A few years on from our original restoration write-up, we thought Junior deserved another look. She was donated to us as a wreck, fit only for the fire, but we could see that MAS epoxy products could be used to save her and give her a new life as a training dinghy for scouts and the like.
Junior arrived on a trailer that had seen better days, much like her.
Stripping Her Back
First job was to remove all the old screws and replace them with dante dowels.
Never remove all the old paint until you're ready and able to protect the hull straight away. The small ding marks are the plastic nails we used alongside the dante dowels.
Then we removed all the old paint. Most of it fell off on its own.
Repairing and Taping
Screws taken out were replaced with MAS flag epoxy workshop mix and dante dowels, and soft areas were cleaned out and repaired the same way.
All joints were taped using biax tape and low vis resin with slow hardener, this time with a much wider and thicker tape than when she was originally built. You can still see where the original screws were replaced along the centre line.
The centre line backbone was strengthened with four layers of cloth and tape. We weren't stingy with the MAS low vis epoxy on the initial lay-up.
Full Clothing and Finish
The whole hull was then over-covered with 300 grade biax cloth using MAS low vis resin and slow hardener.
Once cured, we gently sanded the epoxy to give a key for the paint.
Then came the top coats.
Junior went from a write-off to a well-loved training dinghy, all thanks to a bit of patience and the right epoxy for the job.
