1974 20' sceptre transom replacement and i/o to outboard bracket conversion

[flyingfrizzle]

Originally Posted by strick

I know pictures can be deceiving but how wide is the area you ground down in the photos? It appears only an inch or two at most? If so you may run the risk of it cracking down the road due to insufficient glass holding the two parts together. Better to go 4-6 inches...just saying

strick

Thanks for the info, I better make the joint wider. I would hate to have it crack. It is hard to tell in the Pics but the areas I glassed are mainly 1" on each side. I ground them down so that there was a 1/4" gap between them so that the matt on the back side would bond to the glass and matt on the front. The edges of the pieces are ground so that they are tapered to sharp edge and when filled they don't have any air between them. I used two layers of 17oz matt 4" wide on the back side then a 1708 strip over that. Most of the beef is on the back side. Oh yea it was hell getting it on the back side. I had resin all the way to my elbow. I was hoping that all the strength would come from where the back side had the wider, thicker, glass and since it is bonded threw the center gap and filled solid. Now that you guys say this I will go back and grind out a 6" wide area over the seem and lay another 2 layers of matt on the front to help bond it together better. I'm learning still every day so thanks again for the help. I will try to fix what has been done an then move forward with that in mind as I go.