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I've glassed the panel into place with a
few strips of carefully placed 3/4 oz mat. I squeezed out as much excess resin
as I could, placed the strips of mat into place and worked the edges only, being
careful not to squeeze too much resin through the crack in the panels and onto
the panel strips that form the lip. My concern was that if I wasn't careful, I
could actually form a more permanent bond with the temporary panel strips making
them more difficult to remove later. The approach worked very well. Once the
strips of mat had cured, the temporary panel strips were easily removed from the
outside. No pics of this yet, didn't have the camera handy.
The next step was to finish filling in all the old bolt holes, thru hull holes
and damaged areas on the transom. I discovered a new trick along the way.
Originally, I was carefully attacking each hole with a dremel tool from the
outside. By being very careful, I planned to limit each repair to as small of an
area as possible. It was just getting dark as I was finishing grinding the last
area. So, I hooked up a work light which at the time was shining against the
inside of the transom. All the areas I'd ground out were easily visible now that
they were backlighted. And it became instantly apparent that I had more work to
do. Good, clean, undamaged glass has a nice, solid amber color to it. Damaged
glass has a dark, almost black color to it.
Here's an area that, once backlighted, showed some damage that I hadn't seen
before. This area of damage was caused by the lower corner of the engine
mounting plate digging into the transom skin over time.
And here it is after being properly ground out.
A few more areas, before and after.
Ideally, when each area is filled in, they'll look similar to this. This was a thru hull I'd filled in during an earlier work session.
I have since filled in all the damaged areas on the transom and ground them down to a rough fair. I've also added two layers of tabbing (3/4 oz mat and 1708 stitch mat) to all of the inside seams of the transom skin. This was done to strengthen the bond a bit and smooth out the transition from hull to transom and gunnels to transom. I also made a final pass over the inside of the transom skin to fill in a few low areas with a putty made from a mixture of milled fiber, aerosil and resin. The entire inner transom skin has been hit with the grinder again so I've got a nice even surface that should accept the new core well.
