Best Hole Filler....lots to fill.

Below is a picture of the project I'm working on.  I took the chine caps off and ended up taking off the bottom as well and am going to replace it with new plywood.  On the sides of my boat and the bottom of my chine there are lots of old holes where I took screws out or ripped nails out.  I'm planning on drilling all these holes and then filling them with some type of epoxy mix with sawdust mixed in.  I have lots of these holes to fill so I'm wondering what you guys would recommend for this?  Also, I'm assuming all these holes would need to be filled before putting the new plywood on the bottom or are the ones on the bottom of the chine that big of a deal to get filled?  If I fill these I will also need a mix that would receive a new screw, so i guess keeping that in mind.

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Permalink Reply by sanderson on April 8, 2012 at 11:50pm

my current favorite is West Systems Six 10 epoxy. it is a pre thickened two part that coms in a tube with mix tips. it is designed to be used in a caulking gun. I love it for gap filling. it will not sag like most of the other ones and there is almost no waste because of the mix tips. it can get a little expensive if you need a lot of it. and you will want to buy extra tips but they are cheap. if you want to go with the sawdust I would use 105/205 or similar epoxy. if you are filling large holes or gaps it will sag so prepare for that. you will want to fill all the holes in the chine most filled epoxy will take a screw just fine as long as the bond to the wood is good and you pre drill. if you dont fill them there will be nothing for the screws to grap and they might trap water and ruin all your hard work! I use 3M 5200 to put the bottom on that way you have a good flexible seal that wont leak over time. 

Permalink Reply by Jon Darrohn on April 9, 2012 at 6:18am
Thanks for the reply! What are your thoughts on this method compared to ez fillet? I was also considering going that route.

I know 5200 is ptetty permenant stuff, how generously do you coat he whole bottom of your boat and frames when applying the bottom?
Permalink Reply by Mike Falconer on April 9, 2012 at 7:38am

For what it's worth, I like Sanderson's approach especially when it comes to using a caulking gun because that's where the difficulty lies...actually getting the filler all the way into the hole. You definitely need something that will force the compound into the hole.

Permalink Reply by Jon Darrohn on April 9, 2012 at 7:52am

I'm assuming the west systems six 10 sands down pretty good as well?  I think I'm leaning towards this.

Permalink Reply by sanderson on April 9, 2012 at 8:29am

just coat the frames and chine.  everything that the botom is going to touch needs to be well coated. you want it to squish out a little bit on all sides when you screw the bottom on, but not so much that it runs and drips everywhere.    

I like six 10 better than ez fillet for filling anything that is not flat and level with the ground. even ez fillet will sag in larger gaps.  ez fillet is faster for filling lots of holes. 

Permalink Reply by JAY STRUGNELL on April 9, 2012 at 7:24pm

What about drilling to exact size then epoxying dowel rod pieces in all the holes? This would eliminate the sagging problem and cut way down on amount of epoxy needed;only thing I dont know about is how well a screw would hold should it land just wrong.

Permalink Reply by Jon Darrohn on April 9, 2012 at 7:28pm
I ended up just filling all the holes with west system six10. We will see how it turns out, but in my opinion definitely the way to go. The caulking gun made it really easy to fill all the holes and I didn't even use one entire tube to fill all the holes. Total cost was $22, which I thought was piety good.

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