After just a little thought of a new canoe, I've started down the patch/repair path. On my last trip, my canoe took some abuse portaging and I have a few small cracks to repair. A fiberglass repair kit is a lot cheaper alternative. And my canoe and I have lots of fond memories.

Step one was to get the canoe down to the basement where I can work on it

Step two was to remove a glued-on D-ring at the crack area. This came off quickly with solvent and cleaned up well.



Looks like a fiberglass patch 21" x 4" will cover it on the inside. Outside, I plan to just cover the crack seam with epoxy.

A little glass and epoxy can fix pretty much all damage and if you're good at it, the boat still looks good aesthetically. Good Luck!

I've never worked with glass and resin. I hope YouTube is helpful!

A couple of key tricks:
Clean sour cream or yogurt containers for mixing resin.
1" or 3/4" disposable paint brushes
Generous supply of nitrile gloves.

This went very well. I put on a single layer of fiberglass. The expoy went on smoothly and soaked the fiberglass mat. I didn't sand the patch area as it looked "grippy" enough.

Should I have put on two mats of glass?

That looks pretty good. I always sand the area prior to give the epoxy something mechanical to grip to. You might be ok and have a sufficient chemical bond anyway.

I would sand or grind the edges down and put another coat of epoxy to smooth things out. Those edges can be rough and pokey otherwise. I find a cordless angle grinder with a rounded disc to work well, just go slow as to not remove too much material.

Does the area feel nice and stiff now? If so, I would not do a second layer. Not sure what weight patch was used.

Nice work, looking good.

T