Getting old glue off of fiberglass

[Auday1]

I have a simple question. In order to install improved knee/thigh bracing in my NDK Explorer, I had to remove the 1/4 inch foam padding that was installed at the factory. The old thin foam pad broke apart and I ended up with a lot of dried glue with pieces of the foam left on the boat.

Question: What should I use to remove the old glue on a fiberglass boat?

Another question: I plan on installing new, more aggressive, knee foam bracing using Dap Weldwood Gel Contact Cement . . . Is this a good idea? Or, is there a better product?

Any advice would be much appreciated . . .

Bryan

[Bill Gwynn]

This thread should answer your questions..and then some.

http://www.nspn.org/forum/index.php?showto...hl=seat+removal

[Auday1]

This thread should answer your questions..and then some.

http://www.nspn.org/forum/index.php?showto...hl=seat+removal

Thanks for referencing this thread, Bill. It answered both of my questions. For those of you with a similar situation, I have come to the conclusion to gently scrap off the pieces of foam that still remains and then use lacquer thinner and perhaps some sanding to help remove some of the glue. Whatever glue remains, I will simply glue right over the top of it when I put in my new foam knee/thigh braces.

Bryan

[Brian Nystrom]

Thanks for referencing this thread, Bill. It answered both of my questions. For those of you with a similar situation, I have come to the conclusion to gently scrap off the pieces of foam that still remains and then use lacquer thinner and perhaps some sanding to help remove some of the glue. Whatever glue remains, I will simply glue right over the top of it when I put in my new foam knee/thigh braces.

Bryan

That sounds like a plan, although sanding shouldn't be necessary unless the foam was glued in with polyester resin or epoxy, which is fairly common practice on British boats (especially older ones), but I haven't seen it used on North American made boats. Weldwood gel contact cement is the best product I've found for installing foam.