Bottom Hull Crack and Fix

[xintersecty]

I loaned my skis out and there was a slight accident. So no need to remark on the issues on that :banghead:, I just wanted to share with you the problem and my fix.

Here is a picture of the outside of the hull


Here is a picture of the inside of the crack


I bought an hot air plastic welder from Harbor Freight
http://www.harborfreight.com/plastic-welding-kit-with-air-motor-and-temperature-adjustment-96712.html

I used a grinder and cut a grove into the crack from the inside. I saved all the excess material that chipped off and accumulated on the dremel head. I did not take a picture at that stage.
Here is a picture of the holes I drilled to relieve the stress cracks


Between a razor and the dremel tool I got a good grove between the sides of the crack. I used a plastic welding rod and pressed it into place while heating the materials. Sorry no picture! I then used the excess material from cutting to heat into the holes.

Here is a picture of the inside after welding.


Here is a picture of the outside


The official repair manual suggesting building a fiberglass form and then pop riveting that into the hull. No thanks. So far my repair has held up to jumps and going up the jet ski lift.

 

[LouDoo]

It looks good, but honestly I don't know enough about thermo-plastics to tell you if it's structurally sound or not. If it was my ski I would let an insurance adjuster take a look.

Lou

 

[xintersecty]

SabrToothSqrl I tried to reply to your PM and found your inbox full.

 

[xintersecty]

It looks good, but honestly I don't know enough about thermo-plastics to tell you if it's structurally sound or not. If it was my ski I would let an insurance adjuster take a look.

Lou

I don't think an insurance adjust will know enough about the new materials to say if the fix was good or not. Honestly until you try it and use, nobody has the experience. The only people who have good experience in this area would be White Water Kayakers. They use the same kind of thermoplastics in their boats. The only problem they don't go a zillion miles an hour. So this is new ground for everybody.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

SabrToothSqrl I tried to reply to your PM and found your inbox full.

I cleaned it out.

thanks

 

[KayakNFly]

My whitewater kayak is pretty beat up. They take a good beating. Lots of scratches and what not. I've never punctured or broken my whitewater boats(thick plastic) but know people who have. They've done a similar thing of melting plastic and "welding" it back together. Seems to work if done right. I even think there are epoxy resin kits out there specifically for fixing kayaks. Worth a shot.

 

[Off-road]

Good job, hope it continues to hold up for you. I would have tried the same thing.

 

[theinsider]

Looks good, I'm just curious about what happened because I have no idea what it takes to cause that kind of damage on these new Sparks. As you said, these are new materials that people don't have a lot of information about in terms of being used on a PWC. I've seen all kinds of damage to the traditional Sea Doos but this is the first I've seen for this new line so feel free to share.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

if someone did this to my toys, I'd be in court until I got a new hull... but that's just me.

have a video of the 'incident'?

 

[xintersecty]

Looks good, I'm just curious about what happened because I have no idea what it takes to cause that kind of damage on these new Sparks. As you said, these are new materials that people don't have a lot of information about in terms of being used on a PWC. I've seen all kinds of damage to the traditional Sea Doos but this is the first I've seen for this new line so feel free to share.

This is a fair question. I have two jet skis so I can ride with a friend. In this case I loaned them to a friend. Later that day, get a phone call. He was on the spark and ran into my RXT with his son on it. I suspect that his son stopped while he was not looking. According my friend he hit the IBR brakes and killed a lot of energy then he hit the back of RXT and pushed off the rear seat handle. We suspect that my friend hit the tow point.

I don't know how much energy he shed before hitting the back. I don't know how much energy he had. One thing about these plastics, they are strong but they can't take sharp impact.

No I don't have any video. To my friends defense he did buy all new parts and help me take the hull apart and help me put it together. I did not want to pull an insurance trigger as that raises my premium and take to long to get repaired. As it stand the spark was out of commission just one repair weekend.

This past weekend, played hard on the spark. I had managed to put it in the air landing sideways on that side of the hull. The landing sound was like a huge CRACK! I thought oh god, I broke it. I got it back on the ramp and the repair is still holding. Can we get an AMEN?

