Jim, I sent you an email with some suggestions re: your keel repair. I looked at your pics and it looks like the repair iw well underway. With respect to the Bondo/Lead shot......I'd agree with Gary on that. On Dauntless, I did all the glass repair work in epoxy resin with one exception. When I installed the lead ballast I mixed the lead shot in polyester resin. This was because it took a large amount of resin and polyester is about 25% of the cost of epoxy , and because I was simply using the polyester resin to bind the lead shot together and fill the void area within the keel cavity, not for any kind of strenght dependant repair. The polyester resin/lead shot mixture was thin enough that it would flow into every nook and cranny of the keel cavity and self level itself with each pour making it fairly easy to set-up the next pour. Remember, the lead is much denser than the steel you removed so you will actually have room left over in the keel cavity once you have replaced the same weight of ballast as what you had previously. I elected to add additional ballast to Dauntless at the advice of Jerry Montgomery himself, however, I doubt that he would recommend the same for the 17.
From talking and emailing him it seemed that he thought the orignal 23's a bit tender, but I think the masses would agree that the 17's seem to be a perfectly balanced craft straight from the factory. Unless you had some other reason to add more ballast I'd leave it the same. Once I was done adding the lead ballast I completely filled the reamining area in the keel cavity with the polyester resin until it was completely full. The idea being that if a leak ever developed in the keel again, there will be no cavity for water to enter into. Also, remember to account for the weight of all the resin you use. It really adds up. From memory I beleive that I figured 6 lbs per gallon of resin (not sure on the exact weight). I probably used 8 or nine gallons so you can see how it adds up.
One other thing...remember that curing resin generates heat. Be careful how much resin you load into the keel at once. If you get too much curing at the same time things can get hot...real hot! be careful!! Sean ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.