Filling small holes below the water line: Aluminum

[RandyFish]

I am moving a tansducer from my transom.

Any suggestions as to what to use to fill the mounting holes. My boat is aluminum.

I may not be Captain Ahab, but I know that holes below the water line are not a good thing.

I was planning to fill them with some fiberglass coating (West System) , maybe even makes a small fiberglass patch, but I am open to ideas.

Thanks for the help.

RandyFish

[Deitz Dittrich]

I have used bathtub calk with success.. I have seen a guy at the SportShow that has an aluminum welding that would work very nice as well...

[Ray Esboldt]

Randy,

I've use silicon caulk, but eventually that stuff leaks. I've used fiberglass to patch large holes (actually gashes) in my big duck boat. That works real well!

[fish-n-geek]

"They" make some neat stuff that you melt in with a torch. Looks like a plastic rod. Kinda like soldering only different :-)

[Superduty]

Try putting the screws back in the holes with a nice big wad of below waterline approved silicone.

There is a product (I forget the name) looks like a stick of putty. Putty is activated by bending or kneading like bread dough. Once activated the putty will harden like steel. I've used this to patch duck boats and it works awesome. I bought it from a welding supply salesmen. I've seen similar stuff in marine catalogs.

[fish-n-geek]

The putty stuff is probably epoxy. One part in the core, one part outside. When you knead it, it mixes together. Most hardware stores should have it with the regular liquid epoxy.

[Lunker]

The putty stuff is junk. I've used the stuff you can get at the hardware store, and it doesn't last long before cracking.

[beeflover]

I've used regular "bondo" from the auto parts store. Let it set up, sand it good then paint over with silver

worked for me

[Superduty]

The putty I used was made by Cronatron welding. I patched a duckboat with it and have been dragging it in and out of duck sloughs for at least 5 years since the patch job.

[woodyjdh]

depending where you live, I may be able to help you out. I am a welder (aluminum) by trade. I live in the Alexandria area. If interested, shoot me an e-mail to (my screen name) at yahoo dot com. (For some stupid reason, it won't show my screen name when I type it.)