TO do a proper repair on fiberglass you have to increase the surface of the original fiberglass that you are bonding to/repairing... SO in the case of a simple screw hole, you 'counter sink' or chamfer with a very wide angle, ideally greater than 45 degrees... if it is a crack, you use a die grinder and "v" it out or if it is a hole like you are talking about the outer rim of your reapir will grow to prolly 1 1/2" wide to 2" long. This increases the surface that you are bonding the new glass to. Without doing this , the patch/repair will fail or be weak around the hole...
You always wanna clean the repair area with acetone between the grinding/patch/grind/patch/grind/patch...
Poly resin sets up super fast depending on how much MEKP (hardener) you put into it... YOu may need to put some kind of rigid backing on the hole to pack your pieces of repair glass against, something that the glass wont stick too hopefully like some wood blocks wedged in place that are covered with plastic or plastic wrap or something you can peel off after the patch sets up...
Rivergames or FC pilot or Wannabe are glass guys, maybe they will CHINE in hereand give their 2 cents... General purpose Poly REsin typically has wax/styrene in it and it rises to the surface as it cures to keep it from being tacky, so you have to clean all that off with the acetone... I would use the fiberglass MAT and not fabric for something like this... its just a matted layer of fiberglass strands, not woven like fabric/cloth...
You dont need much supplies to get it water tight and ready for final gel coat touch up, but cover the area below your repair iwth tape/masking paper/newsprint or the resin will run/oooze down all over your repair...
There isn't much strength in the poly resin by itself, you need lots O glass strands to make a strong repair... you can hand lay a small object up with a few layers and it will be tough/strong OR you can vaccum lay up 2-3 x the layers of glass, working out the resin and make 2-3 layers of glass as THIN as the hand layed object and it will be exponetially stronger, and the same thickness due to the extra layers of structure (glass)... Just as an example of where the strength comes from, its really not the resin but the saturated glass strands that create the strength...
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