not rotten and you just want to beef it up you can laminate another layer on top.

That would be great thanks my email is_____clearypaddy@hotmail.com

I've checked again and it seems that i have about 3 places where water is getting through 2 from previous repairs and another crack ive taken photos which i can send if i have an email address thanks in anticipation

PuffinInTegel's picture

Hello and welcome.
Being a non-profit privately run site, we hav limited space and prefer members to put their photos elsewhere and link them here to show them on the froum. There is a thread on that subject in the "about the forum" topics, I seem to remember, with instructions about how to link the pictures.
If that is not possible, I'm prepared to make an exception and you can send me the pictures (admin e-mail) and I'll upload and publish them.
Happy Easter to all readers, Mirrorists and forumites!
Gernot H.

I have been called a lot of things in my long life. But this is a first- a Forumite. They say that English is a living language. I wonder how long it will take to place "Forumite" in the OED? :-}

Happy Easter all.
Regarding the floor,poke around the places that are leaking to determine how soft the surrounding area is.
If not too big,cutting out and scarfing a section in is easy enough.Use epoxy resin to stick and spread over the replacement bit of ply.
If the leaks run into or close to one another the better,and easier, to replace the complete section of ply.
This is a link to my restoration, http://s1004.photobucket.com/user/merc800nut/library/?sort=2&page=1

PuffinInTegel's picture

And it was a great job, done by haventaclue :
before :

and after

21640 after

The disadvantage of the epoxy-soaked plywood brightwork is illustrated by the earlier pictures of the unrestored boat (seen on the photobucket collection). It looks pretty good even where the underlying ply is already rotten. My chainplate block looked like solid mahogany until the mast fell overboard one day as the screws pulled out of the rotted wood underneath. I then had to replace a big section of plywood as well as the block and the entire outer port gunwale strip.

PuffinInTegel's picture

@ P cleary : how are things progressing?
As I mentioned elsewhere, we don't allow direct uploads of pictures, but if you have them elsewhere on the WWW, you can link them here as in the examples above, using the img tag.
I can put up a limited number of pictures for forum members if they send them to the web-admin address by regular e-mail (not via the user "contact" function here).
Cheers,
Gernot H