I suspect the sound was really crap (water bottle and stuff) in the storage compartment bouncing.

 

[LouDoo]

This is why I don't let friends ride my ski, I want them to stay friends. I have three ski's they can ride the GTI, not the GSX or XP.

Lou

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

I lent my friend a ski on a trailer... busted LED tail light later, and no offer to cover it... yea, never again. Bastard didn't even fill the tank at the end of the run... let alone the oil, or any other costs... never again. Nope Nope Nope. they can buy their own toys.

 

[racerxxx]

I lent my friend a ski on a trailer... busted LED tail light later, and no offer to cover it... yea, never again. Bastard didn't even fill the tank at the end of the run... let alone the oil, or any other costs... never again. Nope Nope Nope. they can buy their own toys.

You need to remove a key word from the highlighted sentence, I'll let you figure it out.

 

[xintersecty]

this is why wanted to keep this discussion technical. sigh! However this is funny

You need to remove a key word from the highlighted sentence, I'll let you figure it out.

 

[LouDoo]

I figure this thread is about done so it's O.K. Racer, I think I've got it, he should have added the word cheap to the second sentence?

Lou

 

[theinsider]

This is a fair question. I have two jet skis so I can ride with a friend. In this case I loaned them to a friend. Later that day, get a phone call. He was on the spark and ran into my RXT with his son on it. I suspect that his son stopped while he was not looking. According my friend he hit the IBR brakes and killed a lot of energy then he hit the back of RXT and pushed off the rear seat handle. We suspect that my friend hit the tow point.

I don't know how much energy he shed before hitting the back. I don't know how much energy he had. One thing about these plastics, they are strong but they can't take sharp impact.

No I don't have any video. To my friends defense he did buy all new parts and help me take the hull apart and help me put it together. I did not want to pull an insurance trigger as that raises my premium and take to long to get repaired. As it stand the spark was out of commission just one repair weekend.

This past weekend, played hard on the spark. I had managed to put it in the air landing sideways on that side of the hull. The landing sound was like a huge CRACK! I thought oh god, I broke it. I got it back on the ramp and the repair is still holding. Can we get an AMEN?

I suspect the sound was really crap (water bottle and stuff) in the storage compartment bouncing.

Thanks for sharing. This is actually why I like to ride by myself because the friends I have that like to ride are reckless- they've come close to hitting me a few times.

 

[theinsider]

I lent my friend a ski on a trailer... busted LED tail light later, and no offer to cover it... yea, never again. Bastard didn't even fill the tank at the end of the run... let alone the oil, or any other costs... never again. Nope Nope Nope. they can buy their own toys.

Damn that's too bad. I had a rental '08 RXP for a week last month and I made sure to treat it like it was my own, especially because the guy renting it to me was giving me an extremely friendly rate. It's too bad that you did that guy a solid and he couldn't have the decency to take care of your stuff.

 

[Mr. Spark]

If you do end up needing a new hull, let me know. I may have some coming in, cost is about 1000.00

 

[qcustoms]

Damn. Um just a note on the plastic welding, you should have a layer over the top like a 10mm wide bead that's bout 3mm high repair strips that you lay and fuse onto it. Otherwise there's no strength there and it'll merely crazy crack.


Sent from my iPad

 

[cheappc]

If you do end up needing a new hull, let me know. I may have some coming in, cost is about 1000.00

Wow nice, how much can you get the 3 up extension to make my 2 up a 3 up? Thanks

 

[xintersecty]

Damn. Um just a note on the plastic welding, you should have a layer over the top like a 10mm wide bead that's bout 3mm high repair strips that you lay and fuse onto it. Otherwise there's no strength there and it'll merely crazy crack.
Sent from my iPad

Right now the weld is going strong. I would agree with you. I just don't have the right material.

 

[Mr. Spark]

I will only have the 2up pieces, sorry no 3 ups !!

 

[Spark 2.0]

Hi guys, Just thought I would let you know that the hull and top deck on the spark is very repairable via plastic welding like the post above says.

