Fiberglass Repair Dings Boats Article

LET'S FACE IT; we've all seen the following lakeside scene. An R/C boater is happily having fun with his model when suddenly everything goes haywire. The engine conks out, the radio signal locks up, the hull "whaps" something solid, or the boat pretends it's a submarine and crash-dives! Usually the culprit for all of these disasters is a minor part failure or some other overlooked factor. These nasty scenes need not happen at all!

GASKET LEAKS

If you keep blowing out cylinder base gaskets after rebuilding your boat's powerplant, here's what might be wrong: repeatedly cleaning the gasket surfaces with a coarse wire wheel, a knife, or a razor blade can remove too much material. The thin, narrow areas around the cylinder base and intake manifold can suffer most from this, as can the mating halves of the crankcase. Limiting your gasket-removal effort to just the gasket can prevent you from having a leaky engine.

BATTERY EJECTION

The radio systems used on most entrylevel, non-racing gas boats rely on the regular 4-cell battery holder for receiver power. And although these little AA cell holders do a decent job of retaining alkaline or Ni-Cd cells, the batteries can be jarred or bumped out of them! All it takes is one out-of-balance prop to shake an AA cell from the holder, and the result is an out-of-control boat! Just wrapping a rubber band around it or covering the holder with tape or shrinkwrap will help you to avoid having to sit and watch your free-running boat do "loop-de-loops" until it runs out of fuel, or worse, until it runs into something hard! The boat you save may be your own.

NOODLES

... no, not the kind you eat, "water noodles" are highly popular, 5-foot-long, round foam pool floats made from a semi-rigid foam. These noodles also make great flotation for gas hulls. Just measure out a length to fit in your hull, cut the noodle to length and stuff it into the empty space in your boat. These low-cost floats come in a wide selection of colors, so you can usually color-coordinate them to your boat's gelcoat finish.

ALTERNATE GRAPHICS

If you are having trouble finding a local source for custom graphics, buck up; there are other ways to decorate your gas hull. At a recent boat race, I found that some racers use Jet-Ski-style numbers and lettering on their hulls. These lettering and number kits are available through boat dealers, water craft and motorcycle shops and are even in some ski-equipment catalogs. A bonus is the various color combinations they're sold in. With a bit of luck, you can match them to your gas boat.

QUALITY PULL ROPES

OK; you let that nicked and frayed recoilstarter cord go for too long and it snapped. Few R/C'ers I know enjoy replacing a starter cord; but there is a way to reduce the possibility of it snapping: use the best cord you can find. Most replacement cord tends to be stiff nylon stuff with a low number of strands. Check with your local power-- equipment dealers for a good, high-- strand-count cord, and you'll greatly reduce the chances of another snapped recoil-starter.

RECEIVER R&D

Just like their electric and nitro cousins, gas boats can and will crash, and like the hull or engine, your radio gear can be stressed when the boat hits the water with something other than its bottom. Servos quickly let you know if they're not going to work, but the receiver and frequency-crystal damage might not be a obvious. The tiny components inside a receiver can be damaged without your knowing it, as can its plug-in crystal module. Savvy racers replace their crystals after a hard blow- over and will also send in their receivers for a yearly factory checkup, usually after the racing season. Don't wait till you have a problem.

BOO STUFF

To repair the normal nicks and dings your boat might encounter, you'll need a good, two-part epoxy. Most brands of epoxy filler/patch will work, but some are better than others. Marine-Tex patching compound, available at marine supply stores, comes in light and dark colors and is excellent for repairing any R/C boat. Fiberglass-hull repairs, gap filling and even some prop repairs can be done with Marine-Tex because of its slow cure time and hard finish. It can also be sanded and painted, so you can cover up that unsightly boo-boo.

POLLUTION PREVENTION

You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. A recent study of 2-cycle engines (those on power equipment, not RIC boats) concluded that a significant amount of the pollution created by these units is .spillage": the gas or oil that's spilled, vented or leaked by fuel lines on carbs. Luckily, RIC boaters as yet haven't been singled out by the federal government for environmental scrutiny, but who knows? I think it's a very good idea to police ourselves before aBig Brother" does it for us. Don't you agree?

Please understand that my ideas and "fixes" aren't the last word, by any means. I thought I'd just pass along some ideas that you might not have thought of. Think ahead, and almost no gas gremlin will be able to unexpectedly reach out and grab you by the tail.