Footrest loose

Hi Tim,

The original building instructions tell you to glue it in and secure with 4 evenly spaced 3/4" X no 8 screws from the outside. If you look carefully at the outside of the hull you might be able to spot where the screw heads are. Often filler etc. shrinks slightly and this shows up. Not sure how old your boat is, but in my experience the Aerolite 306 glue they used to supply with kits breaks down eventually so this could be part of the problem. Also the bottom panels flex quite a bit so you get a lot of stress on the footrest ends and floor battens.

I tend to agree with you about fixings - I've refitted my footrest and floor battens without them. If you don't already have a hole in the centre of the footrest, now is a good time to add one so water drains past it. As you suggest, use epoxy resin with adhesive thickeners (colloidial silica, microfibres,..) to make a gap filling glue, then I would make a generous epoxy fillet all around it to increase the surface area of the bond. You can put tape plus epoxy resin over the fillet if you want. Follow epoxy manufacturers instuctions at each stage, they usually have a website with advise, such as here www.west-system.co.uk