Restoring OT Molitor with Fiberglassed hull

I am new to canoe restorations, so I need some help with the process.

The fiberglass is generally in good shape(marred areas and a couple of small cracks) and the wood has no mechanical issues. The varnish is peeling and needs to be redone.

Can I strip the canoe entirely (remove old peeling varnish inside and out), lightly sand everything, skim coat expoxy over the fiberglassed areas (outside), and then varnish everything (inside and out)?

Also, if I do find some delamination of the fiberglass from the hull can I repair the fiberglass (injecting epoxy under or cut area for patch) or do I need to remove it and go with canvas?

Thanks!

In my humble opinion, glass is bad, and eventually, it'll separate from the hull in many places. Its ok when glass is on both sides, but when you have it on one side of cedar, you're asking for trouble. Thats why they still use canvas, so it can move around as the hull does, getting wet and dry over and over. Replace the canvas and strip out the interior and give her some new varnish. Perhaps find a local WCHA Chapter where someone can help you along.

another opinion .

If your canoe was factory 'glassed then I'd suggest you follow your plan of action. I agree with Chris that 'glass is bad for a wood/canvas type of construction, but I do make an exception for a factory 'glass job.

Harney,
Most of us really don't like fiberglass and advocate removing it. That said, it sounds like you have one of the hulls that OT shipped with glass. If you provide your SN, someone can confirm this for you.
I am not sure if they made the glassed Molitar with lighter planking. They did this on the Guides they glassed. Point being, it may not be possible to strip the glass and canvas from your boat. In which case, you need to settle for repairing it as best you can.

So to your questions, you can strip the varnish but you will need to be careful not to over soak the wood with stripper and you will also need to be careful with how much water you use to clean it. You don't want to ruin the hull and the bond with the glass. You can certainly lay epoxy over small blemishes to clean up the finish. Getting into removing and repairing the glass get's interesting but you can read about this here in the stripper section. That topic is discussed quit frequently.
I am not so sure about varnish over glass? I have never done that. Buff it out the best you can and use it as is.
This may never be a show canoe so you should focus on making it presentable and serviceable.
Good luck and enjoy.

This canoe is the pawn-shop-find, serial number 316649, which was discussed here: http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=6441

The s/n is higher than our OT records go.

I recall falling in love with a similar Molitor in a sporting goods shop in St. Paul, back in the '90s. It had the lighter planking.

Kathy

Varnish gets put on 'glass, as a UV protectant. As long as you use the UV-type varnish, of course.

pklonowski said:

Varnish gets put on 'glass, as a UV protectant. As long as you use the UV-type varnish, of course.

Click to expand...

Do it in good lighting or you'll go blind trying to see where you've already varnished

No, actually you shouldn't have any trouble seeing the freshly varnished areas at all. The reason is that you never varnish over shiny fiberglass. The old, peeling varnish should be removed (sanded off is easiest on the outside) and the resin surface should be sanded down to about 100 grit in order to get a decent varnish bond to the glass. By that time it will be nearly opaque white and will turn back to clear when the new varnish hits it. Resin is much harder than varnish, so though sanding off varnish is somewhat tedious, chances that you'll go through it and chop up the glass are minimal. A good random orbit machine and a box of 100 grit disks would be the best tools for the job and it should only take a couple hours of sanding to get the outside varnish-free and ready for any needed repairs and revarnishing.

If you want a decent looking finish, "skim coating" with resin isn't it. Resin doesn't go on and smooth-out the way paint and varnish do. It needs to be allowed to cure, sanded smooth and then varnished or painted or your surface will look like crap. Standard procedure would be to prep-sand the old resin (80-120 grit) and roll on a minimum of two thin coats of epoxy, then sand them smooth (again, 80-120 grit, which will likely remove most of one of those coats) and finally, varnish for UV protection and gloss.

Unless you have something strange going on, or large areas to repair, there really shouldn't be any reson to be applying more resin to the surface as a whole in the first place. Cracks should be re-fiberglassed (spot repairs with cloth and resin) and any delams should be cut out and spot repaired with new glass work. Resin alone is too brittle for fixing cracks or any sort of serious break in the covering. It will re-crack the first time you put the boat in the water and walk around in it. Those spots need the added strength of the fiberglass cloth. If you haven't worked with fiberglass much, you would be wise to pick up one of the books on stripper building. The process for fiberglassing (or repairing) the outside of this boat would be the same. For bad spots, you would be sanding and tapering out the old glass around the break, applying new glass cloth, filling its weave with additional coats of resin, sanding it smooth to match its surroundings and finally, re-varnishing the hull. I don't think you'll have much luck trying to inject resin into any delam spots that are big enough to matter. It's one of those options that sound good on paper, but don't go too well when you actually get around to trying it.

Most chemical strippers don't do an awful lot to cured fiberglass, so stripping the inside isn't likely to cause big problems. What can be a problem is soaking the area with water in the rinse phase of the stripping process. Wet, expanding wood on one side and fiberglass on the other don't get along well. Find a stripper that can be rinsed off with solvents, like mineral spirits, rather than water. They will still soak the wood a bit, but they evaporate out faster and a solvent wipe-down process wets the surface a lot less than blasting it with a garden hose.

Thanks for the advise!

I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to reply.

Before I jump into this I'm going to read as much info as I can. I just like to hear the hands on experiences from everyone. Thats where the real knowledge is.

Thanks again!

While you're planning, it's not too early to start cosidering color options as well. Matching an old clear fiberglass finish with different resin and new repairs can be quite tricky. I don't know how stuck you are on the wooden exterior look, but it does have its drawbacks on a repaired canoe, depending on where the repairs are and how big they will be. A crack takes a patch that's at least a couple inches wide and the area that gets "disturbed" during the feathering, patching and fairing operations may be as much as 4"-5" wide, all along the crack. Getting the new glass to match the old reasonably well can sometimes be a problem. The best way to at least get a preview of their finished appearance would be to sand the hull down, do your required patches, sand and blend them into the shape and then wipe it with a wet rag or sponge. While it's wet, you'll get a pretty good idea of what color those areas and their surroundings will be once varnished. Patches will either blend in pretty well, or they won't. If they won't, you can start looking at other options.

The other possibility is to fix the hull, worrying just about getting the patches strong and smoothed-out so that they don't make lumps and then paint the hull. Some folks will ask "How can you cover up all that wood?" In reality, the planking patterns on these boats were established long before fiberglass was invented and never really designed to be visible on the outside of the hull. As wooden boats go, the plank layouts aren't very logical and would never be used on other types of planked boats. They also don't generally do much for the profile shape of the hull. If you go to boat shows with boats like Molitors and other classy, torpedo-ended canoes, the ones that stand out are always those thay have cool paint jobs that accentuate the shape, not those with clear finishes that show the screwy plank patterns. The other advantages to a painted exterior, as opposed to a varnished one, are that paint is a far better UV barrier to protect the fiberglass from sun damage and it's also often easier to repair and keep looking nice than varnish is.

It's all a matter of what look you're after and how well the repairs go, but in either case, the boat was quite a bargain and whether the fiberglass repairs turn invisible or not, you can still wind-up with a very classy canoe.

I hear ya on the paint.

I really like the old indian motif that I've seen on the old molitor canoes. The color red really appeals to me, especially against the rich browns of the wood.

My cousin just had his early 70's fiberglass kayak repainted in its original stars and stripes configuration. Very cool for the period.

I just want to keep the boat as original as possible, but if something doesn't look right I will adjust.