You should back any attachments to a Westie top. The glass lay up they used in them is not strong enough to mount things directly without some support behind the mounting bolts. Use some aluminum or SS in perhaps about 1/8" thickness. Make your backing plates larger or smaller than the part they attach....Hard to explain, but if you size the backing the same as the bracket or hardware, you create a "hard-hinge' that can act like a shear and cause the fiberglass to fail at that common point where both pieces end. Also, you want to round the corners of you backing plates....Square corners and stress don't work well...the sharp corner concentrates the stress at that single point and can also cause stress. After you cut the plates and drill the proper holes you can simply use a filler to patch the holes miss dilled by your "Expert"...I use chopped fiberglass and resin to do the hole then fill over the smaller imperfections with a bondo filler . Don Hanson On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Mark Carrig <stratmanx@yahoo.com> wrote: > Sorry, that should be METAL plates, probably about 2" wide x 4" long. > |
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