1960 lowe alum.

[hillbilly 79]

i just got my first boat and it was alot of diffrent colors , so i wanted to strip the old paint off . the guy who owned it had rod holders mounted to a wooden strip around the top inside of the boat i took all that out , now im left with holes is there any thing i can do to get rrid of the holes that you cant tell that they were there ? they are just screw hole and a few bolt holes .

 

[reelfishin]

Re: 1960 lowe alum.

Screw holes that are in aluminum that is visible from both sides are tough to eradicate. The only real fix would be to heliarc them in and grind it flat but you have to be super careful about warping the metal.
Another option is to use epoxy, but it may not hold forever.
If the panel was hidden on the back side, you could slightly dimple each hole and fill them in.

I hate it when someone drills holes like that, but when I do have to deal with them, I tend try to purposefully reuse those holes somehow rather than fill them.

 

[halas]

Re: 1960 lowe alum.

Get the quart of Bondo from Home Depot for $ 14. This one is waterproof bluish color with fiberglass strands in it. Sand the paint off by holes, apply it sand it smooth and paint it.
For small screw holes you don?t even need any backing material.

If you have doubts about the method above, just use screws or pop rivets to fill the holes.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: 1960 lowe alum.

Fill the screw holes with a pop rivet and then use jb weld which dries close to the color.... it dries dark gray. Cheap and quick.

If you are going to re-paint you can get good results if you just sand the old finish smooth. Repair any bare spots with a quick shot of zinc chromate from a spray can.

Many times if an aluminum boat has "that much" old paint stripping it to bare aluminum is close to impossible..... painting is the best choice.

It is okay to continue questions in your original thread