My newest creation

[embo]

Surfdad,

It was suggested I ask you this question because of your knowledge working with fiberglass. There have been a couple peeps on here discussing it and don't know if anyone has done it yet but what would be the best way in your opinion to get rid of the "lip" that is on most, if not all, the fiberglass swim platforms?

The lip I am talking about is the small (about 1/2") lip that has trim on it that goes aroudn the entire bottom edge of the platform. Some of us think it would be beneficial to remove that lip and have just a smooth rounded bottom edge (similar to what you would have if it was a teak platform). I have thought it would be best to take off the trim, cut the lip off and then ruff up the outside edge of the platform and the bottom, and then apply fiberglass to that edge to seal it and make it look good.

Others have thought to fill in the lip from underneathe with some type of material (maybe more fiberglass not sure actually).

If you think trimming the edge would be the way to go, how hard is it (how would one go about it) applying fiberglas to the edge?

Any other TO's want to answer that would be great but again it was suggested to ask Surfdad due to his expertise with fiberglass.

Thanks in advance.

[Surfdad]

Hey Embo, I hope I can help.

If I were to do it, I'd probably just swap the swimdeck out for some wood or aluminum.

The swimdecks I have seen are laid up in an open mold - the inverse of the swimdeck. They shoot gelcoat and then about 1/4" of chopped strand mat. The lip, being a compound curve offers some rigidity to the deck surface. I wouldn't cut the side walls down.

The Sanger V237 did the best with this, they created a matching bottom and then attached the top and bottom with glue and cover the seam with that trim that covers the top and bottom of your boats hull.

You can buy FRP (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic) in sheets big enough to cover the bottom of the swimdeck. You can trace the outline, then cut that out with a jigsaw. Final sand to the outline. From there, I would just glue it to the bottom of the swimdeck so that the bottom is flat. I'd probably place some reinforcement blocks on the inside of the swimdeck so that you can screw the FRP to those blocks to make sure they would hold.

It would be possible to lay up the fiberglass, but you'd need to fill the cavity with foam, probably pour foam and that would be a pain and then cover all of that with fiberglass and polyester resin.

If you want I can spell out the whole foam and fiberglass process, what you'd need and the steps involved.

[embo]

Thanks for your ideas. I just found another thread as well that suggest some similar solutions. If I can't work it out I will ask for a detailed description of how to do this. I really appreciated your input.

I think my biggest issue is not having any experience with working with fiberglass and resin products to know how well they adhear to surfaces found on a platform and also how to make them look good at the same time. I will research this out first more before I take up any more of your time. Again thanks for your advice.

[Surfdad]

Polyester resin sticks to just about anything. The two main issues are that it's toxic as hell and so requires contact and breathing protection and it kicks fast, that is it goes from liquid to solid rather rapidly. Typical working times are in the minutes rather than hours. Large projects like a swimdeck take time to get things in order...not much fun when the resin is "going off"

No worries, give me a shout if I can help.