Fiberglass repairs

[Ray Sr.]

Does anyone have a tried and true way to repair cracked and broken gelcoat finishes. Am willing to try anything to repair a perfectly good boat with bad cracks and lifting in the gelcoat. Any assistance will be appreciated.

Ray Sr.

 

[Hammerhead]

Hi Ray!

I wouldn't be able to help you with lifting gel coat, but with the cracks, try filling them in with new gel coat and sanding them down with fine sand paper. then buff it out with some compound.

Hammer

 

[GTR]

Hi,

I presume we're talking polyester as you are talking

gel-coat. Are you planning on painting hull afterwards or do you want to return to same finish effect?

If you plan on painting - break out delaminating gel-coat. grind cracks down to fiber matt and refill with gelcoat or better yet resin with a filler (pure talc). You will be able to wet sand to a glass like finish again.

If you don't want to paint - same process but will always leave colour match blemish.

Almost forgot clean the glass liberally with Acetone.

hope this helps - all fiberglass hulls can be repaired - they just get uglier and heavier.

cheers

GT 8)

 

[Ray Sr.]

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I think I now have enough info to attempt the repairs. I appreciate your input.

Ray Sr.

 

[Twin_k90]

Thats right everything can be repaired, i was running in a very shallow lake at griffith last year, it was very rough and trying to see how the boat handled the foot chop, was going a wee bit fast and dunked it, hit the bottom of the lake, broke the nose off it, so i taped it back up, won the race meeting easly.

any way just ground back the fractured glass to a stright edge and glassed over the crack to the ground back edge, let it dry, bog it up and paint it, i like to use bog as it is easier to sand and lighter than gelcoat.

 

[TimD]

For those that don't know what bog is it is autobody filler! ;D ;D ;D

It is heavy though. An alternative is epoxy / microballoons.

 

[tremors]

Not sure if this info will help ya

http://www.fiber-tek.com/Bulletins/gelrepair.htm

 

[Ray]

Thanks again to all for your help.

Ray