Am 27.06.2012 19:32, wrote:
I'm looking at a glass ship to possibly buy that is in pretty good condition. The Gel coat was last done in 94 or so and is very white with no crazing. The ship does have some cracks both on the bottom of the horizontal stab near the cutout for the attach post. It also has some near the trailing edge of the upper wing skins and also on the bottom wing skins. The cracks in the upper surfaces are centered in small depressions that almost look a well formed caulk line that was smoothed with a finger.(just a description of the shape not what I think was actually done) I'm guessing that someone in the past possibly tried to sand out some earlier cracking which later reappeared or possibly was filled with a filler that later shrunk. The cracks on the bottom of the wing are much longer cordwise but don't have the depressions like the ones on top.

Here is a link to a picture of the bottom of the tailplane.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6612622...n/photostream/

Here is a link to a picture of the top of the wing skins.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6612622...n/photostream/

I know how hard it is to judge this kind of thing from pictures but can any of you that have repaired things like this in the past take a guess as to weather this would be a simple cosmetic repair or does it look like some glass work would be required. I tried tapping adjacent to all the cracks and didn't find any areas that sounded any different than the rest of the wing.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.


As as buyer, I would not take any further look at such a ship without
poking to the glass on those cracks, to see if there are any
delaminations present. If there are, I would probably walk away, because
that means really a lot of work. If there are no delaminations present,
it is purely cosmetic, which will have influence on the price, but I
would still consider buying the ship.

As the seller I would agree that for inspection of the damage there has
to be some poking down to the glass where the cracks have formed.

If the seller agrees on that, and you are willing to invest some work
and/or money to get this fixed, take someone along who knows how to
judge the damage and the possible work that has to be invested for the
repair.

--
Peter Scholz
ASW24 JE