I have an old Indian River fiberglass canoe that I received in 1990 and has been rotting away at my parents house for the past 20 years. Now my kids are interested in it and would love to help them get this thing back into shape if feasible. The resin seems to have been broken down to where 40% of the fiberglass matting has exposed loose strands. I have done a fair amount of digging through online restoration posts and run into conflicting information for my particular project.
- Is it worth the money and time to approach restoring as opposed to buying something in decent shape? - I have never worked with fiberglass but consider myself pretty handy.
- If I approach a restore, how do you deal with the exposed fiberglass? Sand and lay down new fiberglass? or lightly sand and roll on a few layers of epoxy? The structure seems to have enough strength still and is mildly flexible like I remember it being.
Also, the interior of the canoe has a fair amount of fiberglass strands fully exposed. If you touch the interior of the canoe, you get the fiberglass itch. Sand and paint the interior to seal in the fiberglass so you it don’t get on you?
Any advice would be appreciated before tackling this project. Thanks!!
I tried posting more pictures to better understand the project but new users are limited to 1 upload. The picture posted is a good representation of the bottom of the canoe. About 40% is worn through to this point.
