Royalex repair kit on fiberglass & paint

Advice
#1

I’ve got an old Voyageur brand Royalex Repair Kit that I never got around to using on my now sold Royalex canoe. I was wondering if I could use it to repair a gash in the bow of my fiberglass canoe. The kit comes with Kevlar cloth and a resin. Also I went to an auto paint retailer to get paint for the repair. He was going to charge me $150.00 a quart - ouch! Originally I was going to repaint the whole hull - but not at that price. My plan now is to match the color as best I can and then just repaint the repaired area (with some cheaper alternative paint). Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.



Thanks.

#2

If Eric is correct that your repair
resin is a polyester or vinylester, then you will probably find it set up. If it were an epoxy, it would have lasted.



You could get enough West G-flex for your repair for about $16 (4 oz tubes), or you could get the 5:1 West 205/105 resin cans with pumps for about $60 bucks. The latter will stay usable for maybe 5 years or more, and you’ll have it there for whatever comes up.

#3

Resin still soft
The resin with the kit is in three separate packages. Each package has two pouches which are to be mixed together. The material in the pouches is still soft. The package does not identify the chemicals in the pouches, but it does say manufactured on 7/31/2001.

#4

Sounds like an epoxy. But if you have
to mix all of it at once, prepare carefully so that you have time to do all the layup before the stuff sets up. Probably they have not mixed it to go off as quickly as 105/205.

#5

Still Unsure
Although the kit appears to be usuable, I’m still not clear whether or not it will work well as it is marketed for royalex not fiberglass repairs. Would it be safer to just buy a resin made for fiberglass and use the kevlar cloth which is part of the royalex kit?



Also, since I have a few other minor chips of the gelcoat, would it be wise to try and get the best match possible gelcoat kit (I see Bell has a spruce color) to fill them? I’ve never done these types of repairs so I apologize if my questions seem rudimentary.