Delamination problem advice

[sac56fire]

I have a large bubble on one of my hatchcovers. Someone has suggested drilling a small hole in the bubble and injecting resin and then placing a brick on top of the bubble to press it down. does this sound like a good way to fix this problem????

[OReely]

You can try but if there is any moisture it probably won't hold. I would cover the area with 3M blue or green masking tape, drill a hole at each end of the bubble (one to fill from and one to let air escape). Pump resin in until it comes out of the vent hole, then press the bubble down. Resin will come out, but at least you are assured of fill. Depending on the resin, you may end up with a uneven surface due to shrinkage.

[EndlessOcean]

The only right way is to remove the hatch cover, cut out the old core from the bottom, recore with a new material such as coosa, core cell, marine ply would work fine also, and then reglass over the core. Grind and sand until you're comfortable with the asthetics and repaint or re gelcoat the bottom.

[sac56fire]

Thanks for the help

[kerno]

The first thing I'd do would be to determine if there is moisture in there. If so, you can't make any real bond to wet material and any rot will just continue. Next, I'd find out how or where the moisture got inside. I'd drill a few holes large enough to let the core dry in a reasonable amount of time and put the hatch cover someplace very warm, like in the garage rafters, until it dried out. Once it is dry, you can attempt to re-bond the skin to the core using West Epoxy resin. You'll have to patch the holes, but it beats letting it rot.