Repair Fiberglass Thwart Seat ! ! !

[dave3235]

Hi all

At the end of last season my Thwart Seat decided to give up the ghost with a big cracking and me sitting on the petrol tank.The Thwart seat has broke in the middle,even going through the wood inner layer leaving just the top surfice still intact.So now I am in need of a bit of advice on how the best way to tackle this either take all the wood out and replace or to cut the middle segment out and refiberglass it any ideals on how to do this would be appreciated.

[paintman]

I think replacing all the wood with one new piece is best. If you try cutting bits out & putting new bits in you just create a lot of joins which will be weak points - and probably a lot more work!

[Fenlander]

If this is a Honwave seat is there enough recess on the underside to glass in a full width timber repair section without it looking unsightly... or just fit the existing end brackets to a similar thickness bit of ply and paint it grey?

[dave3235]

Firstly paintman, I was considering replacing the middle third of the ply joining the wood with resin fibreglass allowing to dry , then fibreglass the entire under side.Not sure how many layers would be required.

Fenlander,I would realy like to keep the original look rather than just a plain ply wood thwart.Cutting the old wood or drilling lots of holes around the edge of the wood,which would be better !! As before how many layers of fibre glass also what type too is there different weaves what's best.

[paintman]

A single piece of wood will allow for flexing and for load distribution across the full width without any potential weak points which the joins will be. I'm not certain that even scarf joints to maximise the glued wood-to-wood areas would be OK although it will be dependent on the load & how much stress the seat is subjected to with people bouncing around on it. And if you're going to scarf the joints I'd suggest that it would be a lot quicker & easier just to replace the lot. If there was a centre support from seat to floor then it wouldn't matter, but I wouldn't have thought that's an option in your case.
Whether replacing the wood with plastic would work I have no idea.
If I was doing it I'd replace the whole wood & sheathe it with woven cloth. I use West Systems cloth to repair damage to front & rear grp panels on caravans with fibreglass resin followed by a skim of filler then prime & paint. Works just as well with epoxy.

[dave3235]

Thanks for all input looks like I'm replacing the whole wood panel then thanks again all