Liquid Nails

[cjmcfall]

Hey everyone,

I am going to be doing some repair work to the soft cockpit sole of my new to me Laser II. I will be using the drill and fill technique that is discussed a lot here. My question is, can I use something like a "Liquid Nails" adhesive to rebond the soft sole together instead of an epoxy filler? Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Curtis

[sailingdog]

Using Liquid Nails, which is a polyurethane-based adhesive is a bad idea. It really isn't designed for this purpose.

If the area in question is more than ONE SQUARE FOOT in size, you need to really re-core the area in order to restore the strength and function to the area.

[cjmcfall]

Sailingdog,

That is what my initial thought was, but I'm not really sure why I felt that way. Any specifics of why a polyurethane-based adhesive is a bad idea?

Thanks,
Curtis

[Freesail99]

I used Liquid Nails to stick 2 inch foam board to a wall in a building. It doesn't work that great use putty epoxy if you don't want to use epoxy.

[sailingdog]

The mechanical properties of the adhesive aren't really the same as epoxy. Epoxy tends to dry to a very hard solid form. Most of the polyurethane adhesives tend to stay fairly elastic and flexible. You're trying to stiffen the cockpit sole, and a flexible adhesive isn't really going to do it.

BTW, Liquid Nails tends to foam a bit and take up space, but the material really isn't all that strong if it isn't in direct contact with a surface from my experience working on my sister-in-law's condo.

What you need to do is cut the laminate, dig out all of the bad core material, lay in new core material—either end-grain balsa, Airex or Divinylcell foam—bedding it in a thin layer of thickened epoxy to adhere it to the lower skin, and then glass over it, creating a new cored laminate to re-create what was there originally.