A friend smashed into my wife's new ski, with the nose of his 215 wake pro, I was hit on the side and punched a large hole (no pieces were lost) and cracked up and split both ways all the way under the ski along the bottom edge rail at least 4 feet long! Needless to say it did involve several shenanigans with trying to spray multiple different riders with everyone against everyone. I also rode a few more hours without noticing until a friend nearly sunk it getting on. It was straight for the boat launch as fast as I could. I was riding… so wifey was shaking boots mad. I had to get it fixed fast or she said I had to order up a hull and replace it. (only fair) lol I can't remember ever seeing her that mad.

So off came the top, with the help of my smashing hull friend. And out came the soldering iron I have the screwdriver tip type. We got everything back to its happy place with rachet strapping and wood. and I proceeded to plastic weld. I don't grind anything as you lose material that way, or have any filler rod as some do, nor did I stop drill because you loose material that way as well. The material of the ski is almost fiberglass like with strands in it so it is great to work with, once it hardens the fibers take hold again and it is very strong. You need a hot soldering iron, I can't remember the wattage of mine but it was cranked. Go slow, start at begining and push deep into the crack penetrating like a weld, pull out push in, move back a touch on the crack, pull out push in, repeat, do a half an inch or so and then go over it pushing the melted portion into the crack and smoothing out the top. I did this on the inside the whole way through and then I did the outside of the hull along the crack as well. If you are good at smoothing it out, you can barely tell. it looks just like some dirt got on it. Inside the hull I also used "zip patches" Its a fiberglass cloth material you can cut into strips with glue and hardener that comes in a kit. We use it at work all the time. It is very very strong and used to patch things like fiberglass pipe, drying time is like an hour and it can handle like hundreds of PSI in a pipe. I wouldn't doubt the plastic weld probably would have held on its own though but I thought an added brace was a good idea. The top deck footwell also had a 12 inch crack which I repaired using the same technique. Inside and out welded but no zip patch on that one. It was fixed in one day. And no waiting for a hull.

I have had it out in rough water 3-4 foot waves jumping away and it has held together like a champ. The father in law found out that it got smashed up and he keeps on walking by it trying to find the damage when he is over. Still hasn't found it. lol.

Lessons learned: Don't ride the wife's ski when yours is broken, and if you do, don't tell her you smashed it, read this and fix it. Haha good luck, and stop changing hulls for a small crack.

 

[Michael211_2000]

Not to be a kill-joy, but what ya'll describe doing with friends is like illegal you're violating all sorts of Coast Guard regs. There's a reason it's illegal... so far none of you have lost a limb or worse! So far!

Loaning out to friends, who apparently have absolutely no clue of safe boating practices (much less any common sense apparently)... if one of them gets hurt or killed horsing around on your borrowed watercraft, who do you think they (or their next of kin) will sue? :-\

The lady that cleans my teeth at the dental office, her husband was a passenger on a jet ski that was struck mid-ships by another jet ski while horsing around on Lake Houston a few years ago she tells me... he almost had his leg pinched completely off, there was little more than a few tendons and skin left holding it together as he was air-lifted to a hospital down in Houston bleeding-out pints of blood everywhere!

So far ya'll have just damaged hulls, but horseplay like that on watercraft can lead to far worse... if you so much as bump hulls with me, I won't go boating with you anymore again ever you're off my boating friends list! I don't need my watercraft damaged, and I really don't want to get hurt either! But mostly I don't want my watercraft damaged.... just saying.

The woman's husband today can walk again after 5 or 6 surgeries, but slowly painfully and with a walker she tells me. Nice huh? He's just glad he still has the leg, but he sits at the docks and fishes these days according to her.

Think, safety 1st!

Regards.

- Michael

 

[Coastiejoe]

I lent my friend a ski on a trailer... busted LED tail light later, and no offer to cover it... yea, never again. Bastard didn't even fill the tank at the end of the run... let alone the oil, or any other costs... never again. Nope Nope Nope. they can buy their own toys.

I can't tell you how upset I would be if my "friend" did this to me,,,,