one small leak

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txneal

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I'm hoping some of you guys may be able to give me advice on repairing a small, slow leak in my boat. I've read through many posts on the subject, so I have a general idea of what the options are, but I would like to hear from some of you with personal experience in doing this.

My boat is a 1972 Starcraft Seafarer and is very watertight with the exception of one place where some water is coming in. The leak is near the bow and is coming through right at the centerline of the V in the hull. If I put water in the boat, I can see a very slow, but steady drip. When the boat is in the water, I can go all day long without much water coming in, but by the end of the day, it will take on 2-3 gallons of water. It's not much, but irritating nonetheless, so I'd like to stop it.

I really don't have any pressing desire to repaint the entire boat and would prefer not to have to sand down to bare metal in order to use something like Steelflex on the bottom. I considered Steelflex, but then I read that it will definitely crack and break if subjected to a flexing hull from rough water. I do occasionally find myself in rough water, so I don't want to use Steelflex. I've also done some reading about Gluvit. I really don't want to do the entire bottom of the boat, but would prefer to just do enough to stop the leak. Would Gluvit be a good choice for a small patch job, just at the site of the leak? Is there some other method or product that would make more sense for stopping a leak such as what I've described?
 
I think with it being a leak in the center of the seam though you may want to have it welded since you're in rough water occasionally.

It sounds more like a crack than a leak if it is in the centerline. It's better to fix that as early as you can so the crack doesn't grow.
 
Thanks Vermonster. That sounds like good advice and I hadn't even considered that. I actually do quite a lot of welding myself and have been playing around with trying to learn to weld aluminum, but so far my attempts have been less than perfect. I don't really trust my skills with aluminum welding enough to be confident that I won't burn a hole in my boat! Unfortunately, I live in a place where there are no aluminum welders nearby; at least none that I'm aware of. However, I think there's someone who could do it who is about 150 miles from here, so I may just give him a call and get this done. Thanks!
 
As a result of Vermonsters reply to this thread, I'm going to start practicing aluminum welding again today. Who knows... maybe I'll get the hang of it? I haven't tried it in a while, so I figure it can't hurt anything to give it another shot. Maybe some of you guys who have any experience with aluminum welding might give me some advice on this.

I don't have any aluminum wire for the mig, but I have aluminum stick electrodes. I've done some reading on the process and I know that I must use DC reverse polarity and start with a really clean surface. The material I practiced on before was a very thin gauge aluminum tubing, so I think this may be why I've had trouble with blowing holes in it. I just found some thicker gauge aluminum, more closely resembling the thickness of my boat, so I'm going to try my hand at welding on it during my lunch break today. Anybody know anything about welding aluminum with stick electrodes?

Regardless of how well I get the hang of welding aluminum with this method, I don't think I want to take any chances on screwing up my boat, so I'll still take it to someone with professional aluminum welding experience. From what I've been able to gather, mig or tig welding is definitely preferable to stick welding when it comes to aluminum, so I'm not gonna screw around with welding on the hull of my boat with a stick. However, if I can get good at it, there's probably plenty of aluminum fabrication I could do for some other projects I have in mind for the boat. If anybody has any good pointers for welding on aluminum with a stick, I'm all ears.
 
Hi txneal. While you can certainly learn to weld aluminum, it takes time and a deft touch. It's an art unto itself. In the mean time, you might want to try simply painting the interior seams of your boat with a product called Gluvit, which is specifically designed for these types of jobs. It's a paintable 2-part epoxy that you apply to the interior seams of the boat and allow to dry. Once fully cured, it is tough, but remains flexible and will fill all the nooks and crannies of the seams. You will need to either paint over it, or install a floor to give it some UV protection, but it's a one step process otherwise. Best of all, you can use the same stuff to seal any wood you may have on the boat such as the bench seats and/or transom.
 
Thanks for your input, kfa4303. I have considered Gluvit, but have no experience with it. I was wondering if it would be useful for just one small patch like this. I have a few weeks to wait while my motor is in the shop, so I'm looking for stuff to do to the boat in the meantime. Fixing this leak is one of those issues I've been meaning to get to. Gluvit certainly seems like an option to keep in mind.

As for my aluminum welding experiment during lunch, it went better than expected. I just spent about 20 minutes or so welding on a piece of aluminum; just trying to form a nice bead with good penetration. I went through several rods and several adjustments, but I finally got some pretty nice looking beads. In fact, the last ones that I just did looked so good that, after looking them over, I almost feel confident enough to do this on the boat.....still a little scared of blowing a hole through the boat though. Once I got my settings just right, I got some really good looking welds that I would be perfectly happy with if I could duplicate them on the boat. It seems to produce a LOT of slag over the weld and it smokes so much that between the slag build-up and the smoke, its a little bit difficult to see exactly what you're doing. I definitely will need to spend a few hours practicing this before I ever touch my boat with a welding rod, but I don't think its really too far-fetched to think that I could weld this myself. I think I'll get my micrometer and measure the exact thickness of my boat and then find some aluminum of precisely that thickness to practice on. If I can consistently form good welds, then I think I'll go for it.
 

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