WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
GRP repairs is aimed at the boat builder who wishes to keep on top of the typical repair and maintenance tasks which arise when one owns a boat. From gelcoat cracks and scratches to damage around fittings, to scrapes from moorings or even minor hull collisions which result in small hull punctures.
However, the course is also intended to provide a solid grounding in the use and application of glass reinforcement materials and polyester resins, and in the production of simple moulds and mouldings.
The course typically covers:
- Small scale lay-ups for dinghies and yachts, and GRP components.
- Safe use, storage, handling, and disposal of resins and related products.
- Understanding resin systems, and the reason for choosing one system over another.
- The measuring out, mixing and application of resins and related products.
- Cloths and weave patterns.
- Mixing and application of resins.
- Stiffening laminates, including attaching plywood bulkheads or frames as seen on smaller boats and yachts.
- The theory of advanced lay-up techniques, such as spraying, vacuum infusion, and pre-impregnated cloths.
- Students will perform a number of simple hand lay-ups to allow them to get to grips with the resins, cloths, pigments, fillers, and tooling.
- You will learn about sandwich construction and produce a panel with resin, glass and core material which will be consolidated using a vacuum bag.
- You will also learn to spot faults in lay-ups, either existing or new, and decide on corrective actions.
For the latter part of the course, you will practice and carry out repairs on sample sections with techniques to include:
- Repairs from outside in and inside out.
- Methods for regaining shapes of damaged or missing sections.
- The use of angle grinders with diamond cutting and abrasive discs.
- Colour matching theory.
- Surface finishing and polishing.
During this course we will use pre-accelerated polyester resin with CSM (chopped strand mat). Typically, the key techniques for producing laminates using cloths and resins with hand lay-ups remain the same whatever the resin system employed.
