Here is a good question. On Saturday I put 3 rodholders in my transom cap. My transom cap is solid fiberglass/plastic, no wood, no coring of any kind. Here is a pic;
Please be aware that the orange stuff on the plug I took out of the transom cap is just the paint from the holesaw, it is all composite material. I put 4200 all around the flange of the rodholder so absolutely NO water is getting below this rodholder. My question is, should I have sealed the raw edges of this hole?
I will always do it...- it takes only a few min, you can do it standing up and you can sleep at night...no matter if it's "non-wood" or not - water can seep in the layers, get trapped, freeze and expand...get the epoxy...take the time to do it right.....
In looking at the plug, I do see the orange from the saw, but it also looks like there is a layer of foam in the center. If so, and you do want to seal them, polyester resin is your best sealing agent. I've seen an awful lot of composite boats with holes drilled just like that have had absolutely no problems after years of exposure. But I seal 'em anyway.....
The laminator may have had a bad day and didn't get the fiberglass cloth wetted out just right. When drilling the holes, you're tearing the glass strands, and they wick water just as well as epoxy, which could freeze, and cause delamination issues.
In the future, seal every hole for every screw you drill in the fiberglass, then you'll never have to worry about it. Just makes sense.
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The first thing that's wrong with anything I did to fix it, is the last thing my hands touched.
I sand the rough edges then blow all the dust off with a air compressor.Then just mix up epoxy in a cup, put on a latex glove and take a finger full of the epoxy and smear it on the exposed area. Everyone above is right it just takes a few minutes.....Mark
Do I need to seal up holes in fiberglass/plastic?
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