Repairing screw holes in fiberglass and wood

[wbuschman]

Hey Everyone,

I'm brand new to the forums and am hoping I'm not asking a duplicate question. I didn't turn up anything on a search, so here goes...

I have a latch on my boat to hold the cabin door open that needed to be replaced. I purchased an identical-looking latch but the hole pattern is slightly different. I don't want to move the latch, but I need to re-drill holes that are very close to each other. One of the holes is off by maybe half the diameter of the hole, so there is no way to re-drill as is.

The fiberglass is about 1/8" thick here and there is wood behind. I need to fill the hole with something substantial enough that I can re-drill right through it and the wood without my bit walking on me too much. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Wes

 

[kcon]

I'm sure you'll get a variety of methods soon. I'd drill the existing holes with a bit over sized of a bit to expose some fresh material, and fill them in with thickened epoxy. (You can buy it by the tube, such as West System Six10). It ends up as hard as a rock, and you can easily drill your new holes into it.

 

[dingbat]

Marine-Tex works wonders in this scenario. Fill hole, let dry and drill the new hole.

Marine-Tex works great to repair stripped holes (deck hatches) as well. Fill the hole with epoxy. Spray screw with silicon and screw / insert into hole while epoxy is still wet.

Let dry, remove screw from hole, perfect new threaded hole.

 

[Scott Danforth]

marine tex would be my suggestion.

 

[JASinIL2006]

PC-11 is great, and much less expensive than Marine Tex. Available at Ace Hardware.

 

[dingbat]

PC-11 is great, and much less expensive than Marine Tex. Available at Ace Hardware.

The mechanical properties of the two products are very different.

Check the suitability of the product for the application before use

 

[wbuschman]

Marine-Tex works wonders in this scenario. Fill hole, let dry and drill the new hole.

Marine-Tex works great to repair stripped holes (deck hatches) as well. Fill the hole with epoxy. Spray screw with silicon and screw / insert into hole while epoxy is still wet.

Let dry, remove screw from hole, perfect new threaded hole.

Thanks much for this suggestion. I'm going to give it a shot with the Marine Tex as you suggested. I don't need to repair any threaded holes (yet) but I appreciate the details on that as well as I'm sure I'm going to run into this scenario eventually.

 

[wbuschman]

Thanks to everyone for the quick and thoughtful responses!

 

[Woodonglass]

The mechanical properties of the two products are very different.

Check the suitability of the product for the application before use

Not sure what you're getting at about the suitability of the products.